Instead of a party or a bar mitzvah when he turns 13, Timothy has to fulfil an old Indian legend and take the curse off werewolves everywhere.

If he lives that long.

That's just part of the fun of Skinwalkers, a B-movie about warring werewolves, some of whom wish to continue to attack people and suck blood at the full moon and some of whom want to be fully human. (The movie was filmed in Canada, so one assumes the bloodsucking is some kind of metaphor for taxation.)

Rachel (Rhona Mitra) is a single mother living with her son Timothy (Matthew Knight) and her dead husband's extended family.

When a gang of bad werewolves comes to town looking for Timothy, Rachel discovers for the first time she unwittingly married into a family of the beasts. Some people just aren't paying attention.

Her husband's family are the good werewolves, however, and they strap themselves down at the full moon so as not to get involved in "feeding."

The good werewolves have pinned their hopes on Timothy, who is of mixed blood. Once he turns 13, he will somehow be able to help the good werewolves become fully human again.

Something like that, anyway. The story is as murky as a lot of the visuals.

Anyway, the bad werewolves need to kill Timothy so they can go on feeding, and the good werewolves have to defend him. The good ones would even die for him, and a reference to their faith in the child's power suggests Skinwalkers is borrowing elements of Christianity. That, and every other werewolf movie you've ever seen.

But never mind.

We do not pretend to be an expert on films that involve werewolves and such, but the consensus seems to be this film sucks on an Olympic scale. Even the special effects aren't very special.

We were just glad when it ended.

There is one weird and wonderful thing about Skinwalkers, and that's the presence of the superb Elias Koteas, whose talent cannot be diminished by a furry body suit and fangs. Welcome to the world of a working Canadian actor.
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