Recommendations for Friday Fun: Skinwalkers

With the impending start of True Blood season 4, in which we hope Allan Ball reverts to a few coherent story lines instead of giving every character their own set of issues a la season 3, I thought some werewolf and vampire film recommendations were warranted.

And so, I want to recommend that anyone looking for some supernatural fun this weekend go to Netflix or Amazon and check out Skinwalkers.

Steeped in Navajo legend, Skinwalkers tells the story of Timothy, a young boy about to turn 13. Living with his widowed mother, and father's family, Timothy has no idea that he is actually a half breed at the center of an Indian prophecy that foretells of the end of the curse of the skinwalking (a.k.a. being a werewolves).

Timothy and his mother, who is played by the fierce and fantastic Rhona Mitra, have no idea that he is about to become the center of a war. On one side is the family that has protected him since birth, without ever revealing that they are actually werewolves. Living off of animals and leading peaceful lives, his protectors want nothing more than to allow him to fulfill the prophecy.

On the other side of the brewing battle, we have an intense (and very, very hot) back of blood-thirsty, people-eating wolves that delight in their violent ways and want to kill Timothy before he can end their fun for good.

Throw in one amazing firefight in the middle of small town America, lots of good action, Elias Koteas, and some stellar acting, and you have my absolutely favorite werewolf movie ever.

Chernobly Diaries Review-- What NOT to See This Weekend

So as an avid horror movie lover, I fully expect to have to take the good with the bad. Good horror movies are the cinematic needle in the haystack, as the genre tends towards the formulaic and unoriginal.When my best friend and I saw the preview for Chernobyl Diaries, we were excited as the premise seemed to be something a bit original. As we made plans to go see the film, we discussed how it had such potential, and we hoped it didn't follow in the footsteps of the abysmally bad The Hills Have Eyes, which opted for gratuitous rape and pointless violence over having a point at all.

The good news is that the Chernobyl Diaries did not follow down the path of sacrificing plot in favor or violence and rape. There was almost no on-camera violence. The bad news is that this sacrifice was not in the name of building a plot, as there was none of that on camera either.

Lazy and ineffectual character development took up a solid twenty or thirty minutes of this short film, all of which boiled down to younger brother Chris railing against the antics of his elder Paul, who's bad-boy-with-a-mischievous-heart-of-gold image took cliche to the level of archetype. Then there are some girls, and a token Australian, but they are all pretty much filler.

And so all of our stock characters pile in a car for a little visit to Chernobyl, the draw of which is never really defined. And there are all of these urban legends about Chernobyl (and Wikipedia confirms that some pretty awful mutation stories abound) that could have added quite nicely to the eeriness of the film had they been introduced at any point prior to five minutes before the climax.

After touring the abandoned adjoining town, our team of unlikable and unremarkable people get back in the van to realize that the wires have been chewed through and they have no way of getting out. So this takes us to about 2/3 of the way through the movie and, that's it.

Seriously, folks, that is where any attempt at a story fades off to a bunch of running around, cussing and freaking out with no direction. The crew of hapless and annoying travelers is tormented by wild dogs and lurking people that you never see... Can't tell you if these are deformed mutation victims, or just regular sadists, because there isn't a clean shot of our villains in the movie.

There is a whole lot of our lead characters running through the dark, with the frame light only by nauseatingly bumpy flashlight beams. And one by one, they get picked off... we think... because we never actually see anything after they disappear.

The end result: The Chernobyl Diaries presents a premise, not a plot, and so many technical errors that I didn't even pay much attention to the trite dialogue and weak acting. Definitely one to skip.

Horrors for Halloween- Part One

So All Hallows Eve is upon us, and this truly is my favorite times of year. Truly, it isn't the costumes and candy that I hold in such esteem, and though I enjoy a good ole fashioned debate on the constitutionality of celebrating it in public schools as much as the next guy, but that doesn't do it for me either. Halloween is made awesome to me because it means a month of scary movies readily accessible on cable and on demand.

I LOVE horror stories, be it in film or in book form. I am not big on gory slasher movies, but otherwise, anything goes. And I take explicit joy in the "diamond in the rough" movie you often find amidst a plethora of inane B movies (usually have to watch 10 to find 1).

So the theme for this month's blogs is my favorite scary stories.

Part 1- Skinwalkers

This is one of my favorite diamond in the rough stories. I really like Elias Koteas (he played Casey Jones, which  equals undying love in my book), and he was the only actor of name in it when I stumbled across it on the shelves of Blockbuster (yep, it was that long ago). I'm not normally much on the werewolf movie, but this one promised some good ole Native American legends thrown in, so I chanced my $2.99...

...and bought the film a week later.

You know how Twilight does the whole "evil" vampires who drink human blood vs "good" vampires that don't? Skinwalkers does that, but much, much better.

Underworld lovers will delight in Rhona Mitra as Rachel, who's world is turned upside down when she finds out that her late husband/father of her sick child was actually a werewolf. And her kid is at the center of a prophecy about someone who can end the curse of the were. So the good werewolves want him safe so they can become human again, and the bad werewolves want him dead so they can continue to enjoy their bloodlust.

Some good twists and turns, an actual emphasis on plot development, and a dearth of unnecessary gore make this one of my top picks for Halloween! To Netflix you go... or, if you prefer, it is in my A-store for download from Amazon here.