Reviews
[Review] ‘Ginger Snaps’ (2000) Is About as Perfect as Werewolf Movies Get
Brigitte and Ginger are sisters, trapped in the teenage wasteland of an Ontario suburb. Their fascination with death and sticking it to their classmates and family have made them outcasts. But when a revenge plot against a rival puts them in the path of a werewolf attack, Ginger’s mauling at the hands of the beast begins a metamorphosis of mind and body. As she peels away layers of her old self, she replaces them with something far more aggressive, while Brigitte fights to try and save her sister from the new thing she’s becoming.
The simultaneous tragedy and comedy of growing up is a perfect match for the horror genre. The inherent fear, and liberation, of becoming a different person can be evoked with a lot of power when you pass it through the lens of the violent or the supernatural. Ginger Snaps is the film I’d consider the platonic ideal of exploring that experience, exploring the monstrous nature of change. Director John Fawcett and writer Karen Walton didn’t just make a fun teenage werewolf film where they easily could have; in my eyes, they made about as perfect of a werewolf movie as you can get.
Sisters, Suburbia, and a Savage Werewolf Attack in Ginger Snaps
Brigitte and Ginger are sisters, trapped in the teenage wasteland of an Ontario suburb. Their fascination with death and sticking it to their classmates and family have made them outcasts. But when a revenge plot against a rival puts them in the path of a werewolf attack, Ginger’s mauling at the hands of the beast begins a metamorphosis of mind and body. As she peels away layers of her old self, she replaces them with something far more aggressive, while Brigitte fights to try and save her sister from the new thing she’s becoming.
I was instantly sold on the idea of a grim coming-of-age story, adding lycanthropy to the already mortifying experience of puberty. But it isn’t until about a third of the way through that I realized how layered Ginger Snaps would really be. It buries the lead for the first 20 minutes, feeling more like a spread for a DIY goth photo zine as the plot gets set up. But after the actually horrific and very effective werewolf attack happens, the narrative gets a jumpstart with a pair of fur-covered jumper cables.
Hilarious Double Entendres and Sharp Social Satire in Ginger Snaps
There’s levity in spades thanks to the double entendre that is its whole plot, likening having your first period to a werewolf’s slow and painful transformation by moonlight (the symbolic strawberry shortcake gag that recurs in the film had me actually doubled over laughing when I first saw it). Ginger’s transformation is used for the obvious, to poke fun at teenage angst and the sexism you’re sort of just taught to accept at face value as you become a young adult, but it also cleverly puts some horrifying twists on formative experiences of youth. It also just has such well-rounded and enjoyable characters to spend the runtime watching that you can’t help but actively admire Walton’s writing in the back of your mind as it unfolds.
Obviously, I’m very late to the conversation of Jennifer’s Body being inspired at best and derivative at worst of Ginger Snaps. But in my opinion the tone, the plots, and most importantly the actual directing of the movies are so disparate that you’re likely not going to be bothered seeing the similarities. You might even find it entertaining to spot the parallels, although I felt like a little of the magic from Needy and Jennifer’s dynamic is dampened, knowing Snaps laid the perfect blueprint that Diablo Cody likely built heavily on. I suppose the key strength it has over Body is a script that feels more precise and clever, whereas Kusama’s film is more bluntly funny. Ginger Snaps is a lot subtler in its humor than the dialogue-driven jokes of its successor, relying on little acting quirks and one-liners that are drier than they are quippy.
The Heart of Ginger Snaps
Of course, a great script doesn’t mean great performances. But in a stroke of luck, Emily Perkins and Katherine Isabelle are the perfect fit for their characters. I wouldn’t say they have the best on-screen chemistry the entire film, and some of their lines do come out awkward, but when they’re lashing out at each other as hormones explode and the stress of the dilemma melts their brains, they both play to their roles perfectly. They’re completely believable as sisters who love each other but can’t stand to exist around one another as they realize things aren’t how they used to be.
Perkins in particular is wonderfully wide-eyed and insane as she tries to roll with the punches of her sibling getting worse and worse, both physically and emotionally. You can totally understand how they made this a trilogy and instantly get why they are the heart of these movies. Perkins and Isabelle both carry the rare essence of feeling like they were born for their roles.
