I would
really like to love this film. After all, it provides an earnest twist on the
werewolf sub-genre, it was produced with some of my taxes, and it stars a
tremendously fetching, teenage Katharine Isabelle. I would like to love the
film but in all fairness, it is only slightly superior to similar genre fare,
defused as it is by a very underwhelming finale and some formulaic twists. The
premise is quite clever and the free-floating camera allows for some privileged
intimacy with the characters, but the end result leaves one eager only for a
closer look at Isabelle’s tail-free buttocks.
Despite some real screenwriting efforts, there is only so
much to do with the werewolf narrative.
While it is
not an actual spoiler (like Gregg Araki’s disappointing Kaboom, for example), the title could be said to accurately
describe the premise. Ginger Fitzgerald is your average teenage recluse,
fantasizing about death with her equally moody sister Brigitte in their gloomy
suburban basement. Both sisters are hormonally challenged in that they have
never experienced cramps (or as they call it, “the curse”) despite their age (15). But when Ginger starts feeling symptomatic back pains, it would seem that
she has reached womanhood after all, much to the delight of her mother and the
despair of her fearful sibling. Her natural transformation is precipitated however,
when she is bitten by a roaming lycanthrope, thus becoming a sex-starved,
self-assertive individual with growing panache and growing hair, as well as a
bothersome tail above her lovely behind. Seeing how her sister is fast
degenerating and starving for human blood, it is up to Brigitte to save her,
with the aid of a savvy local weed dealer and all-around botanic enthusiast.
While it
could be said to be only another teenage monster flick, Ginger Snaps actually edges its competition by bringing along a
highly welcome, contemporary twist on gender
representation. As is the case with vampire stories, the werewolf narrative
always focuses on the transformative power of the affliction and its intrinsic
ties with sexuality and the awakening of sexual potency. This is often tied to
a very macho iconography, with the phallic canines of the vampire tying the
predatory nature of the creature with the idea of rape and werewolf hair
reminding one of secondary male sexual features. What Ginger Snaps does with its premise is to cleverly transpose these
tropes into the dreary world of awakening femininity, thus providing a
refreshingly frank perspective on the matter. This provides not only
screenwriter Karen Walton with a distinct voice in the genre, but also the whole of horror
film females, whose sexuality is finally depicted in its rightful complexity,
and not merely as an instrument of the devil.
Appropriating the myth for an earnest
depiction of budding femininity.
As a male
with no sisters and very few female friends, it never struck me how much
grimmer the perspective of womanhood is than that of manhood. From what I
remember, almost all of our secondary
sexual traits seemed cool when we were teens. We got to grow hair like dad,
coarse hair that would make us look though. Then, we could cum, and assert
ourselves through the power of our gushing seed, making pissing contests all
but obsolete through tales of jizz-covered windows and walls. Personally, I
long for the carefree days when I could climax without cumming and messing up my
sheets, but it now seems that any sexual inconvenience I might ever experience can hardly be
compared with those experienced by young women. In the film, this is depicted
in a delectable scene where the school nurse explains the nature of her cramps
to a discouraged Ginger. “Thick, syrupy, voluminous discharges are not
uncommon”, she says before adding that the apparition of a “brownish, blackish
sludge signals the end of a cycle” that will repeat itself every month for
thirty years. The bleakness of this discussion flattens Ginger’s traits into a
mask of painful desperation. Not only do the two sisters have to cope with a
bleak hometown comprised of rows after rows of bland suburban housing, with
hostile female classmates and horny male classmates to endure, but they also have to cope
with the life-long curse provided by their very gender. That is the horror of
adolescence and it is heightened to great new extremes by the traditional genre
tropes associated with the lycanthropic transformation.
