Ginger Snaps

Rating:
Summary: When Your Sister Starts Changing
Review: This is the story of two sisters, Ginger and Brigitte. They are just a year apart and inseparable. They are also both very late for starting their monthly cycles. They are also somewhat of outcasts with dark outlooks.

Well, Ginger starts her cycle and is almost immediately attacked by something has been killing dogs in the neighborhood. Now Ginger is undergoing two sets of changes; those into womanhood and those into lycanthropehood. It is up to Brigitte to try and keep things under control and help her sister.

As the changes and suspense mounts, Brigitte becomes more and more desperate to find a cure for her sister. Eventually their mother (played excellently by Mimi Rogers) gets involved and seems suspiciously understanding.

Although the series is named after Ginger, it is Brigitte who always gets top billing. This is because the series actually revolves around her and her relationship with Ginger. From the first moments of the film the pace is almost breakneck. A very interesting take on werewolves that remains true to convention as well as being fresh and new.

Rating:
Summary: One of the BEST horror flicks you'll ever see.
Review: The typical horror movie usually leaves something to be desired in story line, dialogue and plot. This movie is different. The story line and plot are well developed. It is different than any werewolf flick you will ever see. The movie has a dark sense of humor to it and you will see that from the openning scene to the very end.
You'll know its good in the first scene where the little boy is playing in the sand box. What is he playing with though? If you like gore there is plenty of it. The movie is sick and twisted at times as well. The main characters themselves have very dark and sick senses of humor and they are kind of outcasts in their high school. They take quite a gothic aproach to life.
Death is one of their favorite subjects.
I don't want to say too much because that will spoil the film. In my opinion this is one of the best horror movies out there if not the best. Although the main idea of werewolves is not an original idea, there are a lot of original concepts developed in the film. If you have a dark sense of humor and are not squimish at the sight of blood, this is the film for you.

Rating:
Summary: The very best werewolf of modern times
Review: Beyond a doubt, my favourite werewolf movie, and a striking confirmation that `teenage' horror can be graced by lean, character-led productions, good writing, and good acting, and not reduced to couch-potato indolence by Hollywood's fast-food diet of big budget, star-studied, slash and gore, titillating trivia. Do you get the impression I'm serious about this one?

"Ginger Snaps" takes the concept of the werewolf - a myth we have lived with since prehistory - and transforms it into a chilly tale of modern adolescence. It, at once, affirms teenage fears and plays upon them. Emily Perkins (Brigitte) and Katharine Isabelle (Ginger) are two sisters (aged 15 and nearly 16) for whom puberty has been delayed, much to the consternation of their mother, who is constantly trying to feed them up on a healthy diet ... and checking their laundry for evidence that they've finally become women.

The sisters inhabit a world in which the intellect is numbed; the most terrifying demand made of teenagers is that they fit in. Outcasts - they are hated by their status-seeking classmates - the girls remain the closest of friends, darkly dressed, fashion-rejecting Goths united by a death pact and a fascination with the macabre, and haunted by the boredom and sterility of existence in the suburb of Bailey Downs.

On the night of Ginger's first period, the girls are attacked by a creature which has scented her blood. As they flee, it is knocked down and killed by a van. The girls escape ... but from now on, there's something not quite right with Ginger. Brigitte can see it, Brigitte works out what has happened, Brigitte sets out to save her sister, to find salvation not in religion, but in science and a drug remedy for the curse which has infected Ginger's blood.

This is sophisticated horror. Emily Perkins and Katharine Isabelle are magnificent in the lead roles: there is a tangible chemistry between them. Perkins creates a dark angst and torment, steeling herself to throw off her timidity and protect her sister; Isabelle exudes arrogance and an erotic cool, makes a seamless transition from social reject to sexual predator.

The real horror of teenage years, of course, is sex. How do you cope with it? How do you cope without it? How do you cope with relationships? Can you fit in with everyone else and avoid rejection, or are you forced out, left a terrified loner desperately trying to find friends and a role? Screenwriter Karen Walton uses the werewolf as metaphor for this. Her script has wit, and a feminist bite. Most teenage horror gives menstruation a wide berth - perhaps only `Carrie' explores the issue with any consequence.

