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Ginger Snaps

Ginger Snaps

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Rating: 5 stars
Summary: IMHO The best werewolf movie ever.......
Review: I have all ready watched this puppy 3 times and I have only had it a week.Like everyone says it's not your typical werewolf movie.Emily Perkins and Katheran Isabele are AWSOME.Especialy Perkins.When she is acting scared you belive her.The director realy does a great job on the realationship between the two sisters.I am not very good with the written word so I will say this...SEE THIS MOVIE!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Great film which never got a chance. Watch it! Buy it!
Review: Despite gathering high praise on the festival circuit, "Ginger Snaps," in a move of embarassing stupidity, was dumped straight to video by Artisan Ent. Hollywood, after a handful of rotten "Scream" clones (like "Valentine") had tanked at the box office, felt Horror films were on the way out, and never gave this fantastic film a chance to succeed. Well, don't be fooled by the fact that you've never heard of this movie until you saw it on the video/DVD shelf... it's great. Using the classic turning-into-a-werewolf scenario as a metaphor for a young girl's entrance into womanhood, this film finds a fresh new angle on an oft-told tale. And, beyond being a horror film, it's also very much, if not more, a character study of two goth sisters who, at the film's beginning, are virtually inseparable but, through the course of the film, grow further apart as one grows hairier and more lustful (for more than just sex) while the other remains an "innocent" little girl. Despite the low-budget, the SFX are effective, better than some artificial CGI (they primarily use puppetry and good ol' fashioned gore). The two girls who play the sisters are fantastic and are aided and abetted by a strong supporting cast. Do yourself a favor: don't let this clever flick pass you by. Why, after seeing it, you may just have to own it!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Sweetness!
Review: This sucker rocks! 2 suicidal chicks get attacked by a thing that has been brutally slaughtering dogs throughout their town (and shows the most violent werewolf attack I've ever seen) and one of them happens to....grow into a woman. Beautiful film. It's like a remake of The Company of Wolves with a little more present day style. DVD is kinda crappy. Get this flick!!!

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Ginger snaps entertainment back into Horror
Review: This movie at first glance from the box seemed to me like a cheaply made flop of a horror flick but i watched it anyway *thats the kind of person i am* and i was quite surprised. unlike 99% of all recently released "technological-computerised-couldnt scare a 104 year old woman" horror rip offs, this film goes back to the REAL horror genre and was very entertaining. the only reason i didnt give this film 5 stars was because personally, i didnt find the "final transformation" very convincing. other then that, i definitely recommend this movie. the very best horror movie that ive seen released in quite a while.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Possibly the best werewolf movie ever.
Review: Warning: do not watch this movie if you are depressed. This one is the kind you go into happy and come out depressed for at least a week. Although not very scary, Ginger Snaps has all the elements to be a cult classic or even a classic in its own right. The acting except for the drug dealer character is very impressive, especialy by the two sisters, Perkins is awsome as Gingers sister and should become a star after this one. There's enogh symbolic meaning in this one to make your brain explode, another factor to keep you thinking about it. So, good direction, very good acting, you will not forget it easily, and excelent script= great movie. The only weakness I can find is the slightly flawed "action sequence" at the end.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Of hormones and lycanthropes
Review: As everyone knows adolescence can be pure hell. Peer pressure, self image issues, dating, sex, parents, and school are all sources for teen angst. Not to mention those frightening physical transitions our bodies begin to undergo as we transform into adults. Of course the ultimate cause of all this turmoil is the greatly increased levels of hormones raging throughout our circulatory systems, hormones that are instigating these scary physical changes as well as creating hypersensitive emotions. Its really quite surprising no one has made a film that draws a parallel between adolescent change and lycanthropy. Well, thats not quite true; there have been a few- "I Was A Teenage Werewolf", "Teen Wolf" etc. But they were all from a male teen perspective (BTW, in case you haven't noticed, male teens undergo far less dramatic changes in their bodies than do females) never from a female teens POV. Until now that is.

