Ginger Snaps
Starring: Emily Perkins, Katharine Isabelle, Kris Lemche
Writers: Karen Walton, John Fawcett
Director: John Fawcett
Synopsis:
Something is roaming the streets of Bailey Downs, tearing all the neighborhood pets straight the fuck up. Meanwhile, the Fitzgerald sisters --Ginger and Brigitte-- are faking their deaths in various ways and taking pictures of 'em to show off at school. These two have actually made a pact to kill themselves together, as they find most aspects of life pretty uninteresting. Out one night under a full moon, Ginger has her first period and shortly after gets attacked by... something. Well, her wounds start healing quicker than they should and Brigitte takes notice, believing that her sister was attacked by a werewolf. She starts reading up on the folklore and eventually befriends a drug dealer who has some knowledge on the beasts. But they are running out of time as Ginger is changing by the day, with the next full moon fast approaching. On Halloween, in fact. But how exactly does the full moon come into play?
Rant:
Much like with Dog Soldiers, I watched Ginger Snaps with zero expectations and little knowledge of knowing what I was getting into. Also much like Dog Soldiers, I fell in love with Ginger Snaps. Werewolves are my favorite monster, and I feel like their level of awesomeness is rarely given proper credit. Before seeing these two aforementioned films, I had to strain to remember the last good one I saw. I don't mean Bad Moon good; I mean like completely kick ass good. Karen Walton and John Fawcett turned the traditional lore of lycanthropy upside down by using it as a metaphor for coming of age, from a female point of view. While this probably isn't the first time monstrosity has been used as a figure of speech for something else, it still manages to pour some new blood into the werewolf genre.
Forget most common knowledge of werewolves. First off, silver bullets aren't necessary. Sure, they will do the trick, but if you're feeling ballsy, you could throw the mother fucker out a window 15 stories up and the sum' bitch is probably gonna die. Run it over, blow it up, put poison in its food bowl... whatevs. Also, a full moon isn't the true cause of the transformation. Though, the lunar cycle is an integral part of Ginger Snaps, because it coincides with Ginger's menstrual cycle --due to her being attacked when she gets her first period on the night of a full moon. Afterward, her transition from human to beast becomes more apparent by the day, leading up to the next full moon... which by then, her change will be full blown.
From a visual standpoint, Ginger Snaps is pretty damn sweet. I'm big on nice title sequences, and this one fucking rules. It's a demented slide-show --accompanied by one helluva doom and gloom theme song, courtesy of Mike Shields-- depicting Ginger and Brigitte's favorite pastime; snapping polaroids of their many faux suicides. This moment actually lets you in on how different the characters are from each other, despite their powerful bond. Ginger's deaths are always really elaborate, full of blood and gore, while Brigitte uses a more sterile approach, rarely showing any grue. Actually even before this awesome title sequence begins, there's a sweet creeping zoom-in to a child playing in a sandbox, right as he finds the paw of their family dog. Then comes this slow, angling sequence that travels over the dead pooch and fades out into the doghouse. It's freakin' sick in a good way.
That's not all to dig on by way of visuals. When Ginger is attacked by the beast of Bailey Downs, it's shown with hyper editing, keeping the beast mostly in the shadows. We get a quick but full glimpse of it shortly after, but I appreciate the monster being kept in the darkness. There's a grocery store scene that uses low angle, overhead views, wide shots, fantastic color schemes and product placement like a mother fucker. I really love all the use of slo-mo in Ginger Snaps, such as the hallway walk scene when Ginger has new found confidence in herself, as well as a similar scene at Sam's Halloween party. The house finale is also well shot with dark lighting, leveling up the suspense of what's going to happen. Lastly, for the night time scenes, John Fawcett and Thom Best (Director of Photography) went with a more orange lighting over a blue moonlit setting. Reason being a lot of said scenes take place in suburbia, so the idea was to give off the look of streetlights, porch lights, etc...
Interesting to note: Vincenzo Natali (Director of Cube and Splice) helped with storyboarding Ginger Snaps, as well as doing early designs for creature FX. A lot of his ideas for the creature FX were incorporated into the final product.
