Ginger Snaps : Aux origines du mal

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.

Ginger Snaps and Ginger Snaps II: Unleashed were very clever movies. This one, Ginger Snaps Back: The Beginning however lacks the dark humor and brains that the first two had. Although it is interesting to see this situation, as Ginger and Brigitte face the whole werewolf problem in the 19th century, without the benefits of the time ahead of them.

Ginger Fitzgerald (Katherine Isabelle) doesn't have the full attitude the Ginger from the first movie had. The sisters don't have that mysterious darkness that they had before, which is quite disappointing as it is what attracts you to the movie in the first place. The speech is strange... they will talk in a sort of old fashioned way, then start talking more modernly, and sometimes will swear, which makes it slightly less believable.

Although there are some great scenes this film, its only good if you are a fan of the Ginger Snaps series really. Otherwise this may seem just a long and boring hour and a half of snow, blood and one big fort. *6*

Nothing special. And that's a shame.

Ginger Snaps Back is a retelling of the storyline used in the original, with a few changes here and there. I got this movie the day it came out and couldn't wait to watch it. However...

This is a period piece and while I respect the fact that the director didn't want the sisters to speak with phony accents, the dialogue really didn't match up with the time. Lines like "These people are f***ed" really took me out of the story. It actually started to remind me of watching a high school play put on by jaded teenagers.

But being the fan and overall geek that I am, I still watched the movie again with the director's commentary track. I expected it to be boring. I didn't expect it to make me angry. The running theme for the commentary was "not enough time". I really angered when I found out that the script wasn't done until there was only ten days until the first shooting day. That along with the director and writer talking about how they came up with the idea for the film was infuriating. You see, they thought it would be a "treat for the fans" to do this movie. Maybe I'm just cynical, but that sounds like a lame attempt to make some money off of a title many horror fans have come to love.

But I'm getting off topic.

Overall, I liked this film. It's good to see Canada's finest (Katharine and Emily) on screen together once again. The dream sequence felt very abstract and Argento-like, which was cool. The only real complaints that I have are the dialogue and certain subplots that didn't belong. They should've gotten Karen Walton to write this one (she wrote the original).

I give it 6/10.

Oh yeah, one more thing...

This might be nitpicking, but where was the original song? It only appeared once in Unleashed and is completely absent from this one. This is disappointing to me because I always thought of that song as the theme for the films.

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.

What made the original Ginger Snaps a classic horror movie is the way it used the genre to explore universal themes. It offered a unique take on sibling rivalry, death, suicide, puberty, feminism, sexuality and love. Most poignantly, it gave us Ginger, a complex character with a genuine hatred of herself and everything around her.

Ginger Snaps also introduced Katharine Isabelle and Emily Perkins, two talented, beautiful and utterly believable actresses. So while I was a bit put off by the premise of Ginger Snaps Back, I was excited for the chance to watch the girls reprise their roles.

Ginger Snaps Back is a very watchable movie. It re-imagines the sisters in a different era, which is interesting. It's creepy. The special effects are much better than in the original. The climax is very cool. And the sisters are both perfectly portrayed. Unfortunately, when it was over, I wasn't thinking about my own mortality. I was just thinking, "Hey, cool werewolves."

I was also irritated by the dialog. Most of the time, the characters speak in stilted sentences appropriate to the era. But occasionally, Ginger drops a pithy one liner or a curse word which seems completely out of place.

The supporting cast was filled with stereotypes. The harsh minister and the sage native American hunter were especially flat.

Ginger Snaps Back gives you two things. An entertaining werewolf movie. And an excuse to watch two talented actresses portray Ginger and Brigitte. But it doesn't give you anything beyond that.