Ginger Snaps III: Der Anfang

Ginger Snaps Back the Beginning: 5/10: The original Ginger Snaps truly deserves its cult classic label. Leads Katharine Isabelle and Emily Perkins created original characters that transcended both the teen angst genre as well as werewolf films needless to say. The second sequel transports both characters to the 19th century Canadian wilderness. The good news is that the girls and their relationship is exactly the same as the first film. The bad news is that the first film took place in modern suburbia and the girls' characterization simply couldn't feel more out of place. It's like coming across a valley girl in a WWI Drama.

Anachronisms aside what they really don't have from the first film is the witty banter and subtext of the story. The script is a true bare bones affair with that old Assault on Precinct 13, Rio Bravo plot. But instead of gang members our antagonists are werewolves. Now this plot can work mind you (See Dog Soldiers for a perfect werewolves trapping people movie) but with the first two Snaps films about puberty and addiction a trapped with crazy people plot line is quite a let down.

The script is lazy in other ways as well. We have a ridiculous preacher character that would have been thrown out of 17th century Salem for being too fundamentalist and we also have endless Native American (okay Native Canadian) mumbo jumbo.

There are very very few things that grate on my nerves faster in a movie than the wise Indian character with the endless intelligible incantations and feathered dream catchers. And of course they predict the future and give warnings of bad tidings and initially scare our girls but turn out to be the real good guys that everyone treats badly. Pretty generic and lazy screen writing.

Needless to say the movie is all over the map. The end is good, the werewolves look good and honestly I can watch Katharine Isabelle all day long. The plot however is a really a mess and Snaps really doesn't make much sense if you haven't seen the other two Ginger Snaps films and even less sense if you have.

After the success of the superior werewolf thriller "Ginger Snaps", it seems Lions Gate rushed to churn out two sequels in the shortest amount of time possible, those being the frightening "Ginger Snaps 2: Unleashed" and the disappointing "Ginger Snaps Back: The Beginning". Where "Unleashed" was a bit of letdown compared to its predecessor, it made sense and it followed the storyline well and even managed to wrangle up a boatload of genuine scares. Then there's "Ginger Snaps Back", the weakest and wholly unnecessary entry into the series. It should have stopped with "Unleashed" but the writers have decided to give our doomed heroines Brigitte and Ginger one last go around.

This time Ginger and Brigitte (a major plus is that Katharine Isabelle reprises her role as Ginger whereas she was missing in the second film save for a few scenes) are wandering around in the Canadian wilderness after being stranded in the early 1800's. For some reason it's a prequel that has nothing to do with the story that was developed in the first two films, so what's the point besides some cheap werewolf scares? When they come across a wrecked Indian camp that depicts carnage and brutal murder, they hastily make way to find shelter. That's when they find a strange fort in the middle of nowhere that some soldiers reside in, and that's where the nightmare begins. At night, a pack of vicious werewolves continually attacks the fort outside the thick log walls, and by day things take a nasty turn for Ginger when she is bitten... again. It's all apparently a foreshadowing of the events in the first film but none of it is needed. There's no tension or intrigue where there was in the first and second, plus any trace of black humor that made the first film so ingenious is not apparent anywhere. The editing and cinematography seem rushed and at times I found the film almost incoherent. A huge disappointment that further ruins the integrity of the first. They should leave Ginger and Brigitte alone now.

The first Ginger Snaps sequel—Unleashed—didn't feature much of Ginger (the lovely Katherine Isabelle) but made up for her absence somewhat by being wonderfully weird, with an off-beat atmosphere, bizarre characters, surprising hallucinatory scenes, and an unusual industrial soundtrack.

Isabelle fans will be happy to hear that Ginger plays a much bigger part in Ginger Snaps Back: The Beginning; unfortunately, the film itself is far less entertaining—a dark, somber, and ultimately rather boring tale set in the wild west, where two sisters, Ginger and Brigitte (Isabelle and Emily Perkins), survivors of a ship wreck, stumble across a woodland fort inhabited by a group of men under regular siege by werewolves.

