Bitácora de Purgossu

Ginger Snaps started as a Canadian production of not too high budget. After became a cult work, extending the original film to form a trilogy was made possible, having both sequels their premiere in the same year. Within the horror gender, we could classify it as personal horror with broad reminiscenes from gore (or vice versa).

Is apparent that the plot itself isn't anything new in the gender, starting from an idea already stated in An American werewolf in London (and its sequel? Parisian remake?), just to mention one of them: a teenager is bitten by what at first sight seems to be a huge dog, and from here on some (very few) brutal murders are commited, at the same time the girl undergoes the changing. To stand out, however, the good use, in the original movie, of the metaphor that associates the werewolf shapeshifting with regard to the changes in puberty. It seems this kind of allegories works really good in the horror film gender, having been successfully used in other productions as Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

The first film starts from the social misfit (o rejected) teenager archetype, this time they're Ginger and Emily, two sisters who are obsessed with the death and who accidentally become infected with the curse of lycantrophy when they're planning revenge against a school classmate. Anything really original, as already stated. From here on starts the mentioned metaphor about adolescence and lycanthropy, including some torrid moments that, however, doesn't fall in the vulgarism of explicit (and unnecesary) scenes.
In this first installment the plot is needlessly prolonged, being the last half an hour a pile of not really skilfully chained scenes, pretending to delay as fas as possible the ending (though, in the other hand, it doesn't become unworthy of watching it). It can be summarized as, after a slowly but continued advance, this passage gathers the frights and pursuits that are inherent to the gender and that more than one spectator was missing.



The second installment is an epilogue that I don't think was really needed to be done. Continuing the intrigue about the slowly but inevitable metamorphosis, one of sisters is finally interned in a rehabilitation hospital after being taken for a drug addict, as she usually injects herself some wolfbane to alleviate the infection. If that wasn't enough, an old familiar to them makes his appearance...
With an interesting and appealing beginning, the narration however doesn't lead to be as intriguing (maybe because of what is to come is in outline speaking already known) and later on in the film, they stressed the action more than the characters development. So, not being much more or less developed then in the previous film, the script is a bit more austere to some extent, despite the ending leaves an open way to new sequels.
On the positive side, the story is focused in the physical changes (though -ahem- I personally missed the eye-catching tail...) more than in the hormonal changes, besides offering a more supernatural (or maybe just schizophrenic?) atmosphere in some scenes.



Despite its subtitle (the beginning), the third film is more of an alternative remake than a prelude, some kind of "what if...?", so to say, of the original film. Giving the impression to be an explanation no one have asked for, is by far the less assessed by the public from the three films.
And I say this is more of a remake because the main characters are the same (at least, in appearance and name), despite the story takes place around the XIXth century, one of the sisters is inadvertently bitten and they don't even explain the origin of the firsts lycanthropes. On the other hand, aside from the historical period, secondary school is replaced by a fort (or a little fenced settlement), where the young girls arrive after their parents pass away during a shipwreck, and this time the residents are who know and explain them about the existence of the beasts.
Some archetypes associated to that historical period aren't missed, like the fanatical puritan, the indian hunter and the indian she-chaman. The later, by the way, would be the one who triggers the visions so distinctive in the series, though this time they are more of indian mysticism than of lycanthopic nightmare.
The bigger difference in regard with the style is probably as this one has been filmed as a more "serious" production, in a more formal tone and a leser teen mood than the former films (being this one of the more criticized aspects in general terms). Though this doesn't pose a big problem, it do lose some the original essence which was a characteristic part of the series. I also stand out, in the negative side, the already usual bad habit of fast and continuous camera moving in these scenes (just two or three, luckly) when they try to capture a feeling of intrigue and strain, but instead of archieving this as expected, they are just able to get the spectator muddled and losing focus in the action. (I particularly think that the only films in which this effect has been successfully used are Evil Dead 1 y 2).



Coming back to the series as a whole, performances in general terms are right for the gender, standing out the excellent acting of the main actresses, Katharine Isabelle and Emily Perkins. Especially the latter, who carries out perfectly her role of a introverted and shy teenager. In the technical section is of great appreciation that they've decided to use traditional make-up and prosteshis instead of the, quite often, overrated digital effects, showing a pretty meticulous and realist looking that is subtly enhanced in further installments.

In a nutshell, it consists of a not quite original series for its conception but which is able to tell a story that, despite being a teenager product, is much more enjoyable and pleasantly to watch than most films of the gender. I have to emphasize too the bittersweet taste (in the original film and its prequel) and the intriguing open ending (in the sequel), all them fortunately being far away from the cloying and more than usual endings they use to present in the films of that kind: either happy characters after the dissapearance of the antagonistic or the, by no means, last-minute appearance of the typical monster/murderer who pounces on the survivors.

Technical information and more Ginger Snaps reviews in IMDB (1, 2 and 3).