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SKINWALKERS

What You Need To Know:

SKINWALKERS is a modern werewolf story about a mother, Rachel, and her young son, Timmy, who are caught between two groups of warring werewolves. The bad werewolves have become flesh eaters while the good ones tie themselves up during the full moon so that they don’t become evil carnivores. Leading the good werewolves is Jonas, brother of Timothy’s dead father, Caleb. They believe that, since Timmy is only half werewolf, the curse affecting them will be lifted at midnight the day Timmy turns 13. The bad werewolves, however, want to kill Timmy, because they like killing humans.

The production quality and entertainment value in SKINWALKERS are forgettable, but not terrible. The acting and the action are serviceable. The movie contains brief foul language, strong scary violence and sexual innuendo. The dark pagan mythology does not push a hard theological or greatly immoral agenda, but it is hardly redemptive, despite some of the characters’ concern for the young boy and their efforts to avoid murdering human beings. The movie’s dark mythology and violent resolution are not inspiring, to say the least. This kind of material needs a more redemptive sensibility.

Content:

(PaPa, OO, C, B, LL, VV, S, N, A, MM) Strong pagan worldview with occult elements about werewolves, with light allegorical, redemptive, moral elements about ending a curse; six obscenities, one strong profanity, and three light profanities; strong scary action violence with some blood and some implied gruesome violence but not extremely gory or bloody; two men hold down woman but evil werewolves interrupt and implied rape by werewolf; upper male nudity and some sensuous clothing on two women; alcohol served in bar; no smoking; and, a werewolf curse disrupts family ties, all of which are not fully redeemed at the end.

More Detail:

SKINWALKERS is a modern werewolf story playing in a few selected theaters around the country.

In the story, a mother, Rachel, and her young son, Timmy, are caught in the middle between two groups of warring werewolves. The bad group of werewolves have become flesh eaters while the good ones tie themselves up during the full moon so that they don’t become evil carnivores like the others. Leading the good werewolves is Jonas, the brother of Timothy’s dead father, Caleb. They believe that, because Timmy is only half werewolf, the curse affecting them will be lifted at midnight on the day Timmy turns 13. The bad werewolves, however, want to kill Timmy, because they like killing and eating humans.

Though there are plenty of werewolf attacks and fights in SKINWALKERS, the movie contains several scenes where the two werewolf groups shoot lots of guns at each other – one to protect Timmy and the other group to take Timmy and kill him. The acting and the action in SKINWALKERS are serviceable. The movie also contains some foul language, strong violence and sexual innuendo. Considered overall, the production quality and entertainment value of SKINWALKERS are fairly forgettable but not terrible.

According to the movie’s mythology, however, the werewolf problem began long ago when superstitious American Indians used pagan mysticism to identify with the power of the wolf. As explained by one Indian in the movie, some Indians were so addicted to the power of the wolf that they themselves became werewolves, half man and half wolf. This “curse of the werewolf” disrupts family ties, setting parents against children and brother against brother. In the end, not all of these disruptions are healed, and good family members must kill bad ones in order to protect the innocent and restore at least some of the family ties. This adds a dark quality to the movie’s dramatic conflicts.

The movie’s dark mythology and violent resolution are not inspiring, to say the least. Its story cries out for a more redemptive sensibility.