Ginger Snaps Review

 

Ginger: [to Brigitte] A girl can only be a slut, a bitch, a tease, or the virgin next door.

In the Canadian suburb of Bailey Downs lives Ginger (Katharine Isabelle) and Brigitte (Emily Perkins) Fitzgerald, two very strange sisters. Three years late for their first period, they spend their time staging gruesome death scenes for their own amusement, amidst the wilful ignorance of their relentlessly mother (Mimi Rogers). On the night Ginger finally gets her period, the sisters are attacked in the woods by a ferocious creature that may have some connection to “The Beast of Bailey Downs,” a werewolf currently disemboweling its way through the local dog population. The girls survive the attack, and Ginger’s wounds heal quickly, but her attitude grows even more bizarre, as hair sprouts from her scars and a tail grows from her spine, is Ginger turning into a werewolf?

I had never heard of the film ‘Ginger Snaps’ until recently when I researched into the actress Katharine Isabelle. I was amazed at her outstanding acting and beauty and decided that I wanted to see more of the films she was in and so I stumbled upon Ginger Snaps and after reading the plot I was determined to get my hands on a copy. I have to say that I was slightly worried that the film could turn out to be utter crap seeing that the budget was low and it was a werewolf film, which in many cases werewolf effects can be beyond awful.

After the opening sequence had ended, all of my worries had gone and I knew that I was going to love this film. The camera angles were perfect and the tracking shots just added quality and it also gave that extra professional feel. The director ‘John Fawcett’ purposely jumps straight in with the gore by making a mother and her young son discover their family dog torn to pieces with guts all over the place, thus really hitting at the horror genre target audience. Now the ball is rolling and the equilibrium is disrupted making the audience want to watch more.

There are many things I loved about this film but for me the most impressive technique and idea was the way they tied in Ginger’s transformation through puberty with the raging hormones and in Ginger’s case its happened three years too late but I cannot really comment as I am a guy. Not only was her body changing in that sense but also changing into a werewolf at the same time. Both changes are tied together well, for example, when Ginger starts growing hair out of the claw wounds in her shoulder, she consults the school nurse who explains to her about changes in the body, such as hair where there was no hair before. Taking this further both Ginger and her sister are disgusted with their own emerging sexuality and this is clear through the whole film. So after watching this film you could easily say that when Ginger gradually changes into a werewolf it is a metaphor for adolescence.I am not a huge fan of CGI and that is another reason why I loved this film as I think I am right to believe that there was no CGI used. The werewolf didn’t look like CGI but still was very realistic and it didn’t look silly. John Fawcett clearly restricted the werewolf from the audience using certain camera angles purely to keep the audience guessing to what the werewolf looked like, thus achieving them to watch more.

A lot of credit is paid to the screen writer Karen Walton as no man could have written something like that for obvious reasons. It is clear that the people involved with this film were obviously very dedicated and knew exactly what they wanted the outcome to be. It’s not easy with a low budget but in my opinion this film couldn’t have been even a touch better if it did have a bigger budget.It’s a pity how the film didn’t have many theoretical releases world wide as I think it could have done so much better, I’m also guessing that the marketing wasn’t great either.

This film is excellent, as a werewolf film it is outstanding, I absolutely loved it all the way through. All of the actors were good, but the best has to be Katharine Isabelle, she was perfect for the role of Ginger and after watching this film with her in it I have to say she is now my favourite actress. A superbly handled film with excellent werewolf effects, definately 10/10.

Ginger:

I get this ache… And I, I thought it was for sex, but it’s to tear everything to fucking pieces.

By Tom