And despite all of the fun Ginger Snaps brings to the table in their rapport and its more violent and wild moments, it’s a film that plays everything straight. Sincerity abounds, a far cry from a lot of the tongue-in-cheek successors that played off its motifs and style. It has a harrowing ending that just drapes over you heavily as it unfolds. It uncoils and examines the previous hour and a half of wild horror movie you’ve been enjoying with a pure tragedy. It leaves you time to reflect on the dark nature of the absurd ordeal the sisters were put through. You move from a mostly suspenseful, if not lighthearted, movie into a ridiculously sad ending, one with a truly biting final shot that is genuinely as gorgeous as it is depressing.
A Timeless Exploration of Growth and Transformation
Although it seems redundant to say, Ginger Snaps isn’t just a neat film. This isn’t a special effects-driven roller coaster ride, although there is a profoundly talented group of special effects artists and sculptors here who put an immense amount of work into the actual werewolves of the film. Ginger Snaps above all else is a movie that evokes a quintessential feeling of living: the feeling of growth. The trepidation and dread of changing, transforming and looking back at the version of yourself you left behind. It examines what it means to watch those relationships change, struggle, and sometimes die with the person you’re becoming.
When a movie is able to achieve that kind of emotional resonance, I have to give it its flowers. A bouquet of roses (and maybe some monkshood for safety) is the least of the accolades Ginger Snaps deserves.
A24 never stopped pumping out banger horror movies. Let’s get that out of the way, straight away. Even its commercial and critical flops, like Opus or Y2K, still took a lot of really original swings, even if it hasn’t been a string of masterpieces like in their horror heyday of the late 2010s and early 2020s. Still, they may have made their scariest yet with Undertone, in a return to A24’s original MO of pure indie filmmaking.
A Single Location Horror Film Powered by Sound
Undertone is not a perfect movie, with an occasional off story beat, and the ending just missing the mark of perfection, but it is a tried-and-true testament to the power of storytelling. With essentially one active, on-screen actress and a single location, the film manages to create a sensory hellscape with immersive nightmare-inducing audio that has both story and scares derived entirely from a podcast. It is a sensory overload of pure terror, one that feels deeply sinister in its pitch-black story, one that demands to be seen in the darkest possible movie theater.
A24’s Undertone: A True Crime Podcast Turns Supernatural
The story is pretty straightforward…at least at first. It follows a true crime/horror podcast host (Nina Kiry), who lives by herself as she takes care of her dying, elderly, and borderline vegetative mother. Her co-host (Adam DiMarco, who is never fully seen) is sent a series of ten mysterious audio files from an unknown address, presumably sent for her to listen to on the show. As they begin to record their latest episode with live reactions to the files, reality slips further as she and her co-host fall into supernatural delirium. Strange noises, slipping time, and other haunted house trimmings all come out to play, each elevated by (as mentioned) horrific sound design and an even more horrific backstory.
Nursery Rhyme Origins and Deeply Disturbing Mythology
The story is about 95% airtight. Without getting too deep into spoilers, the origins of these files and their meaning are deeply fascinating, with some elements and angles involving the origins of nursery rhymes that are very, genuinely disturbing. There is one twist in particular that explores what one of the sounds truly means, which is highly upsetting once pieced together.
That being said, Undertone has some familiar tropes, and while the movie mostly touches upon certain unexplored mythology, certain scenes can feel a little too familiar to other recent demon movies like Shelby Oaks. The true meanings are a lot more creative, but it could have played around with its mythos to create a truly original villain.
Undertone’s Ambiguous Ending Demands a Rewatch
Similarly, the ending is almost perfect. There is a final twist about something the protagonist might have done that is a little confusing, and reframes the context of the film. It is highly interesting, however, and opens up several cans of worms of what this movie has to say about children, motherhood, and parenthood as a whole, as well as posing questions about the movie’s setting and timeline. It is always better to remain vague in horror, which this movie definitely does, but just a slight retweak of its final act could give the audience just the tiniest more understanding, without it going into full, mainstream territory. The film definitely requires a second watch, and in the best way possible.
