La Nuit des Skinwalkers

Fun, original, inventive, fresh. It's highly intellectual, well-shot and will stick with you days after watching it. One of the better movies so far of 2024 with dozens of references to classic gilm. The negative reviews are likely from Hollywood PR firms or people expecting an alien invasion movie. This is more like Funny Games meets Psycho. It's very low budget but hard to tell while watching it as it looks much better than the budget suggests.

Basically, it's about three couples that head to a cabin in the future amidst what appears to be a great depression with gas prices as high as $50 a gallon. The three main couples represent the "elites" of modern society, one is the son of a senator, for example. They pick up a 4th couple, whose car has broken down and cell service isn't working, and who at the outset, appear to be elites as well, having studied at ivy league schools and so on. They offer to help them with getting a tow and bring them back to the vacation home they are staying at in a largely abandoned country setting where the economic situation has turned it into a ghost town. What follows after is what makes this movie great. Without providing spoilers, I will say,

I really don't know what to think about this movie. I like it, but I still don't know what to think.

It is just weird, but weird in a good way, like a guy wears lederhosen the entire movie and they don't ever say why. Oh wait, he's crazy, and his girlfriend is even more bat #### crazy, and it is set in a world where a hundred million people have become homeless in the prior year, but they come from wealthy families it seems so the economic depression does not effect them apart from having to drive an hour to get groceries.

Then there's a scene where they are eating and the lederhosen guy goes nuts, it's funny but was it meant to be? I don't know.

It's about 40 to 50 minutes until you get to the aliens, up until that point, the film introduces a journal from one of the characters' parents that was in the CIA, and another one starts reading it, suggesting the story of biblical flood in the bible happened in north america around twelve thousand years ago, and it shows a page implying that noah's ark was a UFO. That journal comes to play later in the film as well, and involves an explanation for what might be happening at Skinwalker Ranch, but after all that, this still is not what the movie is about. This is, at the end of the day, a film about class warfare, about the rich treating the poor as disposable trash, and maybe even a metaphor about the breaking point of society, and karma, because the characters in this movie get exactly what they deserve.

This film has issues, which is why I started by saying I don't know what I think about this movie, but it's just so interesting and different at the same time that I'm willing to forgive it for those.

Brilliant, very cerebral and at times, a work of art. Not for everyone though, and don't expect a science fiction action film or a Hollywood movie. This is pure indie. Ancient Apocalypse + Signs + Beyond Skinwalker Ranch + A Perfect Getaway = Night of the Skinwalkers.

If you are not a nerd, you will probably not get this movie, nor understand what it's about, especially people that confuse the Hollywood depiction of wendigos as Skinwalkers, or think The Seventh Seal or l'eclisse are horrible films because they have too much dialogue, and require you to think.

This film has some minor issues, probably due to its budget, but nothing that takes away from the incredible twist at the end, and you will think about some of the things this movie talks about for days. The music, cinematography, editing are all A+. Some of the actors and actresses did very well considering it was a low budget film. The characters they portray are all extremely unlikeable, so you almost are rooting for the bad guys. At times you will think you are watching a big budget movie. The problem is there are parts where it is almost farce, and times where it is very serious. I don't know if this was intentional or a limitation due to budget, but that holds it back from a 9 or 10 in my opinion. Overall, highly recommended if you enjoy philosophy, especially Plato, or enjoy the topic of speculative prehistory (such as Graham Hancock, Ignatius Donnelly or books on Atlantis).

We really enjoyed another movie from the same team at a film fest years ago so we decided to check this out when we received an email they had a new film out. Basically, like another reviewer said, it's like Signs meets Psycho with a twist. If you go into this expecting a big budget Hollywood movie, you'll probably be disappointed as this is more like The Seventh Seal in that the dialouge and character building have priority. I would say the film is more for people that are highly educated and can catch the references to other films, especially older ones. If you didn't go to college and study philosophy, or don't know who Jean-Paul Sartre is, you'd probably want to skip this movie just like the existentialist film creatives other films Scent, Eaters of the Dead, SARS-29 and Journey to the End of the Night, which are probably a bit too intellectual for casual viewers and will be more than they can chew and handle if they are expecting non-stop action and mindless entertainment. But if you like movies that make you think, and will stick with you days afterward, especially with the ending, then it's worth checking out.

On a Philosophy Movie forum, someone else compared this to Dead Poet's Society mixed with Psycho and Funny Games. I'd personally compare it to an episode of Netflix's Black Mirror but almost as if it were directed by Lynch, Shyamalan or Haneke. It's intelligent and a very polished movie, much more so than any of the pretentious film snob incels erroneously claim (it should be rated at least 8 stars, I'm adding a star since it's currently underrated). The film is probably not for everyone though, and that might be why some don't like it, especially if they're expecting a mindless alien invasion movie and would likely rate the collective works of Sophocles, Aeschylus, Moliere and Shakespeare a 1/2 star as well. If you slapped a "Criterion Collection" label on this, threw in cameos of Graham Hancock and David Duchovny, then you can probably imagine the type of movie it is; it is in my opinion, a throwback to the great Ancient Greek tragedies mixed with a portrayal of class warfare and the ever-increasing inequality of modern society. The costumes in the film become symbols in a way of man's alienation from himself and his true nature. Culminating in the fatal eruption of unnecessary death and violence that is brought about by the psychological repression caused by the "alien" values of consumerism, materialism and brain-washed idiocy that inflict most people and cause them to treat others as "less than human". Finally, this has a much higher production quality than the new Creepshow or the abomination that was the new 'Twilight Zone' on Paramount Plus, which is why I'd compare it to Black Mirror, only much more intelligent and overall, better.