Ginger Snaps (2000) Reviews

• Surprise of the year! Impressive horror.

  Infofreak2001-07-20

  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!

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• Ginger snapped alright!

  uds32004-04-23

  Somehow I had missed catching up with this almost "underground" flick although I had it mentally logged as one to check-out. (sorry, check 'oat'....it's Canadian) Addressed that problem yesterday when I picked up the dvd from a $5.95 bargain bin! I'll keep it simple. This is, if not the best horror film I have ever seen...pretty damn close to it! It is the ONLY horror film that has ever "touched me" emotionally and that it achieved this is quite extraordinary. As a werewolf film it is simply outstanding - blows digitised crap like UNDERWORLD out of the water. The very budgetary constraints of the film HELPED ultimately - the director having to rely on old-fashioned "acting" to hold up viewer credibility. Although Isabelle is the "Ginger" of the title and she is soo damned good, it is Perkins as Brigitte that commands respect for her effort. The Fitzgerald sisters with their fascination for 'staged horror' find themselves very much on the outer in the school social hierarchy. It is not until Ginger is bitten by a werewolf, in what is undoubtedly the most graphic and realistic lycanthropic savaging ever filmed...that they are forced even further into social isolation. What neither the sisters OR the film ever lose sight of however is their sisterly bond, itself consummated by a blood-pact at childhood. There is nothing predictable or unoriginal about this film, from the script to the camera angles, right up to the heartfelt tragedy itself of Ginger's condition. And that is why this film leaves most other horror films in its wake - it is multi-dimensional with strong characterizations. Mimi Rogers even, in a smallish part as the girls' mother is spot on hitting the exact right note as a frustrated mother and increasingly unfulfilled wife. The film weaves brilliantly the coming-of-age pains with the physical transformation brought on by the lycanthropic condition. Marvellous imagery of menstrual blood at critical moments. Mention should also be made of Kris Lemche's role as Sam, the school druggie and the only friend they have, not that Ginger is interested. Somewhat Christian Slaterish in mannerisms, he contributes strongly to the film's success. Superbly handled conclusion with both excellent werewolf effects and the saddest of photographic recollections....nothing one would expect to see in formula horror flicks devoted to this subject matter. The very last scene is both moving and inspired. Obviously I am not alone in this perception. The film carries one of the highest rankings for its genre. I would personally nudge it up to a 7.5 but thats neither here nor there. Why it received such limited theatrical release worldwide I cannot begin to imagine, but the production teams behind SCREAM, I KNOW WHAT YOU DID...., CABIN FEVER, TCM, DOG SOLDIERS and myriad other clones, should take a long hard look at this and find out HOW to make (and stage) a horror film with pretty much no money! I would have considered that $19.95 for the dvd was money well spent!

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• Superb teen horror movie ... almost perfect.

  Teknofobe702005-04-06

  The first thing you need to know before you watch Ginger Snaps is that's a real horror movie. That means genuinely unsettling, disturbing, makes-your-skin-crawl kind of stuff. And you're plunged right into this from the start. The opening scene involves a mother and her young son discovering that the family dog has been torn to pieces, bloody scraps and guts all over the back yard ... which pretty much sets the tone for the rest of the movie. In a way it's not really that gratuitous. The whole movie is a metaphor for adolescence, which in itself is a pretty gruesome thing to have to go through. There are these two morbid sisters, Ginger and Bridgette, who are afraid of growing up so much that they have a suicide pact together. They are obsessed with death, and for art class they take photos of each other in disturbingly realistic fake death poses. Ginger begins going through puberty, has her first period, and whoosh! Cue the werewolf attack. The initial changes she goes through are pretty common -- mood swings, bleeding, pains, hairy legs, growing a tail ... okay, maybe that last one isn't quite so common. Bridgette, along with a drug dealer named Sam who accidentally hit the original werewolf with his van, begin to suspect what's really going on and start thinking of how they can cure the disease of lycanthropy. The idea of werewolves is introduced early on, and the characters accept it pretty quickly after the things they see which means we can just get on with the story. Karen Walton has written a fantastic script here, and John Fawcett proves himself a competent director. All of the leads are excellent in their roles, with the two lead actresses Emily Perkins and Katharine Isabelle expertly playing the disturbed Fitzgerald sisters with fantastic chemistry. Kris Lemche is also notable as the drug dealer, giving a performance reminiscent of Christian Slater's shining moment in "Heathers". In fact, the two movies are similar in tone in a number of ways, and both have become cult classics with very similar audiences. The special effects team, headed by Paul Jones who worked on such projects as "Dracula 2000" and "Wolf Girl", have also done a pretty good job, creating some great-looking physical effects, with blood and guts piling up in every passing minute. The design of the wolf itself is interesting and original, giving us something that we really haven't seen before. And so, though not for the faint of heart, this dark and wonderful piece of work ranks as probably the smartest, most subtle and intelligent werewolf movie ever made.