A Groundbreaking Podcast Horror Experience
In a nutshell, the film’s methods of storytelling are groundbreaking. This movie is not a podcast, but all of its scares and stories are delivered to us like it is one. It feels like the birth of a new medium or style of movie, a perfect blend of audio and visual, with emphasis on the audio.
Additionally, with the story being literally told to us as if we’re listening to the characters’ podcast itself, it is a nightmare rabbit hole.
Like many people born in the mid-90s, the Sci-Fi Channel was one of my first introductions to horror. Whether it was random films playing or Sci-Fi’s 31 Days of Halloween, this channel was one of the main channels in my household. For the month of March, we’re going to take a look at Sci-Fi Originals (and maybe I cheated a bit and picked films that had their premiere on Sci-Fi). Picking films for this month was no easy task. Did I want to cover one of the plethora of amalgamated mega-animals fighting each other? Or what about shark tornadoes? One of the films I picked, after finding it too difficult to find Children of the Corn (2009) on streaming services, was an odd alien film I had never even heard of. That film is Silent Warnings.
What is Silent Warnings About?
Layne Vossimer (A.J. Buckley), his girlfriend Macy (Callie De Fabry), and a group of their friends head to Layne’s cousin’s house, Joe (Stephen Baldwin), after his mysterious death. Once there, they find the house in disgusting disarray. The friends decide to help Layne clean it up in order to put it on the market. But things quickly go south when they find a series of VHS tapes Joe left behind in the attic. What’s revealed in those tapes shows something that’s out of this world. Can Layne, his friends, and Sheriff Bill Willingham (Billy Zane) fend off these otherworldly invaders before it’s too late?
Conspiracy Theories, Mental Health, and Paranoia in Silent Warnings
As stated, this film was a late pick as I could not find 2009’s Children of the Corn streaming anywhere. Boy, am I glad I picked this. Silent Warnings has its fair share of issues. But it makes up for them in so many ways. This film is a very sober look into conspiracy theories, mental health, and the lengths that people go to when it comes to perceived threats. We get very little Stephen Baldwin, but what we do get is more than enough. He’s a recluse who lives on his 40-ish-acre property that’s been alien-proofed. His best friend (cousin?) is a scarecrow that has an AK-47. And he constantly records incoherent ramblings with his camcorder. Baldwin absolutely kills in his limited screentime. It’s like Stanislavski said, there are no small parts, only small actors.
Small-Town Horror and UFO Lore in Porterville
The quaint town of Porterville acts as the perfect backdrop for a story like this: a sleepy, nowhere town, where most people know each other. A town where the big call of the day for the Sheriff is about a missing dog. It’s the perfect setup for a story like this. It even mirrors many of the towns mentioned in Silent Invasion: The Pennsylvania UFO-Bigfoot Casebook. Much of this film’s atmosphere, the crop circles, acres of corn, and the disintegrating house, create a condensed world that adds so much claustrophobia to the film’s soul.
Acting, Dialogue, and the Problem with Early 2000s CGI Aliens
That being said, there are quite a few issues. Mainly, the acting. Besides Kim Onasch, Michelle Borth, Billy Zane, and A.J. Buckley (mostly), much of this film’s acting feels very Sci-Fi Original. It doesn’t help that the film’s dialogue, from writers Bill Lundy, Christian McIntire, and Kevin Gendreau, is just plain boring. And that’s not even mentioning how awful the CGI aliens look. A 2003 film about aliens, when only two or three are shown on screen, should be fully practical. And the fact that they use digital aliens takes away much of the film’s punch.
Why Silent Warnings Is an Underrated Sci-Fi Original
Silent Warnings doesn’t break much ground when it comes to the topic of aliens/Ufology, but it’s damn entertaining. But that’s the thing. Films don’t necessarily need to break new ground. I appreciate the swings this film takes, whether they hit or miss. There’s a wonderful setup with Stephen Baldwin, and the slow build to an exciting finale makes it all worth the wait. For a Sci-Fi Original, Silent Warnings has worked its way into my heart.
The Horror Press Podcast Episode 57: Backrooms & Jigglyspot
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‘Silent Warnings’ (2003) Review: An Unknown UFO Gem
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