Two packs of warring werewolves are awaiting a coming red moon, and the transformation of an oblivious thirteen year old boy. The boy is a half-blood, and as a result holds the key to either stop the curse of the werewolf, or to carry it on. One side aims to protect the boy, and the other side needs him in order to survive. On the coming of the moon, an all out werewolf war begins...
Firstly I'm a fan of werewolf movies, from good ones (Dog Soldiers), to bad ones (An American Werewolf in Paris). So I suppose I'm already biased towards this kind of movie, and as a result I was quite looking forward to this one. However, the first disappointment came when I found out it was a PG-13/15 which is never a good sign for a horror movie, however the trailers promised lots of action, so I relied on this to deliver a good movie.
Well, it sort of succeeded, the action scenes are well done, with the sight of werewolves flying all over the place smashing everything in sight proving quite exciting. The scenes between the two werewolves fighting at the end are particularly well choreographed and thus the action scenes worked for me in that they kept me excited throughout.
Where the film falls flat is in-between the action as to be honest, it's pretty boring and you find yourself waiting for the next transformation or action scene. I'm not entirely sure why this is, it just seems slightly uninteresting and derivative even with loads of other stuff going on. It might have been that it just reminded me of the recent gamut of these kind of horror-lite movies, such as Underworld and The Covenant where it seems that the film focuses more on looking slick, cool and flashy, rather than on anything of much substance.
 
That's not saying that Skinwalkers isn't good, it's just average in that it's been done loads of times before and doesn't bring anything new to the table. Saying that however, the werewolf designs are actually really good, with them looking like a cross between the Lost Boys and huge wolves, which coupled with some good transformation scenes give the film a better edge than some low-budget efforts.
As I previously mentioned, the film is rated PG-13/15 which means that it doesn't offer much on the gore front, there's the usual bites and fights etc, nothing too special, apart from one scene at the start which is quite nasty. I saw the unrated version but again this wasn't anything that you can't see in a PG-13 movie, I suppose the film is either classing itself as more of an action film or just letting all the teenagers in to rake in the cash. It's clearly aimed at the teenage market with all the great-looking people on display, guys get Rhona Mitra wearing tight tops and the gals get any number of men all with washboard stomachs. It's all very much like a fashion magazine with the odd werewolf thrown in the mix.
The acting is fine throughout also, with really no bad points that I can think of, as well as the direction by James Isaac. Isaac makes good use of washed out colours and films action scenes with genuine aplomb, which brings me to mention as a side note that I'm a huge fan of James Isaac's previous films Jason X and The Horror Show, both which show that he is capable of making better stuff than this.
It's nothing new, but Skinwalkers delivered enough excitement to fill an hour and a half, with good fight scenes and good effects it's hard to dislike the movie too much, as it does have a relative amount on offer. Plus, in my book, you can't go wrong with werewolves.
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ALTERNATIVE TITLE: Skin Walkers
MOVIE YEAR: 2007
DIRECTOR: James Isaac
WRITING CREDITS: James DeMonaco, Todd Harthan
GENRE: Horror, Thriller, Fantasy, Action
CAST: Jason Behr, Rhona Mitra, Elias Koteas
COUNTRY: USA, Germany
RUNTIME: 110 min
RATING: 5/10
Skinwalkers Website/IMDB Click here
Skinwalkers Trailer Click here
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