The Skinwalkers: American Werewolves 2 is Small Town Monsters follow up to 2022's American Werewolves and covers a slightly different topic. While werewolves do feature again, this time around the focus is more on skinwalkers; creatures existing between life and death who are able to take on the form of both humans and animals by 'wearing' their skins.
This is set out in a very similar format to that other documentary and so for me falls into some of the same pitfalls. The eighty minute documentary is split up between nine or so different eyewitness accounts of purported skinwalkers. Each of these is split by a chapter heading giving the name of the next witness. Directed by Seth Breedlove, this again sees him taking more of a backseat. These interviews just have the witness talking on screen, sometimes with aerial shots or stock footage playing over their words. There is a definite horror vibe, both with the eighties synth sounding music, as well as inserted shots of close-ups of werewolves and skinwalker creatures.
Many of the accounts come from Native Americans, it was really interesting to hear these tales based on their viewpoint of what these creatures are. It is apparently a taboo topic for them to talk about and so it isn't something they are that comfortable speaking about, one of the witnesses even has their face in shadow and their voice altered to keep their identity secret. The descriptions take on a similar vibe, people encountering either a large beast like creature on all fours, or a beast standing upright. Sometimes these creatures are spotted from afar, sometimes there is a direct interaction. One woman talks about seeing her dogs attacked by a creature, another speaks of the time some of her animals went missing. One still visibly affect man talks about how as a child one of these creatures got into his father's house. As always, these people speak with truth behind their words, whether what they encountered were actually supernatural creatures or explainable wild animals, they act in a matter of fact way about these being unnatural.
With a focus on New Mexico there comes a unified feel to these accounts. The problem of having nothing but account after account is that again it felt like the documentary would have benefitted by having more variety to it. There are little interjections where text on screen gives some facts about the area, but no overarching narration, nor any attempt to state a viewpoint either way.
The Skinwalkers: American Werewolves 2 certainly had some interesting moments, but is more like a series of stories (however true they might have been), rather than a more detailed look into the subject. This documentary comes to Cable VOD and Digital HD on Blu-ray/DVD on March 15th.
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