Emily Perkins and Katharine Isabelle knew each other since elementary school, so that probably made it hella easy to work into the role of the sisters, Brigitte and Ginger. While I enjoyed both actresses in their parts, I have to say Perkins is the better of the two. Brigitte is pretty complex and hard to read. She has a timidness about her, almost void of showing emotion when she is talking to anyone BUT her sister. Perkins really excels in these type of moments, too. Katharine Isabelle is awesome early on, and it's not that she ever gets bad, but once Ginger starts changing, I feel that the actress kinda falters when dishing out the new aggressiveness of her character. Overall it's definitely acceptable, and Isabelle goes from a bland appearance to hot is fuck in no time, so what the shit am I complaining about?
Kris Lemche (My Little Eye, Final Destination 3) fucking kills in his role as Sam, a biology + werewolf savvy drug dealer that befriends Brigette after her sister's attack. Lemche gives a lot of “cool” to his part, as well as realistically pulling off the sympathy that Sam has when it comes to helping Brigitte. What can I say about Jesse Moss (Tucker and Dale Vs. Evil)? I just don't particularly think he's a good actor. He plays Ben, the high school cool guy, desperately trying to get into Ginger's pants. He overacts the hell outta his role. I like overacting, until it gets to the point of an actor coming off like they are actually trying TOO hard to overact, and he certainly does. Felt the same way about him in Tucker and Dale. In Final Destination 3, he doesn't survive long enough to overact, thankfully. Mimi Rogers is a show stealer as Mrs. Fitzgerald, Ginger and Brigitte's mother. While she is a rough rendition of director John Fawcett's mother, Mimi put a lot of her own ingredients into the quirky role. She chose all of her wacky wardrobes and even requested additional elements be put in certain scenes (one in particular, she asked Fawcett to have the “what do boys want” conversation between Mom and Brigitte done while they're in the living room eating milk and cookies. It ends up being one of the most humorous moments in the film). Mrs. Fitzgerald is a crafty lady and really eccentric. Rogers opens a portal into her character, who seems completely clueless early on, but becomes so much more as the film progresses.
Paul Jones worked on special makeup and creature FX, and I dig the shit out of the werewolf in this flick! It runs on all fours and is low on fur (though, Ginger sprouts hair in abnormal areas before the full transformation), but just looks simply bad ass. Massive but boney at the same time; almost alien like. The makeup applied to Katharine Isabelle to depict Ginger's deterioration into this beast over a month's time is awesome too. At first it's just a cute little tail above her ass and some rancid looking fingernails, but it gets worse by the week. Towards the end before she hits full on werewolfery, she looks fucking nuts. The film has a fair amount of bloodletting too. ***Spoilers throughout→Roll Call: a handful of ripped apart dogs, werewolf Vs. van= roadkill, attempted tail cutting, the palming up of blood and barfing it back out, ←Spoilers over****and while the transformation itself is shown in brief shots that cut too black, it still looks fucking great.
There are some rock songs on the soundtrack from bands such as Fear Factory, Glassjaw and Machine Head, but the score is what counts, and it plays an integral role in growing the personalities of the Fitzgerald sisters. Originally, John Fawcett had envisioned these two girls as sort of being goth outcasts; he eventually changed this to them having no preference for fashion or music and not being part of any type of clique. They just hang out with themselves and talk to no one. Mike Shields' film score accompanies this element greatly, as the sounds are really somber and lonely-like. I personally love it, and as I praised it earlier, the main theme is unforgettable.
Random:
****Slight spoilers in pics****
1) "I am disturbed... wasn't I?"
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2) "A thick, syrupy, voluminous discharge is not uncommon."
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3) Hah. That's all.
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4) Awwwww
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5) "Wicked! Smoke us up!"- Ginger
"Yeah, wicked, huh? Get the fuck out." - Sam
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6) Hah. That's all, part 2.
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This is obviously a favorite of mine, due to throwing a little something different into the genre of my favorite monster. It also spawned 2 sequels; Unleashed, which is damn near equal in greatness and Snaps Back, which I barely remember. Definitely one of the most memorable horror films from the 00's, and we desperately need more lycanthropic movies of this caliber.
****spoilers in slide show****
