Macabre...ish Horror Review: Ginger Snaps

Ginger Snaps, 2000/ 108 min.

Codependent, outcast sisters, Ginger (Katharine Isabelle) and Brigitte (Emily Perkins) Fitzgerald are fascinated with death, so much so that they have a pact to die together. As a hobby the enjoy staging gruesome death scene photo shoots and fantasizing about the lives and gruesome deaths of bullies.

Meanwhile, the area the live, Bailey Downs is experiencing a rash of dog killings.

And as luck would have it, the bully, Trina, has a dog and the sisters plan to dog nap it and make it look like it got eaten. Unfortunately, on the same time evening, Ginger is bitten by whatever’s been killing the dogs. The local drug dealer, Sam, runs over the creature as it chases them into the road.

Afterward, Ginger starts acting different, more aggressive and violent. Growing a tail, which she tries to cut off and hair from her wounds, among other behaviors. Later, Sam suggests Ginger is a werewolf and suggests Monkshood to control the change.

But Ginger is uninterested in controlling it and her acting out is spreading the curse.  She also kills and Brigitte works to protect her, hide her behavior and her change. Brigitte, in her desperation to prove loyalty to her sister, does something insane but Ginger’s behavior as a lycanthrope disgusts her sister and drives a wedge between them.

Brigitte is now her enemy. Ginger is out of control and Brigitte has to do something to stop it.

The effects are pretty good and very gory. Teen angst to the nth degree. The parents are clueless until one of them is not and the reaction is pretty surprising.