Ginger Snaps (2001)

Cast:

Emily Perkins is Brigette
Katherine Isabelle is Ginger
Kris Lemche is Sam
Mimi "This is my apology for Lost in Space" Rogers is Pamela

What the box says:

Ginger and Brigette, two sisters trapped in suburbia, are obsessed with mayhem, torture and death until they get a taste of the real thing. Bitten by a wild animal, Ginger begins to mutate into a sexy, uncontrollable woman, with some nasty canine tendencies. Is it a virus? Is it a curse? Or the first step towards becoming a vicious werewolf!

Intelligent, inspired, and truly terrifying, this award-winning horror film makes you look as raging teenage hormones in a shocking new way!

Plot:

In suburban tract housing, a little boy is playing in his sandbox, smearing something red on his face. His mother looks over his shoulder finding him playing with a severed dog’s paw. She just notices the family dog has been mauled. She is suitably freaked out.

Brigitte is lugging various implements of destruction around.

Screaming mother runs in front of her yard crying about her dog. None of the neighbors care one iota. Brigitte continues with the can of gas and power tools.

Brigitte’s older sister, Ginger, has a knife out. She has decided it is too girly to slit her wrists. These sisters are seriously warped. They made a suicide pact years ago. Brigitte isn’t quite as gung-ho about it as Ginger.

Suddenly, we see Ginger impaled on a white picket fence. Brigitte and Ginger are taking photos of their staged deaths. By the way, did I mention they are warped?

In a class, the photos are shown as a project. The teacher is nauseated by it.

In the girls PE class, a few guys are checking out Ginger. Brigitte and Ginger are off to the side of the filed before having to participate in field hockey. Evil prep blonde, Trina, manages to knock Brigitte down into a dog corpse. Somehow, the dog wasn’t noticed before on the field.

Ginger is angry that Trina laid a finger on her sister. Later, Brigitte and Ginger want revenge on Trina. They plan to kidnap her dog and fake its death.

Later, Jason asks Ginger out on a date. She shoots him down not in Bon Jovi’s “Blaze of Glory” but a blaze of disgust.

Ginger and Brigitte head home to their hyper happy mother. Mom is a little too happy about teenage girl body changes. That thought truly disturbs Ginger. Mom and the hen-pecked Dad want the girls to stay in tonight.

After the parents are away, Ginger and Brigitte begin Operation Dognap. They head to Trina’s through the park and find a dead dog. Let me say Ginger has just went through the change. They hear something. Suddenly, an animal attacks Ginger. Brigitte follows her sister’s cries into the woods. Brigitte is suitably freaked when Ginger runs into her. The animal is still after Ginger.

Brigitte distracts the animal. The sisters are running from it by crossing the road. Sam, the local drug dealer, runs over the animal with his van.

Brigitte and Ginger run home. Ginger is covered in blood. As Brigitte tries cleaning her up, starts to realize the wounds are starting to heal. Ginger talks her out of calling the hospital. Brigitte managed to take a picture of the animal that looked like a large wolf. Maybe it was a werewolf?

Brigitte goes to the store with Ginger for female products. Ginger just thinks it is hormones.

Later, Brigitte finds Ginger in Sam’s van partaking of an illegal substance. Brigitte notices the grill of the van is ruined. She talks with Sam about werewolves. Sam runs the guys and Ginger out of his van. This is a drug dealer that doesn’t want his van used without his authority.

Trina’s dog lunges at Ginger.

Brigitte is convinced something is wrong with Ginger. The shoulder scratches are starting to grow hair. The connection between full moon and a large wolf isn’t a quantum leap for Brigitte. Ginger thinks it is completely insane.

Should a school nurse be that happy? They even see the school nurse who is no help.

Mom is doing the laundry and discovers Ginger is in the words of Neil Diamond “Girl, you’ll be a woman soon”. At dinner, Mom fixes Ginger’s favorite dessert. Ginger thinks Brigitte told Mom. An argument soon ensues.

Brigitte is researching werewolves through books and movies as the full moon approaches.

Ginger is starting to draw more attention from guys at school.

She is hungry like the wolf...	This is bad, very bad...

Brigitte watches from the background, worried.

Ginger is becoming aggressive to guys, too.

Sam manages to flag down Brigitte. He found her picture of the wolf. He wants to know what he hit. For the reason, Sam keeps thinking werewolf. Brigitte runs off without saying a word.

Four days before the full moon, Brigitte spots that Ginger is starting to grow a vestigial tail.

