There are some movies that you watch, and afterwards you have to wonder: Who did what for whom, and under what table, in order to get this movie made?
Such is certainly the case with Skinwalkers, a film so monumen-tally bad on all counts, it would qualify for the Uwe Boll Award for most incompetent direction, if such a thing existed.
A brief prologue explains that werewolves exist among us. Some are peaceful and want to have an end to their curse; others tend to revel in this power and don't want to see it threatened. Legend tells of a boy who will be able to end the werewolf's curse for all time, once he reaches his thirteenth birthday. Some of the bad guys begin to hunt him to kill him, while the good guys in the know rally together for a last stand...
The pedigree of Skinwalkers is that it's an American-funded film made in Canada, with a former R rating snipped down to PG-13. This latter done to entice young'uns into the theater, and which also accounts for the amazing lack of blood in a werewolf movie. It's a shame that Hollywood panders so to the 'tween/teen crowd now. Not that Skinwalkers would have actually been better with an R rating, but at least it would have felt more adult than the juvenile tripe which has been thrown together. I have said it before and I'll say it again: with the exception of the first The Ring, PG-13 horror does not work! In order to scare or thrill us, you need to be visceral in your approach to making horror...especially if it's such an iconic mythological subject as werewolves.
The movie starts with three werewolves(Natassia Malthe, Tom Jackson and Rogue Johnston) led by head honcho Varek(Jason Behr) as they slaughter a group of fellow werewolves in their search for the promised child. Using a level of intelligence never again displayed for the rest of the picture, Varek figures out what town the boy lives in. He and the crew head for their date with des-tiny while we are introduced to Timothy(Matthew Knight), the child of interest, and his Impossibly Hot Mom Rachel(Rhona Mitra, generally as indistinguishable from Kate Beckinsale as Tracy Lords is from Rebecca DeMornay. If you want one for a part and they're unavailable, just get the other...it's all the same difference). Impossibly Hot Mom and son live in a small town, surrounded by good-natured friends who seem to all be in the know about some-thing, but I.H.M. Rachel is too thick to see it.
For some reason never explained(and get ready, 'cause there's a lot of that going around in this story) Varek's crew owns a falcon which is able to scout out locations where werewolves live. Once their fellow lycanthropes are scoped out, Varek and friends move in and begin the extermination process. Their falcon finally leads them directly to Timothy, who is headed to the store with his Nana (Barbara Gordon). Varek and his crew show up, and Nana turns into the original pistol-packin' grandma as she gets into a gunfight with the predators! This begins one of the most ridiculous scenes in the film, as nearly every resident within earshot of the initial blast suddenly pulls a gun and joins in on the battle! With Varek in plain sight and able to be easily hit by virtually anyone on Nana's side, their bullets instead follow the stormtrooper logic of Star
Wars, and miss Varek completely. Meanwhile, of course, Varek and his people manage to take out all comers without even break-ing a sweat!
Witnessing this battle, I.H.M. Rachel and Timothy are scooped up by Rachel's friend Jonas(Elias Koteas, the only halfway decent actor in this mess, carrying out a thankless task), who with a posse of protectors for Timothy, escape town in a large, heavily armored and--in my opinion--easily spotted truck. There are so many things wrong with the film at this point, I just don't know where to begin. However, I will simply ask the question as to why werewolves--who are generally depicted in movies as being powerful beyond normal humans' expectations--would need guns in the first place, even when dealing with their own kind? Unless we're talking about silver bullets being the only thing which can kill them, of course. This point/distinction is never clearly defined.
The secret of the werewolves is revealed to I.H.M. Rachel, and several of them transform in one of the crappiest effects ever com-mitted to celluloid. So-called director James Isaac(Jason X) would do well to retake a film course so he can learn that shaky cam is no replacement for actual effects and hard work. However in this regard, the film is doomed from the start. The werewolf makeup is the lamest I've ever seen--and that includes any 50's science fic-tion/horor I've ever heard of! The direction for those in said make-up is equally lousy, with such standard commands such as "growl" or "hunch over a little bit when you walk, to show how menacing you are" more than likely having been given on the set.
The film, such as it is, rapidly becomes nothing more than a standard chase movie, and deteriorates amazingly fast once all the exposition is out of the way. There are needless secondary characters, who exist for the sole purpose of being cannon fodder. The movie seems to almost lose track of its own personal clock, as Varek's werewolves are on a deadline: with the moon turning blood red, they only have four nights to hunt and kill the boy, or they'll be stuck as humans forever. There is an absolutely pointless scene in an inexplicably deserted bar(two bikers and a waitress, but no bar-tender or other patrons present) where evil werewolf Sonja (Malthe) kills a couple of would-be rapists. At this point, the writers are no longer content with being incompetent; they've become lazy as well.
Soon enough, all the cannon fodder has been taken care of and through clunkily-edited scenes, three of four days have passed, and there's only an hour left before the magic stroke of midnight wherein all the rules will forever change. Jonas has a final fight with Varek(and I won't even begin to go into the lame connec-tion shared between Varek and his intended victims, or the earlier line of dialogue which disputes the entire premise of said connec-tion), and then it's time for a Terminator 2 ripoff final showdown between protective Impossibly Hot Mom Rachel and Varek. Suffice to say the final resolution is completely unsatisfying, unbelievable and badly executed...with only one final voiceover by Timothy showing any glimmer of hope that at some point the writers were even trying to tell a grounded and intelligible story.
Skinwalkers certainly doesn't rank with the top 5 worst movies I've ever seen in my life...but it does fall somewhere within the top 10. It's been said that every actor has a fear that whatever project they're working on will be the last project, and they'll never get a call for work again. Personally, I would have to say that given the choice of never working again as opposed to being in something as godawful as Skinwalkers, it would be a preferable thing to stand in line at the unemployment office each week.
Official Archives of LanceReviews...
Skinwalkers
(No. 1 on the Crappiness Chart)
See this poster? This is as good as the movie gets.
Remember, kids; drinking and turning into a werewolf kills.
Not Kate Beckinsale...but an incredible simulation.
Just one day without Nair hair removal product, and this is what happens.
"Just be quiet! If we keep low, the director may not find us!"
"Uh, boss...? Could you explain to me again why we need guns, since we are werewolves?"
