Ginger Snaps (2000)

 

Ginger Snaps (2000)

 

"I've got this ache, and I thought it was for sex, but it's to tear everything to fucking pieces."

 

n Ginger, explaining her special version of teenage angst

 

Once upon a time there was a throw-away Horror film that’s core idea was strong enough that it played on the audience’s imagination years-later more than it did on first viewing. The film wasn’t bad, only mediocre, but somehow “I Was a Teenage Werewolf” (1957) spoke so directly to its audience of almost-adults (a then new and expanding audience for Horror films) that those who laughed at it on first viewing remembered the anxieties it touched upon when full-adults (Stephen King memorably worked it into his novel “It” (1986)).

 

“Ginger Snaps” isn’t a remake, but clearly influenced by the earlier film. It took every half-developed idea in the older film, placed them front-and-center, and made a powerful film about how scary it is when you reach the age that your body is transforming. There’s also a sex-reversal at this film’s center, Actor Michael Landon’s tragic protagonist, Tony Rivers, was been replaced with Katharine Isabelle’s equally doomed Ginger Fitzgerald.

 

In a funny moment, Ginger’s hiding in the bathroom, increasingly terrified about the changes in her body. Her mom, Pamela, played by Mimi Rogers, walks in without knocking and Ginger pulls the shower curtains shut:

 

Pamela: You don't have anything I haven't seen before.

Ginger: That’s what you think.

 

But another new element is that her violence is as much about her resentments towards the abuses and annoyances that many High School girls face as any paranoia about puberty (note: the human Victims prove more likely to merely annoying, not Villainous). This film is smart and funny, and its idea of Girl Power is Grrrrl, with a deep lupine growl.

 

Best of all, “Ginger Snaps” is far more about relationships than the former. In “I Was …” Tony has a girlfriend and a family, but the plot is constructed such that his most important relationship is with an evil Psychologist, Dr. Alfred Brandon, played by Whit Bissell, who turns Tony into a Monster. In “Ginger Snaps” Ginger’s central relationship is with her sister, Brigitte, played by Emily Perkins, and everything is built on that.

 

Ginger and Brigitte were born less than a year apart, Ginger’s 16 to Emily’s 15 (amusing trivia, the actress playing the older sister was still a teenager, while the actress playing the younger sister was 22). Ginger is the pretty one, Emily more withdrawn, but their bond is strong.

 

They live in one of the dullest suburbs in the history of cinema (Production Designer Todd Cherniawsky, and some of the  location footage was filmed in Brampton, Ontario, the town that cast member Kris Lemche grew up in). They are so unimpressed with their surroundings that they mostly sequester themselves their shared bedroom. Both are contemptuous of the tyranny of High School cliques and related nonsense, and enjoy a safe-place they share with each other full of Revenge and Suicide fantasies they are clearly not serious about.

 

When they do go out, they blithely ignore that local pets are being mauled a “Beast” which is freaking out the neighborhood’s adults. One night they go out to play a prank on Mean Girl Trina Sinclair, played by Danielle Hampton, because they are sick of being put upon. In a bit of unsubtle symbolism, this was also the night of Ginger’s first period.

 

Actually, most of this is pretty normal stuff, unless you’re trapped in a Horror movie.

 

Ginger gets attacked by a Werewolf, something neither girl believes exists, nor does anyone around them. That’s when the story really kicks in.

 

Plot-wise, most everything that happens afterwards, happens to Ginger. She’s growing hair in unexpected places, her personality changes, she’s both more irritable and hyper-sexual, she demands to be left alone, then begs for help, and she’s growing a tail.  

 

The movie’s pretty bloody through-out, but early in the film, the gore is mostly gross-out comedy. Different from most Werewolf movies, Ginger doesn’t transform back-and-forth with the rising and setting of the full moon, what is happening to her is a one-way-trip, and given that, it takes almost a full hour (in a less-than two-hour film) to get around to the first human kill, and that death was accidental (and very funny). After that though, the violence takes a nastier attitude.

 

The climax was on Halloween which gives Ginger’s partial transformation a perfect cover. Actress Isabelle both complained and joked, “Blood. All day long I’m covered in blood. I can’t sit down, I can’t move, I can’t walk. With the contacts I can’t see, with the teeth I can’t talk without a lisp, with the hair I have to scrub it out with Borax and dishwashing liquid. There’s glue on my face and blood in my ears and my legs and my face are stained pink … it’s tedious. It looks pretty cool in the end, though, so that makes it all worthwhile.”

 

And Ginger’s full transformation is a pretty original take on the Werewolf, far more Wolf than Human; also, albino, important because Ginger’s hair was red early in the film, so the emergence of white fur signals the shedding of her humanity.

 

Paul Jones was the Prosthetic Effects Supervisor and Creature Designer, and clearly had fun. “There were a couple of offers that came up around the same time I was offered Ginger Snaps, but Ginger Snaps struck me as a film that would show off what I do for a living extremely well. It has everything in it. Every aspect of what I’ve done over the last five years is in this one film: transformed humans, werewolves, dead animals, prosthetic make-up, sculpting and animatronics.”

 

Part-transformed, Ginger was wonderfully sexy and sinister, with elongated fingernails, incisors peeking teasingly from corners of her smile, and silver streaks running through her red hair.

 

As for the fully realized creature, "I wanted it to be more skin and muscle than fur or hair … I really wanted to get away from the guy-in-a-fur-suit trap of other werewolf movies; I was going for a skeletal look. I wanted it to be more hellhound than werewolf, actually."

