Ginger Snaps

Ginger Snaps is a low budget Canadian horror film that also has a subtext of growing up and puberty.

Bridgette (Emily Perkins) and Ginger (Katharine Isabelle) are two sisters who are very close and have fascination about death. They stage and photograph death scenes and regarded as weird at High School where they are regarded as outcasts and suffer from bullying. Ginger is one year older than Bridgette and is starting her period rather late.

Ginger gets attacked by a werewolf very close to her first period and her body undergoes changes. Hair, mood swings, pains, bleeding, sexualisation and a tail. You see the parallels to growing up and becoming a werewolf. Heck there is even a 28 day cycle!

Of course as the blood lust takes effect Ginger gets more savage and starts to kill. This is after the guys at High School find her hot and appealing which means she has no trouble attracting victims. Its left to Bridgette and high school drug dealer Sam to find a cure for lycanthropy and save Ginger.

There is nothing much original about a werewolf film. Writer Karen Walton has given this film a feminist twist and a lot of it is due to the bond between the two sisters and Bridgette wanting to save Ginger out of that love.

Director John Fawcett goes for a more realistic portrayal of High School life and more honest representation of family relationships when children hit adolescent. Mimi Rogers plays the mother and although the father does not speak a lot when he does his remarks are rather waspish.

The film suffers slightly from its low budget and it could been tighter. I think the climax loses its way a bit and should had been better presented.

Its a rare combination of intellectual horror and dark comedy which works to an extent but never quiet pulls it off successfully.

Ginger Snaps is one of the best revisionist horror movies I've seen - if you liked "Ravenous" you'll enjoy this. Contrary to a previous reviewer's remarks, the film is not heartlessly "cool" - no chilly hipster would be capable of the compassion this film shows to its outcast, unbeautiful characters. Like all the best horror films, the true subject of fear is very real - the earthquake effect of sexual maturity on teenagers, girls in this case, and the disruption of sibling relationships by differing levels of sexual maturity. It also speaks to a genuine post-Columbine concern. When youth culture admires alienation, morbid affectation and misanthropy, how can genuine psychosis be distinguished from acting out? The highest praise goes to Isabelle and Perkins, whose characterisation is superb. Mimi Rogers as the mother who raises denial to an art form is also excellent.

On the downside, the last twenty percent of the film declines into cliched stalk-and-slash, with typically idiotic behaviour by previously intelligent characters, and an embarrassingly polymeric monster. The humanoid werewolf makeup is so derivative of "Buffy" I'm surprised Optic Nerve didn't sue. Moreover, for its revisionist pretensions, the films underlying attitudes to sexuality are disappointingly regressive, as are the final fates to which it consigns its characters.

On balance though, highly recommended.

Whoever marketed 'Ginger Snaps' should get some kind of award for sabotage! Looking at the packaging and it's name-dropping of 'The Craft'(??!) one would think you were in for your typical late 90s "ironic" MTV teen horror ala 'Scream' and the '..Last Summer' series, or some sort of 'Buffy' cash in. I nearly avoided watching it for exactly that reason. Am I glad I didn't!

'Ginger Snaps', while not totally perfect, is one of the freshest horror movies I've seen in ages, and one of the best werewolf movies of recent years. You can read the plot elsewhere so I won't bore you by repeating it. But I have to comment on the excellent script, with its realistic portrayal of teen life. No 90210/'Seventh Heaven' whitewash here! The teens act and talk like REAL PEOPLE, and the honesty about sex, drugs and puberty is rarely seen in contemporary movies, horror or otherwise.

I said not totally perfect because the climax was a let down. The last 20-25 minutes of the film lost its way a bit, and dragged in places. A bit more tightening up and a stronger ending could have made 'Ginger Snaps' a classic. As it is it's an original spin on an old concept, and highly recommended viewing!

I grow weary of horror films. I really do. I don't tend to enjoy the majority of serial killer slasher flicks because they're not my piece of cake. One, they don't scare me. Two, the quality of the films has greatly decreased since John Carpenter's "Halloween," and the result is a bunch of recycled slasher hits and their uncountable many sequels, all just replays of the last one. Three, the entire formula is getting old.

There are bands of teenagers and cult followers who love horror films. I am not one of those (un)lucky individuals. I respect well-made modern horror films, but I yearn for the olden days when horror implied something a little more than just blood-'n-guts-type serial killer movies with unbeatable foes battling virgins and non-virgins in ridiculous situations.

Yes, real horror films are truly hard to find nowadays, which is why "Ginger Snaps" -- a modestly-scaled Canadian werewolf movie -- succeeds as more than just another crude bit-by-a-werewolf-soon-you're-a-killer-man-beast movie. (Pardon the random and haphazard string of words.)

Werewolf movies are as old as the days. Over the years, with unflattering productions such as "Wolf" (1994), the legend and actual horror of werewolfs has decreased and the images of the beasts have turned into some sort of cute, cuddly dog figures.

"Ginger Snaps" is one of the darkest werewolf films made, and one of the most realistic, too. It's a story about a teenage girl who acquires the mythical hairraising powers of the species after being attacked and mauled in Canadian woods.

Ginger (Katharine Isabelle, who starred in this year's "Freddy vs. Jason") is a happy 16-year-old with a low social life status. Her 15-year-old sister, Brigitte (Emily Perkins), is the same way. But one night in the woods outside their home, both girls are attacked by a vicious beast, and soon Ginger starts going through some changes. First it's minor stuff, like hair sprouting in weird places. Then it's strange stuff, like growing a tail.

Soon she's the "cool girl" at school, hanging out with the right crowds and so on. Her sister is put off by Ginger's new image, and is uneasy with the new, cruel, cool Ginger, who no longer hangs out with her sister.

But the changes start to become too apparent, and she begins to gradually evolve into a hairy beast, which threatens not only Brigitte's life, but also those around her, especially after Ginger's blood craving starts to take over her senses.

The key to this film, I think, is its modest tone. It was a low-budget Canadian werewolf movie -- nothing more -- and it has an ingenuity about it. It's original, to a certain extent, even though the actual premise of werewolves has been used to death over the years.

This is a fun movie because of its unique view of werewolves. It brings the legend of the mythical beasts closer to reality -- it offers a perspective of what it may truly be like to acquire the abilities of the beast in today's age. Sure, the overall premise may be ridiculous, as werewolves are works of fiction, but if you ever want to know what it may be like -- just for fun -- then check this one out for a good thrill.

4/5 stars.

• John Ulmer

Ah... it does my heart good to see that the first decent werewolf movie since "An American Werewolf in London" came from independent roots. The fact that it came from Canada is even more refreshing. Do horror movies have to be made outside the US to be intelligent? Look at the current trend of remaking all the Japanese and Korean horror movies. Look at Danny Boyle's "28 Days Later" from the UK. Look also at the immensely talented Guillermo Del Toro and the fact that his best movies (Cronos and Devil's Backbone) are both essentially foreign films. Maybe there's a trend there. Maybe Americans don't know how to make original horror movies anymore. I certainly hope not. But regardless, this is a worthy contribution to the werewolf genre, and fits nicely with "American Werewolf in London" and "The Howling" - despite the rather shoddy FX by hackmasters KNB, the story managed to rise above its budgetary constraints. Definitely worth a watch for fans of werewolf films who are looking for something a little better than "Bad Moon" or "Silver Bullet".