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• The bark is as good as the bite

  OnceBittenKitten2002-12-08

  **Some SPOILERS contained in this text** After reading some of the commentary made on this film I think that many people missed the point completely. This is an extraordinary and unusual horror film. In my opinion, this film has a great deal in it's favor: horror, humor, insight, and intelligence. How many films these days even have a message in addition to being entertainment? Horror in particular is notorious for being a genre that is stereotyped as pure entertainment. Horror is very often born out of the particular space of a film. Some horror is born from the mysteries and dangers of nature, others seem to be born from the high-tech alienation of the city, some is born from the junctions of the two where technology and industry mutate nature. This film is the perfect horror child of the Suburbs. It is a film about normalcy, social conventions, expectations, deviance, generation gaps, and growing up to be a woman in the midst of all the confusions wrought by these other things. Even if it isn't completely "original" in all of it's substance and form, what movie is completely original? It's been done before for a film to change a supernatural horror to a natural one. Science is the silver bullet of our age. However, this film changes a supernatural horror into a natural one BUT it also has the added twist that "science" relies on cures that come from traditional lore, thus giving back some credit to the wisdom of ancient healers that has been stolen from them by modern medicine. In one brilliant piece of dialogue in the film, Bridgette and Sam discuss the possibility that myths may hold some valid truths. Bridgette snidely remarks of the wisdom of ancient healers, "Yeah, they also thought that leeches cured people." "They do." Sam succinctly states to win the argument. Often there are moments like this in this film which seem to be unoriginal but are original in sly ways. And, who's to say that the moments of unoriginality in the film are not there for the express purpose of connecting to and commenting on other works from similar genres or that have made similar statements? For instance, the two main characters' obsession with death is not unlike that of Harold from "Harold and Maude" which, when the parent generation in this film were teenagers, was a film that expressed many formative ideas for that generation. I think that this film, though it doesn't have the optimism of Harold and Maude, does fairly accurately comment on society. Besides, this IS a highly original film. I don't believe that another film exists which connects the cycles of the moon to both werewolfism and through menstruation to the experience of becoming a woman. That is a HIGHLY original idea. Not to mention that the "She's All That" like transformation of Ginger is not all really that usual. Her transformation from the outsider to the popular girl also includes an interesting reversal of traditional gender roles which provides interesting commentary on sexuality and gender relations during the transitional time period of puberty. Instead of entering the traditional role of the submissive and weepily emotionally female, Ginger becomes a truly powerful, sexually aggressive, and, yes, bitchy (aka angry and forceful threat to masculine domination among other things) person. I wouldn't just normally state the factor of bitch being a label given to women who seem to threaten male dominance, because I'm not some uber-feminist who sees men as the enemy, but the film actually comments on it directly. Females who are strong and sexually aggressive are a threat to some men and some women in our society, particularly during that age when people are just testing out sexual gender roles and this film is aware of it. In one great moment, Ginger's lover tells her to slow things down and be less sexually aggressive, asking, "Who's the man here?" and she just takes what she wants as men in film and real life have done for years. Another ironic twist to this, the consequence to this action is that the boy experiences something like the female curse of menstruation. I say: "Hooray for bitchy women who admit to having sexual hunger and go for what they want!" It's just too bad that typically this kind of strong woman can only appear or have real power within the deviance-accepting confines of the horror genre. The central emotional action of the movie skillfully touches on perhaps one of the least filmicly explored consequences of growing up which is growing apart from someone or something that you have been so close to that it is nearly an extension of yourself. Even if you do not have a person, place, or activity that fits this role, metaphorically as you grow up you are always leaving behind a piece of yourself that you can no longer completely connect with and thus you can relate to this occurance. The real horror and sadness of this film comes from the changes in Bridgette and Ginger's relationship. They go from being so close that they share everything with each other, to exclusion, and are prepared to die together and, over the month long space of the film's duration, they experience for the first time unsurmountable distances between them and find that it is impossible for them to share everything with each other. Most notably unshared is the experience of death that they once promised to share with one another. I'm not here to say that you are wrong if you didn't like this film. There are many ways to appreciate a film and in making a film, you can't please everyone. But I think that in many instances it seems like people who saw it didn't pay very close attention to this film. Some of these people liked it, some didn't. Maybe it's easier to like this film if you can identify with the characters or in some way connect to them. But even if you can't, even if you are experiencing a generation gap like Ginger and Bridgette's mother, or you have never experienced what it's like to be an outsider, or you don't know what it's like to grow up as a female in this time and culture, this is still a smart film that makes insightful commentary on society and does so in an interesting and unexpected way.

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• A rare beast indeed - a good teen horror!

  bob the moo2003-12-21

  Sisters Ginger and Brigitte are walking through the park when Ginger is attacked by some sort of wolf that leaves her badly cut before they get away. With Ginger on her period already she is upset about the various changes happening to her body but it is apparent to Brigitte that the changes occurring to Ginger are more sinister and she tries to find a solution. Despite the fact that the title is far too clever and silly for the film it announces this is actually a very strong teen horror. In the midst of the usual teen slasher movies, this film stands out as one that doesn't fall into the usual clichés (either accidentally or knowingly) and just concentrates on being a good film. The script cleverly uses the changes of teenage years and the changes of the werewolf as one and it works very well on the whole. Ginger's change is gradual and well done by the script. The film is gory but not in a bloodlust type way where teens are bumped off in gory ways for audience amusement. Here the film builds gradually with blood a constant thing but not in a sensationalist way. When the film comes to a close, it does well to not be diminishing by the sight of the wolf itself - often the hint of the creature is better than the actual effects, both work here. The cast are good on the whole. Of course the support cast do play the usual teen stereotypes but, unlike other of this genre, they are not just fodder. The best playing comes from Isabelle and Perkins- the former especially giving a really good performance that makes the script alive. Overall this was a very pleasant surprise - a good teen horror movie. It may lack the clichés of it's peers, and maybe that is why it is not as well known as the others, but it is a great little film and, if you need any further evidence of it's calibre - the ending is one of taste and restraint, words not often associated with teenage slasher movies.

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