The majority of the film revolves around the distrust and mounting tension between characters, and Ginger's gradual transformation after she is bitten by a wolf-boy, the afflicted son of one of the fort's occupants. This is told in a dreary, lifeless fashion by director Grant Harvey—who is clearly more interested in presenting artistic images than in telling a riveting story.

While the use of the same characters in a different time period and setting is undeniably unique, it is inadequately explained, which proves frustrating, and although the film does deliver some decent werewolf action in the final act, it's not nearly enough to compensate for the drab nonsense that has gone before, which is complete with trite mystical Native American mumbo jumbo for good measure. On the plus side, Perkins, who has spent the last two films being sullen, is finally allowed to show us how attractive she can be.

This prequel concerns the sisters, Ginger and Brigitte, making their way through 19th century Canada in what one can assume to be a previous incarnation.

Having lost their parents, the orphaned girls trek alone through the wilderness during a cold, harsh winter. They stumble upon the remains of an Indian village, which looks to have been ripped apart by some great beast. One of the few survivors, an old wise woman, warns them that they must "kill the boy" or "one sister will kill the other." When Brigitte accidentally steps into a bear trap a short time later, the two girls are rescued and assisted by a handsome Indian man known only as The Hunter, who leads the girls to nearby Bailey Fort...perhaps the very fort around which the future suburban community of Bailey Downs will spring. The fort is in poor shape. The men are suspicious, the atmosphere is bleak and the supplies are running low. It seems that the men who were sent for winter provisions several months before never returned...at least, not in human form. Indeed, several strange and vicious beasts seem to be stalking the woods just beyond the fort...and there may be one within as well!

This 3rd installment in the imaginative and intelligent Ginger Snaps series lacks the black humor and witty script of the previous two. The girls are lovely and convincing, the setting of a snowbound fort is both creepy and beautiful, and the new character of The Hunter is intriguing and nice to look at, but this film takes itself far too seriously. I also had a hard time accepting the fact that a young girl in the 19th century would utter a phrase like: "These people are f-cked." Such instances of modern dialogue inserted into a setting of 100+ years past is disconcerting at best...but maybe I'm the only one it would bother.

The beasts are highly visible in the final scenes of the film, and are pretty impressive looking. Other than that, the films gets a little weighted down by the gloomy atmosphere, with nary a joke to be found. The religious metaphors and Native American mysticism seem to have been pulled right out of "The Crucible," "The Scarlet Letter" and "Thunderheart" and seem to have been used for set dressing rather than as crucial plot devices. Still, there's a good amount of blood and gore to please most splatter enthusiasts, and an open ending which seems both to resolve the second film and bring us right back around to the first.

It's not a terrible movie by any means, but since I'd come to expect a certain amount of smart black comedy and found none here, it was just a little disappointing. The girls do a great job with their characters, as they always do, but they had far less to work with this time around. I give this a 6 on a scale of 10, whereas the first two each get a 9.

Origin Stories are Cool, most of the time. But in the Original Ginger Snaps the Origin was Original enough to make it the Sleeper Hit of its Era. It was sharp, smart, and, yes, snappy. This Movie is none of the above, it is dull, depressing, and slow.

It looks good and there seemed to be some Energy in the Production but it all gets lost in a wildly muddled Script. The Characters are all bland and the Native American Curse stuff is painful and confusing. Our two Sisters huddle together forever and look out of place and out of time/space.

An unwanted and ill received mess, this is not horrible but really takes an effort to like. A shame, because the Audience is with this from the beginning. Bringing along previous thoughts and anxieties from the first two Movies that had a genuine allure.

This one is Soul less with rough edges that are never smoothed into a believable and exciting Film. It tries way too hard to be a Profound Period Piece, adding depth to the Trilogy. In the end it is an unwelcome miss on most levels, but Horror Fans may give it a Pass. Ginger Snap Fans may give it a Fail.