Werewolf Skin

Alex Hunter has been sent to the small town of Wolf Creek the week before Halloween to live with his Aunt Marta and Uncle Colin while Alex's parents conduct business in France. Luckily for Alex, Marta and Colin share his love of photography. While driving home from the bus station, Alex tells his aunt and uncle that he would like to dress as a werewolf for Halloween. This news causes Uncle Colin to drive into the incoming lane of traffic and almost get hit by a truck.

When the family arrives at the house, Alex learns of the next door neighbors on either side: the Marlings, who are apparently not very friendly and Alex is warned to stay away from them, and Hannah, the young girl who lives in the other house.

Hannah and Alex go exploring the vast series of woods behind all three neighboring houses. Hannah warns Alex that the woods are dangerous, and also gives another vague warning about the Marlings. While in the woods Hannah and Alex run into two boys from Hannah's class. The boys swipe Alex's camera and Hannah engages in a fierce verbal defense of Alex.

Hannah and Alex return to the house and Hannah stays for dinner. After she leaves Alex goes back to his room and while daydreaming out the window spots an animal-like creature leaving the Marling's home. Reaching for his camera, he realizes he left it outside. With the night air threatening rain, Alex runs through the house getting ready to venture out into the woods to retrieve his camera. Along the way he runs into Hannah in the attic. Hannah returned to the house and enlisted Marta's help in procuring a Halloween costume. Alex grabs a flashlight and safely retrieves his camera, but the downpour disorients him and he becomes lost in the woods. While stumbling about, he encounters some freshly slaughtered animals. He also sees animal footprints leading into the Marlings' backyard.

The next morning, the Marlings are calling Alex's relatives to complain about him snooping around their house. They saw Alex the night before outside their house. Uncle Colin explains that the neighbors are very unfriendly and also that they have two giant german shepards. Alex makes the connection and feels a lot better about the whole thing, at least until he tells Hannah about it on the way to school. Hannah informs Alex that the Marlings don't have any german shepards but that they're werewolves.

Alex doesn't buy into the theory and makes fun of Hannah. At school Hannah and Alex's teacher talks at length about Lycanthropy. According to Mr. Shein, a werewolf has an actual coat-like "skin" of fur that they wear when hunting and during the day they shed the skin and keep it in a safe place. To kill a werewolf, one must find the skin and burn it. When the teacher asks the class who among them believes in werewolves, every hand but Alex's goes up. After class, the two troublemaking boys from earlier stop Alex and tell him that since his hand didn't go up, maybe he'd like to see a real werewolf? The two tell Alex to meet them in the woods at midnight and to bring his camera to take lots of pictures of the werewolf that is always spotted in the woods.

Later that night, Alex readies himself to go out and snap pictures of the werewolf. He's nervous but also quite excited, and also locked in his room he discovers. Not only did his Aunt and Uncle lock his door from the outside, but they also installed metal bars outside his window. He's trapped in his room and unable to escape to capture pictures of the werewolf with the two boys from class.

The next morning his aunt and uncle apologize for locking him in but they explain that the Marlings threatened to call the police, so they wanted to make sure he didn't get into more trouble. Later at school, the two kids tease Alex about going to see the werewolf, as they were only joking and assumed he had actually gone to the woods last night. He tells them he did and that he saw the werewolf and snapped off a whole roll of pictures. That night, Hannah reveals her new Halloween costume to Alex: A Rag Doll. Aunt Marta sings a song about a rag doll while Hannah dances an impromptu jig.

Later that night, after jamming some bubblegum in the door jam to ensure it doesn't lock correctly, Alex sneaks out with his camera. He stops by Hannah's window and attempts to get her to accompany him on his werewolf photo shoot. She tells him that she really believes in what she said and that it's too dangerous to go out into the woods. Dejected, Alex heads out into the woods on his own and spots a couple exiting the Marling's house wearing wolf capes. As he watches he can just barely make out the human forms slowly morphing into the wolf forms, the cape growing over their entire body until the two are fully werewolves. Alex attempts to take their picture when he accidentally drops his camera, but they do not notice Alex. He follows them into the woods. The wolves snatch a baby deer and are about to feast on it when Alex distracts them with a wolf call of his own, startling the two wolves who then let the deer go. The werewolves then begin to run toward Alex but then they chase a rabbit that ran across their path. The wolves grab the bunny and one snaps its neck and the other rips out the rabbit's belly with its jaws. Once Alex is fairly sure he's safe, he takes a full roll of photos of the wolves.

Morning breaks and Alex hides behind another tree and watches as the Marlings return home and transform back into their human shape. Turns out Aunt Marta and Uncle Cecil are the werewolves! The two bring their werewolf cloaks inside and then exit through the front of the Marlings' house, running across the lawn back into their own house. Alex is worried about what they might have done to the Marlings so he goes into the Marling House to investigate. Once inside he is shocked to find the house is abandoned save for two neatly folded werewolf cloaks by the bedroom closet. Realizing that there never was a Marling family, he decides to warn Hannah and her family so they can escape before his Aunt and Uncle try to harm them.

Alex explains everything to Hannah and she comes up with a plan. Since they don't want to kill his aunt and uncle, they can't burn the werewolf skins. However, if they hide the skins where the two can't find them and the full moon passes without them being able to transform, the curse will be lifted. Hannah decides that the best way to keep the skins hidden from the aunt and uncle is for Hannah and Alex to wear the cloaks themselves. They'll leave in their planned costumes and then go next door, change into the werewolf costumes, then go out trick or treating where they can't find them. Alex agrees to this.

Halloween night, Hannah goes next door to get into the werewolf skin and Alex soon follows. She hands him a skin and they both exit the Marling home in werewolf skins. As they're walking down the street, they hear the loud scream of Alex's aunt and uncle yelling after them "GIVE US OUR SKINS!" The two give chase after the kids and eventually collapse on the ground in agony. After some anguish, the aunt and uncle burst into joy as they inform Hannah and Alex that they've successfully lifted the curse! The two kids remove their skins and all four head back home to celebrate.

On the way home, Alex tells Hannah that they should both drop the skins back off at the Marling house. She seems hesitant to go back so Alex goes alone. Once inside he sees that there's an extra werewolf skin on the floor near the closet. He turns around to see Hannah in the werewolf skin. She explains that there's an extra because she didn't use the skin from the Marling house, she brought her own. Hannah then pushes Alex to the floor and sinks her teeth into his chest.