Brigitte visits Sam. She claims to be changing into a wolf. Sam is sure there has to be a cure. He gives her a silver earring to purify he blood.

Brigitte tries talking with Ginger who is still mad at her and storms away.

Mom tries convincing Brigitte that Ginger is just interested in boys and is fine.

Jason is out with Ginger. Well, in the vernacular of Duran Duran, she is “hungry like the wolf.”

Later, Ginger sneaks in the room, crying. Brigitte finds Ginger in the bathroom, working up her dinner. Ginger admits to eating the neighbor’s dog.

Brigitte finds part of the dog, unsure what to do.

Brigitte is going to pierce Ginger’s bellybutton with the silver earring. Ginger is worried how Jason will tell everyone in school about riding the wild lycanthrope. Brigitte doesn’t mention where she got the earring.

The next morning, the neighbor kid finds his dead dog.

At school, Brigitte ties down Ginger’s tail before gym class.

Jason, Ginger’s last night’s entertainment, was scratched and is undergoing a different type of change.

Sam tells Brigitte about another idea for a cure.

Ginger is mad that Brigitte told Sam. While playing field hockey, Trina goes after Brigitte, knocks her down. Ginger gets really aggressive, pummels Trina. Ginger is sent to the guidance counselor.

Jason is very disturbed when starts peeing blood.

Brigitte realizes that Jason is infected now. She convinces Ginger to go with her to see Sam.

At the greenhouse, Sam talks about a plant related to wolf’s bane called monk’s hood. The problem is Sam can’t find any monk’s hood immediately. Ginger treats this as a joke before leaving.

Back at the house, Ginger is shaving the hair off her legs and finds a claw growing through her heel. She hides it from when Mom bursts in.

Brigitte comes home. Trina demands for her to leave Sam alone. Apparently, Sam has a thing for the fairer sex. Ginger grabs Trina and brings her in the house.

Ginger thinks Brigitte deserted her for Sam. There is no cure. Trina grabs a kitchen knife. She slips, falls on the knife. Brigitte is disturbed by Trina dieing. They hear Mom coming back. There isn’t any time to clean the mess up.

Mom finds the blood on the floor. Brigitte is photographing Ginger.

They managed to stuff Trina in the deep freeze. Brigitte manages to distract Mom from looking in the freezer.

The girls get Trina outside. Dad’s only thought in the entire movie is thinking the girls are up to something.

Ginger is totally indifferent to Trina’s death. Brigitte’s plan is for Ginger to stay at home from school. Soon, they will both run away.

At school, the diseased Jason grabs Brigitte. He knows something bad is happening to him. As the janitor enters the room, Brigitte manages to escape.

At dinner, Mom learns that Ginger has been skipping school. Ginger storms away. Brigitte finds that Mom has monk’s hood.

Brigitte finds Ginger trying to cut the tail off. Brigitte will find how to use the monk’s hood and then can run away.

That night, Brigitte is sleeping with a baseball bat. Waking the next morning, Halloween, she traps Ginger in the bathroom.

Brigitte goes to Sam’s place with the monk’s hood. He isn’t sure how to use it. Ginger is still trapped in the bathroom, pounding on the door as Sam and Brigitte are refining and purifying the monk’s hood. Sam reveals he knows the cure is for Ginger as he hands it to Brigitte.

Brigitte finds that Ginger has escaped.

Ginger is at school, acting uber trampish at this point. The guidance counselor takes her to his office.

Brigitte finds Jason chasing a trick-or-treater. She draws the syringe and injects him. Jason rapidly loses the bloodlust and runs away.

At school, Brigitte is ordered to report to the counselor. Ginger has hacked him to pieces. Ginger has a more lupine look. Brigitte will help clean up the mess.

At home, Dad finds a couple of severed fingers. Mom thinks it is one of the girls’ projects. Both are unaware those are Trina’s fingers.

Back at school, Brigitte is working on removing the corpse. The janitor is trying to unlock the counselor’s office door. Suddenly, he is crawling away from that office.

Brigitte is freaked by Ginger mauling the janitor. Ginger wants to start a pack with her sister. Ginger is starting to act awfully friendly in an immoral way to her sister.

Ginger refuses to return to her human state. She threatens to kill Brigitte if she comes near her again. Ginger is after Sam, now.

Mom finds Trina’s body.

Brigitte is heading to Sam’s and is picked up by Mom.

At the greenhouse, a party ensues. Ginger arrives. Sam is in the back.

