#217 -- The Shadow Walkers (2006)

Rating: 3 / 5
Director: Mark Steven Grove

IMDB says this movie is quote, "very suspenseful," and I guess it is pretty suspenseful, but...not really. It's an okay movie with a not-so-unique premise that will not shock you at all. That being said, I only really have one big problem with it.

It was about a group of geneticists working on some sort of experiment. They were mutating people to, I believe, use them as soldiers in the army. We get flashbacks of the doctors and scientists working on the experiment, and that is how we figure out what's going on. Whatever they did to them made them strong, intelligent, and really horny. They reverted back to primal, animalistic ways, while still maintaining their high intelligence. Even so, there was only one subject that went according to planned; only one that could be maintained, trained, and controlled. The rest went mad. Not only were there personalities mutated, but their bodies were mutated as well, turning them into horrendous monsters. They were like zombies; they ate the living, transformed the living through bites, craved flesh, and were drawn to the scent of blood.

When it was obvious that the creatures were not going to be able to be maintained, they were sent to an underground genetic storage facility. Along with the creatures were certain doctors and scientists, and they also trapped the man they sent to lock everyone else away. These people woke up, unsure of where they were, and completely oblivious as to what was happening to them. All they knew was that the creatures were hunting them, and they had to find a way to get out before they were all eaten or transformed into monsters themselves.

See what I mean by not-so-unique? There are tons of movies involving government facilities and experiments gone wrong. Almost all of those involve zombies, or creatures that try to pretend they're not zombies (like these, those it's painfully obvious). With the character development, we knew right away who was going to make it out alive. We had the strong man that everyone depended on, the strong woman, the hot woman, the woman no one cares about, the man no one cares about, and the asshole. The two no one cares about are always killed pretty quickly; the beautiful woman, though we root for her, is almost always killed; and the asshole always makes it longer than we'd like, but he's killed eventually. So it's obvious who is going to live; thankfully, it's the two characters we care about more than the others.

The biggest problem I have with this one is that it's hard to understand. I got the basics of it, which I guess was the point, but I'm not sure. During the flashbacks, there was too much scientific mumbo jumbo, and I didn't understand a word of it. Cell membranes, blah blah blah, a bunch of things I've never heard of and probably never will. But that doesn't matter, I guess, because I still got the jist of the situation.

I will say that the shadow walkers did look pretty cool. They had those gigantic teeth and everything, and they were definitely primal. The make-up could have been better, because I could tell where it ended and the person's natural skin began, which kind of diminished the fear factor for me. But I can deal with that; I'm no stranger to bad effects. These weren't bad--I did like how they looked--but they could have been a little better.

I probably would have liked this movie a lot more had I seen it a long, long time ago. At this point, I've seen so many movies with the same story that it's hard to really enjoy it. It wasn't bad; there are just too many others like it.