As far as
gender representation goes, one must also note the absence of any strong father
figure within the narrative, with the sole male character worthy of interest
being the functional weed dealer. The ineffectual dad, or parent, is a staple
of teenage genre films. Otherwise, there would always be a quick resolution to
the problems faced by teenage characters in such narratives. But it is rare to
see such a purposefully subdued character as father. Maybe, this is typically
Canadian, but the patriarch here is a non-factor, neither a tormentor, nor a
resource for his estranged progeny. He does not seem interested in their faith
and he squirms at the very mention of their budding sexuality. “Pam, we’re
eating!”, he sternly interjects as his wife is discussing cramps with his
daughters. “They never go out!”, he blandly states as she forbids the two girls
from going out and becoming prey to the “beast of Bailey Downs”. Judging from such apathic reactions, it seems that
his role as parent does not go beyond providing sperms and sitting down at the
dinner table with his family. Such a representation of the “dad” opens up a
whole window as to the uncaring nature of the male gaze in matters of female
sexuality.
"Blackish sludge", or the horrific terminology of puberty.
The lack of
interest of the father actually echoes with that of most male characters within
the narrative. From teachers who admit to being “sickened” by the girls’
macabre, but highly elaborate photo series depicting “life” in Bailey Downs to
school counselors who argue that there is no justification for hormone-driven
female violence and horny classmates who see nothing more in Ginger than a
“mutant lay”, the male landscape is pretty bleak here, and synched to fit that
of the dreary suburban landscape. Surprisingly, the only male character of
valor here is the obligatory “stoner” and this provides yet another twist on
conventional representational tropes. Being a lucid, resourceful, selfless and
helpful peripheral character, he turns out to be a welcome substitute for the
usual drug-peddling cannon fodder. Again, this might merely be a Canadian
thing, but the idea of drugs here isn’t contorted into the rigid framework of
morality, but it rather opens up an intriguing world of arcane knowledge. Using
his botanic skills, our friend actually manages to devise an antidote from
wolf’s bane distilled in alcohol. While this provides the sub-genre with a fun
alternative to silver bullets, it provides the whole genre with something far
more important: the recognition of pot-smokers as potential mystics and
awakened individuals. I don’t wish to go into this at great length, but the
criminalization of recreational drugs is a social plague that is profitable
only to violent criminals and soulless pharmaceutical companies. Thanks to
enlightened liberal narratives such Ginger
Snaps, this highly disturbing, hatred-fueled staple of our well-thinking
“progressive” societies is at least challenged. And so does the fight to free
female sexuality from a stern logic of sin and amorality extends to include
drugs in a vibrant panorama of understanding and open-mindedness.
But while
the film eschews the conservative staples of the genre in matters
representational, it doesn’t stray off the beaten path in terms of
story-structure. Shortly after Ginger is bitten by the werewolf, in a confused,
hyperkinetic sequence that leaves the viewer more startled than excited, the
film starts walking along the dotted lines of the genre. The young woman
becomes estranged from her sister, sporting a new look that doesn’t do much but
flaunt her natural beauty. She also becomes interested in boys,
but in a predatory manner that leaves one poor classmate infected. This takes place
in the backseat of his car, where Ginger very much plays “the guy” by
aggressively pinning her partner down and nearly raping him. This is another
fun play on gender expectations, but it remains rooted very much in the conventional predatory instincts of the cursed individual.
The rest of the narrative sees the cursed sister becoming increasingly worse,
with the healthy sister helping her cover the bloody tracks left by the beast, all the while
trying to devise a cure. This plays out very much as you’d expect it to be,
with victims falling into the werewolf’s path like so many leaves on a park
alley in autumn and Ginger turning evil in the most predictable,
over-determined way possible. The main problem here is that, while the latter remains an interesting character for the most part of the narrative, her final
transformation into a being of pure evil, and somewhat uninspired craftsmanship, seems
to sap every early attempt at characterization, drawing the final confrontation
with her sister far away from the Shakespearian heights that it could’ve
achieved into a simple, and very disappointing “close encounter with the beast”
type ending.
Cat calls for a foxy, err... wolfy Ginger at the height
of her sexual potency.
This is a
great shame since Katharine Isabelle is not only one of the most beautiful, but
also one of the most interesting Canadian scream queens since Neve Campbell.