 

Surprisingly, the film focuses ever-so-slightly more on Bridgette than Ginger. Alone, Bridgette has to figure out what’s happening to her beloved sister, and more difficult, figure out how to save her after the truth becomes obvious. As Ginger’s violence escalates, Brigitte never considers doing anything but protect her sister, ultimately making her complicit in Ginger’s crimes. Bridgette’s desperate battle of love gives this film resonance that few Horror films can claim. Both girl’s Characters have strong arcs, but familiarity with Horror makes Ginger’s obvious; with Bridgette, we see her move from Goth-mouse, head down and looking at the world only from under the spit-ends of unkept hair, to Independence to save her sister, then to Warrior to save her sister and save herself from her sister. Bridgette’s haircut never improves (Ginger’s does) but her posture straightens considerably.

 

There are other characters. Notably, both outcast girls have a thing for Bad Boys. Infected Ginger picks idiot Jock Jason McCardy, played by Jesse Moss, and from this we soon learn that Lycanthropy is also an STD. Bridgette chooses a smarter Bad Boy, Sam, played by Kris Lemche, who soon proves to have a hidden sensitive side, and more importantly, some knowledge of Botany and Arcane folklore (not really improbable, because we all know that all too-smart-for-their-own-good High School kids hide a copy of the “Necronomicon” under their pillows).

 

Then there’s the girl’s parents, Henry, played by John Bourgeois, and the above-mentioned Pamela, both are hilariously, and heart-breakingly, clueless (says Ginger, “I hate our gene pool”). Every once in a while, though, Pamela demonstrates maybe-perception (Pamela to Henry, “Stay in your own little world Henry. This one just confuses you”).  

 

The trio of best developed characters, Ginger, Bridgette and Pamela, are all female, rare enough in cinema, extra rare in Horror. The initial idea came from John Fawcett, who ultimately Directed. The fleshing-out of that idea into a complete screenplay was mostly the work of his friend Karen Walton. Said Watson, “John and I talked a lot about working together. We just had to try and find an idea that appealed to us both. Initially, I didn’t want to get involved in writing a horror movie at all. I generally find them very disappointing as stories and pretty predictable and frustrating in terms of the depiction of females.

 

“‘Ginger Snaps’ presented an opportunity to make something sophisticated – to create real characters with real problems, characters that are human beings whose struggles are based on relationships. [I found the] horror element in the nightmare of trying to figure out who you are and who it is that you love. That was attractive to me, the opportunity to put a twist on the subject matter.”

 

I think we can safely credit Watson for all the, ummm, impolite jokes about women’s monthly cycles.

 

As the team creating this film continued to be fleshed out, most of the behind-the-camera players proved to be roughly the same age (meaning, raised on 1980s films) and familiar with each other’s work, all had resumes that garnered respect, but no break-through projects.

 

Producer Steven Hoban brought in Story Editor Ken Chubb, who was in fact, older and better established, and another two more years went into he and Watson perfecting the script. Finally satisfied, they went out looking for financing so another Producer was brought in, Karen Lee Hall, better connected with Canadian TV than Hogan, so she worked that angle while Hogan secured USA financing.

 

The USA money was initially 60% of the modest budget. Hogan, “The script spoke for itself. Anyone who read it responded immediately and viscerally. Everybody recognized the incredible craft of the script – how well written it was and how well drawn the characters were. … We had a lot of interest that allowed us to raise more money than is typical for a film of this size in Canada.” Filming was to begin in 1998, and things seemed to be running smoothly.

 

Ha!

 

The USA financers went through a leadership change-over, and ultimately pulled out.

 

It was not until 1999 that the necessary USA financing was secured from Unapix and Lion’s Gate Entertainment. Loin’s Gate had recently brought in people who’d worked with Hogan in the past, and as was in the previous rounds, the quality of the script was driving force.

 

It was not until financing was secured that casting began. Casting Director Robin Cook was recruited and conducted a search in five cities in both the USA and Canada. The biggest name captured was Rogers as Pamela, and that was apparently easy, but the entire film hinged on the casting Ginger and Bridgette, which proved more challenging.

 

After six months, Isabelle and Perkins were both “discovered” in the same city, Vancouver, on the same day; they were essentially hired after a single audition because they inhabited the parts so naturally. A couple of more amusing ironies, the two lead actresses, both of tender age, had longer resumes than the somewhat older main Writers and Producers. Also, in general, most of the cast had extensive TV experience, and several had worked on the same programs, but not the same episodes, so it both was, and wasn’t, the first time several of them worked together. 

 

The film received unheard off pre-production publicity for a Canadian film, but at least initially, it didn’t look like they were getting it in a good way.

 

While the cast-search was on-going, Canada (a country with a notoriously low violent crime rate) became hyper-conscious of USA’s Columbine High School Shooting (April 20, 1999) and this was made worse when, only a week later, Canada suffered their own at W. R. Myers High School (Canada’s first fatal School Shooting in more than twenty years). Press reports, including front page-newspaper stories and radio-talk shows, jumped on this. Knowing only that it was a Horror film concerning High School students, they alternately, and inaccurately, described it as a High School Massacre film or a Slasher film (though two of killings do take place at the High School, and with a total of five human kills, which does rival a Slasher for Body-Count). This negative publicity cost the film the financing that Hall had secured, putting more pressure on Unapix and Lion’s Gate.

 

In the end, the notoriety might have helped, as the film was successful enough to spawn a small franchise with a sequel and a prequel (both 2004, and I’ve seen neither), and decades later there’s still talk of either a fourth film or TV series.

 

Trailer:

Ginger Snaps (2000) - Official Trailer - YouTube