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Review Cluster
The Ginger Snaps Trilogy
Part I
Ginger Snaps
(2000)
Dir. John Fawcett
So this was one of those irresistibly bad movies that came on at 2 in the morning, it had me hooked before the conclusion of the opening credits. Filmed in Suburbia, USA, Ginger a psuedo-Goth teenager and her younger sister Brigitte are outcast in their high school, with no one to turn to but each other and their only comfort in this cruel world was their suicide pact. While trying to gather pieces of a mauled dog for a practical joke on a popular girl, Ginger becomes a woman, the scent of the chum brings on a werewolf attack. After growing a tail (oh no, how will she hide that during gym class!?!), Ginger becomes a sexual predator going on a fucking/snacking frenzy. And her new look comes just in time for the Halloween Social. Need I say more?
Movie Highlight: Ginger and Brigitte’s slide show montage for school depicting gruesome suicide scene reenactments.
Part II
Ginger Snaps: Unleashed
(2004)
Dir. Brett Sullivan
Brigitte has bucked suburbia and her aspirations to die young. She goes on the run from a werewolf with a carnal obsession to mate with her, occasionally stopping to shoot up some homeopathic cure to keep from fully transforming into a teen wolf herself. Haunted by the ghost of her sister, Ginger, she lives in constant fear that they share the same gruesome fate. Her plans are interrupted as she mistakenly ends up in a rehab clinic for fucked up girls, where they keep her locked up from her stash (of course). There she is befriended by some creepy Children of the Damned-wannabe girl who is quite possibly the lamest most annoying character I've ever seen portrayed on film. It just goes downhill from there.
Movie Highlight: The ending credits… or the Directors commentary track where the guy actually tries to back up this low budget piece of shit with some sort of an ‘inside the actors studio’ critique of his work. I only made it through like 2 minutes of this- but I’m sure it would do nothing but enhance the viewing experience.
*I should note that this film was sort of the straw that broke the camels back and henceforth is the reason why my boyfriend has banned me from making joint movie viewing decisions at the video store. For life. And I’ve made him watch some shit, ok.
Part III: The Prequel
Ginger Snaps Back
(2004)
Dir. Grant Harvey
I wanted to just walk on by after the debacle of the second installment and what it did to soil the fond memories of Ginger’s first Snap, but it was just too beguiling. Afterwords, I realized Unleashed was just filler for the glory that is Part III. In a desperate attempt to milk the clever little name for all its worth, comes the prequel… Set in an 1815 fur trading fort… Yeah, you read that right. Ginger and Brigitte are back together seeking shelter from the sub zero winter and the spooky woods (how they got there is anyone’s guess, maybe they’ll cover that in the 4th one) inside a fortified camp plagued by mysterious gruesome deaths and where everyone seems irrationally afraid of something that comes in the night. Throw in a mutant child, some leeches and a few natives.
Movie Highlight: It’s a toss between the bad-ass Indian hunter seeped in stereotypical glory. I’m sure this was a challenging role for the actor who’s previous film credits include a Canadian made-for-TV movie about the Lone Ranger, wherein he plays Tonto. (Let’s here it for typecasting.) And the balls to the wall performance by the one guy (trust me, if you see it, you’ll know the one) who somehow, despite the weak ass set and B-Movie casting, convinced himself he was acting opposite Daniel Day-Lewis in The Last of the Mohicans.
Summation
Oh those Kooky Canuk’s! As is the case with most sequels, they would have been better off to just have left it alone, and I imagine Ginger Snaps could have become a cult classic. Hopefully the other two wont totally destroy its chances of aspiring to B-horror movie infamy. I do however have to give these peeps some kudos for going all out and creating a trilogy—hey, Lucas doesn’t have the lock on that shit you know—and as cheesy as this prequel was, it kicked the shit out of Episode One, for real.
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