While her character from Freddy vs Jason
is nothing more than sexy cannon fodder, her work within Canadian genre cinema
has allowed her to portray two of the strongest, most dangerous and intriguing
female leads in recent memory. Aside from Ginger Fitzgerald, the accursed young
woman who longs to be considered more than just a simple lay by her male peers,
Isabelle has also incarnated the vindictive Mary Mason from the recent rape-revenge effort American Mary (reviewed here). Escaping
the poisonously farcical tone of the I
Spit on your Grave remake (reviewed here), this latter film has established
one of the strongest avenging angels out there and a character of true,
unflinching resolve. However, if Isabelle portrays Mary with cold efficiency throughout, she strikes a better balance as Ginger for most of the original
Ginger Snaps. Being both a strong and
willing young woman, but also a scared and confused one, she brings nuance to
her role, appearing both vulnerable and terrifying at the same time.
Unfortunately, this balance is eventually trumped by her completed
transformation into a werewolf.
As far as
mise-en-scène is concerned, the volatile, free-roaming camera helps create a
very organic sense of space, alternating freely between languorous tracking
shots and POV shots to create an all-encompassing panorama, but also clinging
mercilessly to the protagonists, entering even bathroom stalls and exploring
changing rooms with all the self-control of a seasoned pervert. This greatly
helps achieve the level of intimacy necessary to depict the predominantly
sexual nature of “the curse”, and the privileged and very close relationship
between the two sisters, while servicing the spectator looking for forbidden flesh. In that regard, the navel-puncturing scene is highly erotic. While
Brigitte is laboriously fitting Ginger with a “cleansing” ring of pure metal,
piercing her flesh with a tiny phallic tool, the accursed sister is squirming
on her bed while screaming and holding the railing with both hands, very
much like in the throes of ecstasy. This highly sexual image is actually
reprised both for the back side of the DVD cover and the chapters list in an
obvious attempt at suggesting raunchy love-making. Luckily for us, while it
could be said to have been taken out of context, this image actually proceeds
from an even more enticing, if merely symbolic sexual encounter between the two
sisters. And that is truly the magic of horror filmmaking at its
psychoanalytical best!
A sublimated sexual encounter between the two sisters
is the psychoanalytical high of the film.
Camerawork
aside, the film uses clever mise en abyme
to link the two sisters’ troubled everyday life with the droning experience
that is high school, allowing for smooth and seamless transitions between the
two. It turns out that the entire opening credits, in which the girls are
framed and photographed in elaborate death scenes to the rightfully melancholy
music of Michael Shields, are part of an elaborate school project entitled
“Life in Bailey Downs”. The transition from the opening credits to the school
settings is thus not only seamless, but very telling of both the protagonists’
state of mind and the revolting nature of their existence. Unfortunately, such
clever storytelling techniques eventually disappear as the narrative starts
drawing from the prefabricated, almost necessary mold of the traditional
monster movie, very much moving on rails up to the final reel. As for the
settings, they are appropriately droning, but hardly extraordinary in their
banality. The endless rows of prefabricated houses on which the film opens
could be said to have power in themselves, but it is eventually only in their
bathing in blood that those suburban dwellings find meaning for what they are,
fake neighborhoods sanitized from life itself and begging for blood only to
give them meaning again.
There is
much to be said about Ginger Snaps,
both as a vehicle for the gorgeous and underused Katharine Isabelle and as an
earnest feminist horror effort, but the film does not actually deliver the
goods as a whole. Once the wheel is in motion and the narrative starts striving
on prefabricated tribulations, its feminist edge starts losing its sharpness,
eventually being destroyed through the evacuation of the gender issue into the
redundant motif of monstrosity.
Suburbia livened by blood, death and Thom Best's
organic camerawork.
2,5/5 While it benefits from a clever feminist
premise, some organic camerawork, and one of the greatest scream queens out
there, Ginger Snaps is eventually
marred by its familiar story structure.
