Things get hairy for director Seth Breedlove’s Small Town Monsters production company with Skinwalker: The Howl of the Rougarou, a documentary exploring the Houma tribal myth of the werewolf in Louisiana. With narration by frequent collaborator Lyle Blackburn (Momo: The Missouri Monster), the film captures the bayou so authentically, you can feel the humidity and mosquitoes from here.
Those interviewed don’t seem to agree on the “rules” of the rougarou — fitting for a cryptid study — except that area Catholic parents exploit it to wring child guilt. Believers talk of it being able to shape-shift into human or rabbit or rooster; less universal is the tenet that a rougarou encounter is not to be talked about for a probationary period of 101 days. Some believe the creature is a lost soul; others, the victim of a literally ugly curse.
Skinwalker’s first re-enactment sequence offers a glimpse of the werewolf via red eyes piercing through the night — and it’s chilling. The same goes for one halfway through of a mystery girl in a white dress, followed shortly by home security cam footage of that danged werewolf in a girl’s bedroom. Far, far less effective is an encounter illustrated with subpar drawings; the occasional woodcuts are a nice touch, though.
I confess I’ve never heard werewolves referred to as a “rougarou” before this doc on the upright-walking canids that stalk the rivers, forest and swamps of South. I also confess I never tired of hearing people saying it in that Nawlins drawl. —Rod Lott