There isn’t anything quite as scary as growing up.
Horror and science fiction are places where we allow the symbolism to be right out in the open. We demand subtlety from our drama, but naked metaphor is a hallmark of genre film-making. Ginger Snaps bites into that tradition with gusto (pun intended). This is a story of a teenage girl turning into a werewolf, sure, but it’s also the story of a teenage girl becoming a woman, and how that changes the relationship with her sister who is on a different biological schedule. The lycanthropy serves as a stand-in for puberty, and how it drives unsuspecting children crazy with gross new hungers that they don’t understand. The film leans heavily into this conceit, so if you are squeemish about the idea of teenage sex or menstruation, then… I guess you must be a dad from a mid-90’s sitcom. Welcome, Mr. Tim Allen, its an honor to have you read the website.
Katharine Isabelle does a really nice job in the demanding role of Ginger Fitzgerald, the sixteen-year-old outcast who copes with the realities of teenage life through a love for the macabre and a deadpan snark. The film calls for her to play the hormonal rollercoaster of puberty in a (barely) exaggerated fashion to account for her more supernatural transformation, and she is game for all of the lust, tears, and attitude that entails. The rest of the cast is uniformly solid, including Mimi Rogers as Ginger’s clueless but protective mother. It is Elizabeth Perkins, however, as Ginger’s younger sister, Bridgette, that makes the movie for me. She is so wrapped up in being like her sibling that comments Ginger might have tossed off without thought take deep root in Bridgette’s mind. She is ultimately more dedicated to the duo’s goth mysanthropy, so when Ginger starts to change it’s a betrayal to her. Perkins plays the part like Bridgette wants to be a shroud of dour mystery, but is not sophisticated enough to keep every emotion from playing out across her face like the world’s worst poker player. Her reactions to everything, from the mundane to the truly horrifying, are the film’s greatest asset.
I thought that Ginger Snaps would end up being a horror/comedy hybrid ala All Cheerleaders Must Die or The Babysitter, and it did start out that way. Towards the end, though, it took a turn for the dark. I found the final thirty minutes or so to be some of the more potent horror that I’ve seen all season. There were real scares, real stakes, and a nasty streak. My only criticism is that I felt like the film went a bit longer than it really needed to, and could have made the same point with a tighter presentation. For all you animal lovers out there, it also has the biggest canine body count of any movie I’ve ever seen. On balance, though, this was a unique take on the werewolf mythology, with a strong pair of central performances that hint at years of friendship and raw feelings in a believable way. It’s a good one.
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