Screenwriter Karen Walton and director John Fawcett have given us a very intelligent and frightening horror film (and to get these two qualities in combination in a horror film these days is something of a rarity). This isn't one of those plotless teen exploitation date movies that Hollywood churns out with nauseating regularity, it really is a very well made little film that will appeal to almost any discerning horror fan. I am a firm believer that the vast majority of the really good horror movies to have been made over the past few decades are coming from the indie circuit. "Night of the Living Dead", "Halloween",
"Evil Dead" and "The Blair Witch Project" are good examples of quality indie horror films and now, I think, "Ginger Snaps" belongs on this list as well.

For me to have any kind of emotional charge with the events happening in a horror movie I have to be able to believe in or somehow relate to the charcters in the film. In "Ginger Snaps" Karen Walton's fine script goes a long way to providing me with that emotional investment but it would not have been as nearly complete if not for the extremely fine performances of Emily Perkins as Ginger's sister Bridget and Katharine Isabelle as Ginger. These two young ladies are exceptionally fine actresses and a I hope they get the chance to do bigger and better things in future, they deserve it. Fawcett's direction is sure handed and professional. I particularly liked the way he holds off showing the creature until the end. By giving us quick glimpses of the werewolf only serves to heighten the suspense. As for the creature itself I think it is of the same quality as that of "An American Werewolf In London"; there is no CGI, its all done with animatronics.

So, if you like horror films and werewolf movies in particular you need to see this one. I bought "Ginger Snaps" based upon the convictions of the reviews here and elsewhere, needless to say I was not dissapointed and I'm sure you won't be either.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: What a shock!
Review: The biggest shock that came from this movie was how good it was. I came upon it on Amazon a few days ago and thought it sounded interesting so I found the site and watched the trailer. I had it sent overnight to me to have for Halloween. I have not been a big fan of Werewolf movies in the past but this one is not your typical movie. The story is great, the effects work nice, and the acting is right on target. This isn't another terrible teen horror slasher film. This is a really smart film from start to finish. It is funny, disturbing and all around very entertaining and well worth your time. I am going to watch it again right now, this movie deserves all the attention in the world, to bad America didn't get it in theatres because this is easily the best new movie I have seen over the past 6 months. Buy this movie now!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Best werewolf movie ever made!
Review: This movie is so good, I won't even bother trying to explain it. This is easily the best werewolf movie I've ever seen, and one of the best horror movies in the last 30 years. I rate this right up there with the Evil Dead series. You are just a sick person if you don't see it.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: "Ginger Snaps" could learn a few things from Ginger
Review: Like so much the victims that we see in them time after time, some horror film cliches deserve to live. And, of course, some deserve to die.

But just like any film where lots of people are attacked and mauled, not all the deserving cliches croak in "Ginger Snaps."

This Canadian, straight-to-video-in-the-U.S. sleeper hit is the story of two teenage misfits,Ginger (Katherine Isabelle) and Brigitte (Emily Perkins) Fitzgerald, who are obsessed with death and black-humored pranks. At school, they're taunted with the word 'freak' and at home, they're lulled to sleep by brainless suburban parents. To keep themselves amused, they arrange "deaths"--stunts set up to look like the real thing--and take pictures of them for art class. But one night, while trying to kidnap a bully's dog, Ginger and Brigitte meet an unexpected surprise while out late at night. What happens after that brings a new meaning to "the female curse."

Beginning with the neighbor's dog, Ginger slowly builds up an uncontrollable urge to "rip living things to pieces", as she aptly puts it. While in the beginning Ginger tries earnestly to resist, she's indulged her now-natural inclination for blood by the end of the film and pays the ultimate price for it, but only after making the transition from human to beast.

In the shadows of Ginger's bombast is Brigitte, her younger, quirkier sister who's always followed Ginger's lead. But once her older sister begins to let go of who she was, Brigitte finds herself thrust into the role of an unwilling, scared heroine. The only tragic part is that her heroics come too late to save her sister.

On the positive side, "Ginger Snaps" has a better, more beliveable story than either "Wilderness" or "An American Werewolf In Paris". There's no local legend or family history to speak of, and we don't see the werewolf untill Ginger is actually attacked. There's also some believability in the sense that the seemingly unknown cast lend an appropriate sense of the ordinary to the suburban hell Ginger and Brigitte call Bailey Downs. Nowhere in this film is the glossy, picture-perfect, party-hardy, brainless MTV lifestyle element that wrecked "An American In Paris", so forget about sticking around after the credits for a music video or two, because it ain't gonna happen.This film doesn't have a Hollywood ending, either--Ginger is accidentally killed by Brigitte after she completes the transformation from teenager to werewolf, leaving Brigitte to quietly sob over the beast's dead body. There is no salvation. No un-wolfing, just death and a string quartet during the credits.