It is obviously a Canadian movie. This is not a put down. Anything but. Canadian cinema can often be counted upon to come up with something much more sophisticated than the Hollywood studios could tolerate ... or imagine. A low budget movie - Walton and director John Fawcett fought for years to get this made - it is yet proof that a good script and good acting are the vital ingredients in a memorable film.

This is a film about teenagers, but it is not a `teenage' movie: I'm back to my harangue about so many teenage horror movies simply being devices for a load of scantily dressed celebrities and beautiful people to run around screaming, bleeding, and wise-cracking - it's a marketing device to get teenage bums on seats and into the Malls to buy the spin-off produce.

"Ginger Snaps" is a genuinely well-written and well-performed story. It works because it is character-led, because it addresses real human fears and worries seriously: you don't have to be a 15 year old to enjoy it. This is sophisticated, intelligent cinema. If there is a criticism, it is of the last 10-15 minutes of the production where it becomes an overtly `horror' movie. Not that this seriously detracts from the overall enjoyment and impact of the film. It remains an honest, askew vision of teenage angst, adolescent sexuality, and human fears, and is also a sincere exploration of love, loyalty, and sisterhood.

The wit is savage, as razor-edged as a wolf's fangs. With puberty comes a superfluity of blood and hair growth. "Ginger Snaps" is a black comedy which uses the theme of transformation as something which happens to everyone - although this is a decidedly female perspective, we are left in no doubt that boys face puberty with as little knowledge and as much fear, despite the bravado. Adolescence is fraught with problems of relationships - finding friends, losing friends, facing the dangers that you might offend someone, do the wrong thing, wear the wrong thing, be isolated and excluded. For those who do feel left out, life is one long night of rejection, with nothing to do but howl at the moon and hope someone, someday will understand you and love you. Now that is real horror! For Fawcett and Walton the source of all human horror lies within the human body and human mind.

I say my only criticism is the last few minutes, when the monster appears? I'm still not entirely convinced this isn't a deliberate decision by Walton and Fawcett. This film has a very solid grounding in reality, having an almost documentary feel in places. If the real horror is within us, maybe creating a brief sense of unreality only drives the fears in deeper and makes the movie just a little bit scarier? In retrospect, the ending did leave me with a sense of disjunction which possibly heightened the film's emotional impact. Judge for yourself - I still rate this the best, the very best of the werewolf genre.


Rating:
Summary: Underrated
Review: I rented this on a whim, I'd never even heard of it before. It was very enjoyable, if not a bit corny at times. Very much surpassed my expectations. Highly recommended for fans of obscure, gorey horror films.

Rating:
Summary: Wow!
Review: Ginger Snaps (John Fawcett, 2000)

It has been many, many years-- twenty-two, to be precise-- since I have been as deliciously shocked by a movie's opening scene as I was by that of Ginger Snaps. The previous movie to do it to me was Friday the 13th Part 2, when that cat jumps through the window. While Friday the 13th Part 2 then immediately dropped into the gutter and stayed there, Ginger Snaps stayed just that good.

The Fitzgerald sisters, Ginger (Katharine Isabelle, soon to be seen in the Earthsea miniseries) and Brigitte (Emily Perkins, one of the main characters in the miniseries of It a while back), are suburban teens who are obsessed with death and carnage. They get a taste of the real thing when a local werewolf (who is the author of that excellent first scene) savages Ginger while the girls are out late at night. Needless to say, Ginger is all set to become a werewolf herself, unless she and Brigitte, with the help of the local drug dealer, Sam (Flash Forward's Kris Lemche), can find a cure. Problem is, Ginger's not sure she wants a cure, because along with lycanthropy comes all sorts of nifty side benefits.

Ginger Snaps is a fantastic film in just about every regard. The characters are well-drawn and worth your time, the situations are alternately (and often simultaneously) horrifying and hilarious, and there are enough twists in the tale to keep you wondering what's going to happen. This low-budget thriller, which never gained wide release, has become a cult smash on video, and it's easy to see why. You may have to go out of your way to find it, but do so; it's fresh, funny, hip, and... Canadian! ****