Mom wants Brigitte to get Ginger from the party. She will take the girls with her and burn the house down. Mom has some serious issues, too.

Ginger hears the call of the wild. Ginger won’t take no for answer from Sam. Would it be acceptable if I made a doggy style joke at this point?

Brigitte heads to the back and finds Sam and Ginger. Brigitte cuts her hand and smears it into a cut on Ginger’s hand. Brigitte is infected, now. Both of them run out of the greenhouse.

Mom heads into the party to find the girls.

Sam manages to knock Ginger out with a shovel. Brigitte is mad about it. She was planning on luring Ginger to the house. Sam learns the cure works but needs another batch of it made.

As Sam drives to the house, Ginger is the back of the van continuing to transform to her true wolf form.

Brigitte heads to get the monk’s hood for the cure. The van door is open. Sam checks and finds her missing. Ginger has escaped.

Ginger is in the room with the monk’s hood. Sam and Brigitte follow the trail of destruction. They start working on the cure. Sam volunteers to inject Ginger with the cure.

Ginger attacks Sam.

Brigitte is alone. In the dark, she gets out of the closet, following the trail of blood. Eventually, she finds the syringe of the cure.

The bloody trail leads into the basement. Brigitte trips and loses the syringe.

Brigitte finds Sam who is still alive.

Wolf Ginger approaches. Brigitte tries convincing her sister she is part of the pack. Brigitte tries drinking some of Sam’s spilt blood. Brigitte gets sick from it.

Ginger realizes Brigitte isn’t part of the pack and kills Sam.

Brigitte is being chased through the basement and loses the syringe again.

Ginger keeps lunging after her. Brigitte manages to keep escaping by the skin of her teeth. She finally barricades herself in her bedroom.

Brigitte has a knife and the syringe. Ginger slowly approaches.

Brigitte tries to get Ginger to recognize the cure. Ginger jumps at her, impaled on the knife.

Brigitte looks at the pictures of her and Ginger on the wall. Brigitte is with Wolf Ginger as she dies.

What I say:

How could I have gone so long without doing a werewolf movie? I’m sure someone would ask about mummies. Not that I have anything against pickling ancient relatives and burying them in luxuriant places much nicer than where I live except for the indoor plumbing, electricity, etc...As much as I've heard about people running around in black and more mascara than Robert Smith of the Cure and claiming to be even angstier than an Anne Rice character. You can't count college kids running around playing Masquerade. I used to work in a computer lab at college in front of where they would meet and do whatever they do. And, they were relatively quiet so it couldn't be that bad. What about our finely furred carnivorous lycanthropes? Well, the wait is over....

Really, while reading my comments, I suggest you listen to Neil Diamond singing "Girl, You'll be a Woman" soon. I even considered trying provided a suggested soundtrack. But, I couldn't steal from Scud the Disposable Assassin. Ok, if Neil Diamond is offensive to you, what has he done that's so bad? I must stay focused. The Urge Overkill remake from the Pulp Fiction soundtrack would be acceptable.

The myths about werewolves are nowhere as famous as those of vampires. Vampires drink your blood to convert you. The Dracula based legends are not the most prevalent version of the vampire mythology now. It seems to be more based on saying vampires spread a virus in their bite. Thus, vampirism symbolizes a virulent STD. What about werewolves? They bite you and the next full moon you turn, too. Who hasn't been bitten by a dog or for that matter a duck? But, Ginger Snaps expands on the idea that lycanthropy can be spread through a bite or scratch. It shows that lycanthropy is like a virulent STD. The carrier doesn't care about spreading it. How many times did Ginger spread it? Only once, but with her raging hormones it wouldn’t seem to out of character for her to infect someone else.

Now, Marvel comics have mutants develop their powers during puberty. Teenagers always feel alienated and angsty. Stephen King's Carrie is another good example of this. The novel of Carrie is one of the few novels I couldn't get through. The shower scene with Carrie unsure of what is happening to her was pretty bad. I could handle almost anything except that. Ginger's lycanthropy rages even more out of control as her late puberty kicks into high gear. Or, is it the other way with her developing sexuality being amplified by transforming into a werewolf?

My biggest complaint would have to be the pacing at the end. How many times did Brigitte drop the syringe and have to retrieve it? With tighter pacing, the end would have been a lot more suspenseful. The movie could have shaved off a few minutes. I’m not quite sure why they had to keep finding dead dogs all over the place.