Even more importantly is the subplot between Ginger and Brigitte. Once Ginger has her period, things begin to change between the two sisters. In the beginning of the film, they're tight buddies and live in the basement of their house and think up new pranks and new ways to die. At the end, they don't even know eachother anymore. Many other reviewers like to compare Ginger's horrific transformation into a werewolf to the hell of female puberty, and in that sense, this film is quite possibly the first foray into a new sub-genre--feminist horror.

In addition, the gore in this film is truly terrifying, whether it's in the films and photographs Ginger and Brigitte make of faked, horrific deaths for an art class or the actual carnage of mauled bodies and ripped-up dogs. Unlike in some Hollywood films, the remedy for werewolfism, or lycanthropy, is a syringe full of some hard-to-find plant that combats infection by producing white blood cells--a believable, if too-late cure.

But that's where the film's freshness ends. On the down side, "Ginger Snaps" has the heart of a typical teen slasher flick, in which a social reject finds a macabre and grossly exaggerated way of repaying the school bullies for all the petty tormenting teenagers put eachother through. Ginger herself has a huge problem with peers and authority, like many teens, simply because they're repressive, cruel and ignorant. Once Ginger begins her transformation, she predictably begins to get revenge. And you guessed it--the beautiful people DIE after she begins stealing and killing their dogs. When the dogs aren't enough, she starts killing actual people, beginning with the bully-tease that taunts them in gym class and ending with her sister.

Along the way, Ginger undergoes the standard human-to-werewolf transformation. First, she gets the pointy-curvy fingernails, then the sharp, pointy teeth. Then streaks of white hair on her body. Towards the end of the film, her face has completely changed and the transformation comes full swing in the back of a van on the way home, complete with slimey mutations and moaning and human limbs taking on canine attributes; the actual werewolf is an animatronics classic.

But it's a classic we've seen many times before. After a few viewings, it seems almost as if "Ginger Snaps" can't live without both the new and the not-so-new in order to keep the story moving. True, if this is a film about a teenage werewolf, then the audience has to find something to tell them exactly that; the craft is in HOW it's done. To have Ginger howling at the moon, transforming, going out and killing and coming home again would be a waste of time because we've seen that before. However, to take such an horror film protagonistas a teenage social misft and put that character in a typical revenge scenario is also a waste of time because moviegoers know, even if they don't watch horror flicks regularly (myself included), that the "disgruntled-protagonist-gets-revenge" is one that's been used in films for nearly three decades.

So while the disgruntled protagonists in "Ginger Snaps" right all the high school wrongs in the form of bloody murder, the film itself could learn something from Ginger in the ways of rejecting what have become standard, uninteresting horror genre cliches.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: the sixth best werewolf film....ever
Review: "The Wolf Man," "An American Werewolf In London," "Werewolf of London," "The Howling," "Curse of the Werewolf," and..."Ginger Snaps." That is how I would rate this great werewolf film based on the past cinematic lycanthropes! This film is not just a werewolf film, however, it is a wonderfully frank and intelligent horror/ teen film although categorizing it a "teen" film does it a diservice. Film captures the werewolf pathos that only a few select films have mangaged to to sort of capture Lon Chaney Jr's original "man." The believable characters give credit to the horror genre in the vein of Stephen King's and Siodmak's best work. There is real power in the sister relationship and credit is due to the two fine actresses, Emily Perkins and Katharine Isabelle. The special effects are awesome not cgi-crap but old-school animatronics that look refreshingly new and unique. This is a fun, thoughtful film that is great for Halloween or anytime of year. You're not a true horror OR film fan if you don't give this disc a whirl. Only and I do mean ONLY gripe is with the DVD itself: Rent this one until they relase the Canadian special edition disc, but do RENT it or they may never feel that it will sell well enough here to warrant the SE disc!


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