Review: Ginger Snaps
During one October viewing schedule a couple years back I found myself with a prime opportunity to look into the career of a young woman who I'd sadly not paid enough attention to. Katharine Isabelle and her breakout role in the teen werewolf horror, Ginger Snaps. To my surprise Ginger Snaps turned out to be a solid little horror flick with some great performances and a darkly comic streak that makes it so much more than I was expecting.
The film follows the Fitzgerald sisters, Ginger and Brigitte, a pair of outsiders obsessed with death and suicide because fuck everything. While planning a revenge trick on snooty bitch Tina the sisters are attacked by a large, wolf-like beast that lays into Ginger bad, biting and ripping her. Narrowly escaping the sisters return home only to find that Ginger's wounds are already healing, Ginger tries to ignore it and move on but Brigitte is worried over what this means.
Over the next few days Ginger starts changing, physically and emotionally, Ginger puts it off as her hormones finally kicking up in a big way and enjoys this more confident and sexually charged version of herself, however Brigitte is not so easily fooled and doesn't like the new route her sister is taking away from their close bond. it isn't long until Brigitte realises that Ginger is turning into a werewolf and has to find a cure for her sister before she's overtaken by the disease and starts killing to quell the now dangerous thirst in her blood.
It's a strong story for two key reasons, firstly it uses lycanthropy as a metaphor for puberty with Ginger's budding adulthood and her transformation both taking place simultaneously and the results making a lot of sense (change in appearance, more hair, lots of blood). Secondly for the focus on the relationship between the two sisters, from best friends to Ginger's attitude change and larger interest in boys and attention to even a few surprisingly bloody turns that really fuck things up, all while still maintaining a close but straining bond between the two as they try to get through this thing together even though Ginger starts liking this new side of herself.
The characters were well established, especially Ginger and Brigitte but the supporting cast had their moments. Prissy little high school cunt Tina was perfect bitch fare for the sister's to have a common enemy. Drug dealer and werewolf expert Sam had a surprisingly large part to play as he not only helped Brigitte find a cure but also served as a point of contention between the sisters with Ginger mistaking his intent towards Brigitte as sexual. And finally the sister's mother Pamela was the right mix of chirpy and overly personal that showed why the sisters ended up as the death obsessed pair as a rebellion against their mother.
Of course it is the sister's that get the most screen-time and the best characters, both showing to be very similar but very different. Even at the start of the film it's clear Ginger is the more outgoing and adventurous one but still within the confines of their dynamic with Brigitte following by example. As Ginger Katharine Isabelle gives perhaps the more elaborate role, having to change a great deal throughout the movie and suffering some mean emotional changes, at first she's this fuck-it-all teenager that doesn't care, as things kick in she turns into a more confident and sexually aware creature but the more things go on she starts turning ravenous and dangerous, treating murder like a solution and keeping an almost gleeful joy with it all. Isabelle shows this change in her character exceedingly well, hitting all the right notes perfectly, anger, fear, hate, sadness, occasionally her personality does showcase a nastier side to her, especially as she brushes off her sister, but you can see the confusion that Ginger is going through, wanting to be with her sister but not wanting to lose this new found confidence but not wanting to alienate Brigitte but wanting to stay a werewolf. She's got a lot going on and her mind is so warped with the changes she's going through that she can't keep a hole of herself, it's a strong performance that showcases a young woman trying to make sense of her body and her mind.
Emily Perkins gives a subdued but by no means weaker performance as Brigitte. With Ginger slowly turning into the villain it's Brigitte that plays the hero as she suffers from the prospect of losing her sister to the disease or worse, being forced to kill her because of it. Brigitte's the quieter sister, mostly following Ginger's leadership so when the dynamic changes and Brigitte has to find for herself she's left in a state of unknown and has to fix herself fast. Perkins gives Brigitte a likeability, she's not exactly timid but she keeps to herself and her love for her sister, even going through this rather odd and dangerous change shows someone with a bigger heart than they care to admit. She may not have the same outwardly effective change as Ginger but Brigitte's disgust and fear over Ginger's more violent actions directly oppose her love and respect for the woman she's followed her whole life. Where Ginger has to worry about her own sanity and how this affects her life, Brigitte has to worry about their relationship and the massive kick it takes during their time together.
The relationship between the pair and what they go through, both positively and negatively shows both sides of a close friendship and does so in one of the most realistic manners I've seen in a film, even with the puberty/werewolf metaphor being a giant dose of fantasy, that central relationship works with or without the full moon influence and serves as the key point of the movie.
Director John Fawcett creates a film that keeps to its horror roots while still maintaining a black comedy vein and a thematic sense. The choice to show lycanthropy in the same manner as menstruation is an odd but fitting choice as I've already explained, it gives the film that sense of being a lot smarter than most other werewolf movies, instead of all being for fun and guts, this one has a story to tell and it uses this... almost Cronenbergian style to tell it, rooting itself in the fears one goes through with the changes in their body and takes that to the extreme, it's a very unique way of looking at things and puts this as one of the better horror movies of the time.
The film also works as a horror comedy, preferring the horror to the comedy but it's black hearted humour mixes surprisingly well with the more tension filled moments, especially in the third act when things go from bad to worse. The humour mostly comes from that same puberty theme with Pamela overly-personal nature really getting in the way of the girls' life and being a little too into such things as their first periods and menstruation cramps, it's not laugh out loud funny but it leaves an ease in the tension. Because of Ginger's unpredictable and often violent outbursts the horror elements can strike at any moment and only get worse as time goes by, Ginger starts by killing dogs but slowly moves up towards humans and the gruesome manner she kills them in is only the start with Brigitte having to clean up after her before anyone finds out and takes them away from each other. The finale in the house has some really horrid moments with Ginger (and some really damn impressive Make-up work) terrorising the place and leaving some really intense and frightening moments that won't be leaving your mind anytime soon.
Going into this review I wasn't sure if I was going to give Ginger Snaps an 8.5 or a 9 and annoyingly I'm still not positive. I'm gonna give it a 9 just cause I feel like it earns it a little more, it's an incredibly well-made movie with a smartly written storyline about the physical and emotional changes in teen girls sets on the backdrop of a werewolf movie, the sisterly relationship between Ginger and Brigitte is amazingly well realised with Isabelle and Perkins selling the hell out of the close but fracturing pair and Fawcett delivers a clever, slightly funny, slightly scary direction that holds it all together. A surprising hit for me and one I'll be revisiting very soon.
9/10