Brigitte is portrayed as more than just the depressed death-obsessed teenager. Through the movie, she seems to start realizing there is more to life than death. The closest example to her transformation to any other movie characters would have to be the horror fans in John Waters Serial Mom. It is rare for a movie not to try to force a romance between characters. Sam and Brigitte being platonic is almost unbelievable.

At the beginning, she has previously planned a suicide pact with her sister. However, as things spin further and further out of control, Brigitte is the one trying to find a way to save Ginger. Meanwhile, Ginger has decided to live life on the wild side. It is an interesting comparison between the two. The suddenly rebellious sister needing to be saved by her younger sister who were the best of friends. As Ginger becomes more and more destructive and reveling in the chaos. Brigitte is trying to save her.

A few humorous moments pop up throughout the movie. This isn't even a darkly humored movie like Heathers. Ginger Snaps needed something to help lighten it up. A movie that is overwhelmingly dark and depressing is awfully hard to go through. Allow me to digress for a moment. Neon Genesis Evangelion has been described as a series that from the first minutes of the first episode, you know it can't end happily. I think you can see from the first few moments of Ginger Snaps the same thing will happen here.

The closest we get to the infamous Odious Comic Relief is Mimi Rogers as the parody of the suburban housewife who runs the house. Her husband is at best a non-entity. It doesn't take much to realize who wears the pants in that family. I'm not sure if this is supposed to be some sort of symbolism for Mimi to run the house. Why does Mimi believe that she is responsible for her daughters killing Trina? Better yet, why does she want to set the house on fire before escaping with Ginger and Brigitte?

There isn't any real explanation why Ginger and Brigitte are the outcasts. Most of the time, there is never real explanation why. If you are different, you are awarded the Distinguished Tormented Medal. Carrie and many other movies have the teenage boys pretty much controlled by their girlfriends who actually determine the high school politics and social standing.

Trina couldn't stand the sisters from the beginning. There was no explanation which kind of took something away from Ginger Snaps. Hostility of that degree needs a reason. Most of the high school trend-setters ignore those who are obviously below them. In fact, after Ginger first is on the prowl, Trina starts warning Brigitte to get her sister on a leash. After, Sam and Brigitte start talking, Trina assumes that Brigitte is following in the steps of her sister. Trina wants her man, Sam, left alone. In fact, she starts coming across as tortured by almost mentioning how Sam ruined her. But, this movie can't given Trina any depth. For as many things it get right, it was bound to miss a few things.

Katherine Isabelle starts off as a disenchanted teen disgusted with high school society. It seems believable as she changes more than lycanthropically for her to become the out of control teen. An aside, because, I can't stay on the same subject for more than a sentence or 2. After watching, I started thinking about Katherine Isabelle as Rogue in the X-Men movies instead of Anna Paquin. With the streak in the hair, Katherine would do better as a teen Rogue. Sorry better get back on subject. Katherine is no stranger to genre films being in Freddy Versus Jason.

Emily Perkins goes from a outcast follower to discovering strength she never had. What can you say when you help discover a cure for lycanthropy and are trying to save people from being devoured by your carnivorous and hot older sister? Through the movie, she starts taking precautions like sleeping with a baseball bat. After, Trina dies, the one line when asking Ginger would you eat Trina if she wasn't here is hilarious.

The transformation as Ginger starts getting silver streaks and pointier teeth seems more believable than a full blown wolf transformation. Throughout the film near the middle, Katherine Isabelle carries herself like she is definitely running things at school. The idea of turning into a werewolf that makes you more aggressive and capable isn’t new: Jack Nicholson in Wolf. I wasn’t too fond of her completely white wig and the almost Cardassian looking skin right before her final transformation.

Legitimately dark werewolf movies are few and far between. Most of the lycanthrope movies would have at least a hefty dose of dark humor. John Landis and Joe Dante were able to get a lot of in-jokes in their movies. We normally get ones like the Howling or An American Werewolf in London. Each of the Howling sequels continually got more and more bizarre. Marsupial werewolves? Are there many werewolf movies that are played straight? I can only think of few that might but not watched any of them like Dog Soldiers.

Quotable Dialogue
“Baxter’s fertilizer.”
“She screws a drug dealer. She’s begging for negative attention.”
“I just got the curse.”
“Something’s wrong like more than just being female.”
“If I wasn’t here, would you eat her?”
Morals of the Story
Dog corpses are naturally camouflaged until walking on them.
Teachers are not bothered with the implications of students making death-obsessed photo projects.
Lycanthropy is an STD.
Severed fingers are best refrigerated.