It's possible I'm biased, but I've never managed to make it all the way through this movie in one sitting. I just get so bored.
Ginger Snaps is often feted as a smart, slick, witty teen drama/horror/comedy hybrid, using werewolf movie tropes as a metaphor for puberty, loss of innocence, and a character study of two sisters growing apart. It does have some snappy lines and genuinely funny moments, such as Brigitte (Emily Perkins) and Ginger (Katharine Isabelle) consulting the supermarket's 'feminine hygiene' aisle as Ginger's lycanthropic changes blur with the clunky plot point of her first period, but for me those are also the scenes that highlight the movie's weakness.
For my taste, the preoccupation with Ginger's burgeoning womanhood - her menstruation, her 'wolfishness' portrayed through aggressive sexuality (including flipping the roles on a pushy boy who has the nerve to ask her "who's the guy here?" shortly before she pins him down and bites through his chest), pleasure- seeking, and short-tempered moodiness - are a set of clichés that never feel as clever or deep as they seem to think they are. The scene in which Ginger compares blood lust to the joy of masturbation never fails to make me cringe. It doesn't help that writer/co-story writer Karen Fawcett's dialogue sounds less like genuine teen-speak than the esprit d'escalier of a 35 year old remembering high school.
Maybe it's because Brigitte and Ginger are so hard to identify with, being cast so firmly as outsiders from the start, with their shared obsession with death, a la Harold and Maude. Emily Perkins' performance - swaddled in baggy clothes, and hiding behind a forest of uncombed hair - is whole- heartedly committed to a vision of teen awkwardness, but the excessive wild-eyed staring overwhelms any sense of nuance or character development which could have brought the story some genuine depth in its first two thirds, and adds to the feeling of playing scenes for laughs instead of balancing dark humour with real emotion.
The movie's practical effects are unusual, and I don't have a problem with that, though it seems to put off a lot of horror fans, and the lycanthropy is not the conventional kind. Most of the liberally splattered gore scenes are effected with high speed cuts and crunchy sound effects rather than a more psychological approach, which feels like an odd choice given the movie's attempts at locating itself so firmly inside the sisters' shared bond.
Ultimately, Ginger Snaps may be many people's idea of a sharply comic modern(ish) take on horror movies - and particularly the role of women in horror - and if it speaks to you like that then great; such is the power of representation in movies. Unfortunately, for me it feels severely dated, clunky, and unrelatable, and it's easy to see the excitement about the movie as chronic over-hyping. If you go in expecting a teen drama with naked-molerat-werewolves and a somewhat second-wave feminist message, you might be pleasantly surprised, but if you remember the 90s trope of being too cool to take anything seriously and found it annoying then, you may want to give this movie a wide berth.
Maybe there'll be a reboot one of these days to smooth off the rough edges from a potentially promising idea?
Ginger Snaps is often feted as a smart, slick, witty teen drama/horror/comedy hybrid, using werewolf movie tropes as a metaphor for puberty, loss of innocence, and a character study of two sisters growing apart. It does have some snappy lines and genuinely funny moments, such as Brigitte (Emily Perkins) and Ginger (Katharine Isabelle) consulting the supermarket's 'feminine hygiene' aisle as Ginger's lycanthropic changes blur with the clunky plot point of her first period, but for me those are also the scenes that highlight the movie's weakness.
For my taste, the preoccupation with Ginger's burgeoning womanhood - her menstruation, her 'wolfishness' portrayed through aggressive sexuality (including flipping the roles on a pushy boy who has the nerve to ask her "who's the guy here?" shortly before she pins him down and bites through his chest), pleasure- seeking, and short-tempered moodiness - are a set of clichés that never feel as clever or deep as they seem to think they are. The scene in which Ginger compares blood lust to the joy of masturbation never fails to make me cringe. It doesn't help that writer/co-story writer Karen Fawcett's dialogue sounds less like genuine teen-speak than the esprit d'escalier of a 35 year old remembering high school.
Maybe it's because Brigitte and Ginger are so hard to identify with, being cast so firmly as outsiders from the start, with their shared obsession with death, a la Harold and Maude. Emily Perkins' performance - swaddled in baggy clothes, and hiding behind a forest of uncombed hair - is whole- heartedly committed to a vision of teen awkwardness, but the excessive wild-eyed staring overwhelms any sense of nuance or character development which could have brought the story some genuine depth in its first two thirds, and adds to the feeling of playing scenes for laughs instead of balancing dark humour with real emotion.
The movie's practical effects are unusual, and I don't have a problem with that, though it seems to put off a lot of horror fans, and the lycanthropy is not the conventional kind. Most of the liberally splattered gore scenes are effected with high speed cuts and crunchy sound effects rather than a more psychological approach, which feels like an odd choice given the movie's attempts at locating itself so firmly inside the sisters' shared bond.
Ultimately, Ginger Snaps may be many people's idea of a sharply comic modern(ish) take on horror movies - and particularly the role of women in horror - and if it speaks to you like that then great; such is the power of representation in movies. Unfortunately, for me it feels severely dated, clunky, and unrelatable, and it's easy to see the excitement about the movie as chronic over-hyping. If you go in expecting a teen drama with naked-molerat-werewolves and a somewhat second-wave feminist message, you might be pleasantly surprised, but if you remember the 90s trope of being too cool to take anything seriously and found it annoying then, you may want to give this movie a wide berth.
Maybe there'll be a reboot one of these days to smooth off the rough edges from a potentially promising idea?