Okay guys, so it's no secret that I dig werewolves,
and my favorite show is She-Wolf of London.
So hey, let's take a look at a female werewolf movie.
Ginger Snaps is about Ginger and her sister Bridget, two teenagers who are obsessed with death.
Ginger is bitten by a werewolf and spends the movie slowly turning into a monster,
hence Ginger snaps... Clever!
I get asked about the Ginger Snaps movies quite a bit actually,
and truthfully it's been way too long since I sat down and watched them,
so I've taken the time to revisit the flicks this October
and I've been pleasantly surprised at how well the first one is held up.
If you want a pretty good summary at the tone of this movie, take a look at the following.
-Just give me one clean shot. It's just what, a fucking promise.
-Don't humor me.
-So, Fitz...
-I think we should get together.
-No.
This is not your average teen flick. It's pretty much anti-romance happy funtime.
And it's also incredibly funny.
The humor stems from Ginger and Bridget's complete distaste for everyone else.
Their happy bubbly mother, the cheery school nurse...
The film paints positivity in such a negative light that you root for horrible things to happen.
It's a great example of dark humor done right.
And the film is smart. I particularly like the update of having the guy helping them find a cure
be a druggie who uses his chemistry skills to try and whip something up.
Everything in this means something.
A lot of werewolf movies use the curse to represent something else, the beast inside.
But Ginger Snaps is specifically about womanhood.
Whereas some of the movie is very subtle, you probably won't have to look hard to see the metaphor.
Ginger is growing up, growing apart from her sister, looking at boys a different way.
Sometimes she has mood swings, all part of becoming a woman.
Also you might hunger for human flesh.
In a genre that's very testosterone based most of the time, it's a unique look at femininity.
It's also a movie with female leads that doesn't center on romance.
Ginger and Bridget are written like real people. Very disturbed people, but people.
Horror is unique in that it's sometimes exploitative of women,
but can also be one of the most empowering genres.
Some of horror's strongest characters are the final girls,
the ones who survive the horror and kick some ass at the end.
Which brings me to my next point: Ginger Snaps isn't really Ginger's movie.
Essentially the main focus is on her sister Bridget.
She begins the movie very much in second place to her sister,
hiding in the background and doing everything she does.
The movie is about her gaining her independence, choosing to take the opposite path.
In the beginning the two of them made a pact,
that they would do everything together. They would die together.
But by the end of the movie that's what separates the two: Bridget chooses life.
Ginger has the opportunity to get help, but she's too far gone to ask for it anymore,
she continues down her own path to destruction.
Sometimes I feel like the werewolf genre gets left out of it in horror.
The reason for that is really because werewolves are the easiest to mess up.
The makeup is really hard to get right and sometimes it's difficult to find balance
between human and monster in the characters,
but in Ginger Snaps we have Bridget to ground us. She is the human side.
And the effects are really awesome. I particularly like the subtlety of the eye makeup
to make Ginger seem slightly more wolf-like.
I also appreciated the non-traditional aspect of it by making a werewolf white.
Both of our leads do a great job, and the movie is very well acted.
It's not a dainty film, and it has some particularly gross stuff in it,
but it's also very funny and never seems to be going on long.
So if you like horror movies with brains and guts, you'll enjoy this one.
It's definitely one of the best werewolf flicks out there.