Ginger Snaps

Harry, I guess I don’t read your sight closely enough. I never heard of this picture other than it was playing the seattle international film festival and some people said it was good. I didn’t know what it was about but I remembered the title so I pulled it out of a box of garbage like wishmaster 3 and children of the living dead. This was a box of artisan entertainment’s straight to video garbage that not even my video store connection was going to consider watching. They were just gonna dump em off to charity.

So this is the story of the teen horror picture that almost got away. The one that played a couple film festivals and then got dumped straight to video in the US by Artisan Entertainment, due October 23. I mean you can understand with all the high quality pictures showing this summer there’s really no room to put another really good one out there. What good is another good movie. They are so abundant right now what really is the point, right? Can’t think of more than one or two good ones off hand, but I’m sure I’m forgetting something.

GINGER SNAPS is not a movie about cookies. It’s GINGER SNAPS as in THE SNAPPING OF GINGER or GINGER FINALLY SNAPS or THE STORY OF GINGER ACTUALLY SNAPPING. This is a horror picture for the strong independent women. That doesn’t mean it’s for pussies, ’cause it’s gorey and intense.

Ginger and Bridget are sisters, age 15 and 16, who have no friends but each other. They stand on the sidelines during gym class, hiding in their hooded sweatshirts. They made a suicide pact when they were younger and they fulfill it by doing a photo essay for school where they stage spectacular suicides. Also did you know dogs keep getting killed in the neighborhood? They keep getting mauled and I don’t want to give anything away but I’m guessing it’s by the werewolf that bites Ginger in the beginning and by the way this is the story of Ginger slowly transforming into a werewolf and how her little sister tries to be there to support her.

The director of this picture is a man, but this isn’t one of those teen-girl pictures where you can’t help but think the Writer was jerkin off the whole time. Alot of men directors wouldn’t've made Ginger and Bridget sisters. the chasing amy dude for example woulda definitely made them lesbians, and made ‘em alot cuter. To avoid that kind of crap this director went out and got an actual woman to Write the script.

In one of horror’s greatest traditions the filmatists here use the supernatural to deal with real life problems that people can relate to, and in this case teenage girls. This is a movie about werewolves eating people and dogs but it’s also a movie about menstruation, and fuckin for the first time, and being jealous when your sister starts dating or hanging out with different people. Not as much jealous that she has those friends as that she’s being taken away from you. And it’s about girls not wanting to talk to their moms no matter how understanding their moms are, and about the intensity of emotions that you get at that age that make you just want to whoop somebody’s ass and/or bury them in your backyard. Or eat a dog I guess, I don’t know if that’s something kids do now or if it’s just a werewolf thing. I’m gettin old so who knows.

I gotta say, Artisan, you really blew it by not releasing this in theaters. If garbage like THE CRAFT can get a following of smart young girls then I guaran fucking tee you this one will be treasured for years to come. It’s gonna take longer to catch on thanks to you boys fuckin up but once the word spreads they’ll go nuts over it like they do with HEATHERS and HEAVENLY CREATURES. Guys won’t be able to relate as much on a literal level but I liked it so I’m sure you can find something to compare it to. Ain’t It Cool Newsies, you can compare it to if your friend starts reading only DC Comics, even though you grew up reading only Marvel together. Or whatever you nerds can relate to, I don’t know.

Something odd about this picture. It’s canadian. So they pronounce “sorry” wrong and the kids practice hockey out in the street, instead of real sports. And Ginger calls Bridget “B” for short which is corny by america’s more stringent cultural standards. But otherwise you wouldn’t know. I thought David “Davey C” Cronenberg and Atom “The Bomb” Egoyan were the only known canadians to make good Cinema, but the individuals who made this picture certainly know their shit.

Canada is always supposed to be a couple years behind the US so maybe that helped out here, because they’ve avoided the trend of trying to make their horror funny and self-referential. There’s not a single horror movie reference here unless you count when the drug dealer holds a syringe in his mouth which reminded me of the opening scene of George Romero’s MARTIN. Instead the filmatists just concentrate on creating a gloomy atmosphere and characters and relationships that are believable. People will especially relate to Bridget because she is smart and cynical without fitting a stereotype. She does not look like a product of Hollywood (or whatever they have in Canada.)

Seriously, don’t skip this one just ’cause it’s straight to video. I know what I’m talking about. As an outlaw film Writer, excluded from the critical mainstream and even rejected by the Online Film Critics Society (!), I’ve started reviewing alot of straight to video crap. If you thought you had it bad trying to find a decent movie in a THEATER, just try this stunt.

I’m not stupid, I know the rules. The main one is to avoid any straight to video picture with a rapper in it. I got nothing against rappers acting on the big screen, unless they’re doing an unneccessary remake of a classic (and I’m not talking about M you doofuses, I’m talking about DOLEMITE). But straight to video is different so I avoid Ice-T, I avoid Coolio, I even count Mario Van Peebles as a rapper due to his appearance in the film RAPPIN’. Even taking these precautions I have ended up sitting through some real doozies. THE CROW PART 3. CRUEL INTENTIONS PART 2. I’ve seen REPLICANT (Ringo Lam’s Jean Claude Van Damme clone picture) and MIMIC 2 (which is a sequel to MIMIC 1, would be my guess) and SOUTH OF HEAVEN, WEST OF HELL which is directed by Dwight Yoakam and stars Billy Bob Thornton, Bridget Fonda, Vince Vaughn, Pee-wee Herman and etc. but is only a little less boring than FINAL FANTASY.

So I know of what the fuck I speak. This is the first one besides ED GEIN that was really worth seeking out. ED GEIN is good for a straight to video but GINGER SNAPS is good period.

Originally published at Aint-It-Cool-News: http://www.aintitcool.com/display.cgi?id=9809

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Tags: werewolves

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 9th, 2001 at 2:11 am and is filed under Horror, Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.