HORROR MONTH #26: Ginger Snaps, by John Fawcett (2000)

Type of Media: Film

People change a lot as teenagers. It's just a matter of course that, as bodies develop and hormones start coursing, personalities shift as well. You may not have the same interests or hang out with the same people after you go through puberty, and to others you'll seem like an entirely new person. Or maybe, if you change enough, an entirely new creature.

Ginger Snaps focuses on Brigitte and Ginger Fitzgerald, sisters in a suburban town who stand apart from their high school classmates because they share a morbid fascination with death. The older Ginger has just started her first period when she gets bit by a 'beast' that's been plaguing the area and starts transforming. Her wounds sprout hair, she grows a tail, and she becomes more aggressive and promiscuous. Brigitte, working with a local pot dealer, determines that Ginger has been bitten by a werewolf and tries to find a way to cure her sister before she fully transforms.

Ginger's lycanthropic change is a very clear metaphor for puberty. However, her most surprising change isn't physical, it's in her relationship with Brigitte. Whereas previously the sisters had been best friends, even making a pact as children to die together, Ginger's new interests leave the pre-menstrual and mousy Brigitte confounded. Her sister's sexuality is conflated with monstrosity, or at least submission to primal urges, and their relationship goes from loving to competitive.

The two lead actresses playing the Fitzgerald sisters are great, showing a real chemistry that establishes their relationship as incredibly important to one another. It also has surprisingly good creature makeup for a low-budget movie, starting subtle and adding prosthetics to Ginger's appearance as she goes through her transformation until, by the end, she looks quite alien.

After Ginger Snaps released to a lot of positive buzz at film festivals, its wider release in Canada was botched leading to a poor box office. Maybe this was intentional, as the Columbine shooting had everyone on edge about a horror movie starring two gothy girls who are obsessed with death, but regardless it almost certainly kept this movie from achieving wider popularity. Thankfully it's grown in cult status, especially with teen girls who identify with Brigitte and Ginger. If you're having a girls-night-in movie night, or you need something to watch with a younger teenaged sister, this is a great pick. For anyone else, if you're looking for a feminist take on werewolves, you can do no better than Ginger Snaps.