The Ginger Snaps Trilogy

There are countless werewolf flicks to choose from for those interested in this particular genre, ranging from the good to the bad to the ugly. GINGERS SNAPS (and its two subsequent follow-up movies) differs hugely in so far as it adds a feminist spin to things. Fans of this Canadian horror franchise can now enjoy all three films in one box set, newly restored in Blu-ray format and with seemingly endless bonus material.

First up is GINGER SNAPS from 2000, starring Katharine Isabelle as the titular Ginger (Fitzgerald) and Emily Perkins as her younger sister Brigitte (ironically, Perkins is five years older than Isabelle). The two sisters, who clearly are complete oddballs, live with their parents in the unassuming (fictional) suburb of Bailey Downs, Ontario. Their parents are Mum Pamela (Mimi Rogers) and Dad Henry (John Bourgeois), both seemingly very liberal though it would be fair to say both live in their own bubble, in particular Pamela, who allows her two daughters a lot of freedom, especially when it comes to the girls’ morbid fascination with death and their macabre’ death games’… That is to say, they stage gory suicide/murder scenarios and take photos of each others mutilated corpses. Brigitte is the wallflower riddled with ‘teenage angst’ while the alluring Ginger is much more brash and confident. Both girls made a pact to die aged 16 if they fail to move away from their suburb.  

The film begins with an aerial shot of Bailey Downs, followed by a close-up of a toddler playing in a playground when suddenly, his tiny hands look blood-smeared. His mum, looking understandably alarmed, finds the remains of a slaughtered animal in the sandbox, grabs her child and runs towards her house, where she discovers their pet dog mutilated in the garden. In horror she runs into the street screaming, where a group of young boys playing pay little attention, nor do any of the neighbours seem alarmed by the woman’s screams. Meanwhile in school, both Ginger and Brigitte are given a hard time by bully girl Trina Sinclair (Danielle Hampton) and Ginger thinks of a suitable way to turn the table and give Trina a hard time. Given the rumours of the ‘Beast of Bailey Downs’ and recent mutilations of pet dogs, Ginger reckons that kidnapping Trina’s dog will do the trick and give the ‘bitch’ a fright. On the same night as the kidnapping of Trina’s dog is supposed to take place, Gingers begins her first period and when she and Brigitte are out and about on their kidnapping mission, the unspeakable happens: Ginger is attacked by a wild beast, with Brigitte desperately trying to separate them. Badly wounded, Brigitte sees to it that they make it back to their rooms without their parents noticing anything. Around the same time, local young drug dealer Sam (Kris Lemche) is driving along the nightly road in his van when he runs over the very werewolf (yes, it is a werewolf) which attacked Ginger.

Soon after the attack, Ginger begins to change not only in personality but also physically - the scratch wounds inflicted by the beast heal, but the scars sprout hair and she grows a tail (which sister Brigitte tries to hide from others by sellotaping it onto Ginger’s thigh) and menstruates heavier every the day. Back in school, Ginger begins to flirt with Jack-the-lad Jason (Jesse Moss) and it’s a flirtation he soon begins to regret… At the other end of the spectrum, Trina grows jealous upon noticing that good-looking drug dealer Sam seems to take a shine to geeky Brigitte instead of her, and this jealousy will soon cost her dearly. It goes without saying that the body count soon rises while Sam, who grows cannabis in his greenhouse but dabbles in concoctions derived from various plants, suggests to Brigitte that an extract of monkshood (better known as wolfsbane) might cure Ginger, which of course it does not. The stage is now set for some very gory action though the tale is still infused with the occasional humour, for example when Mum Pamela discovers Ginger’s blood-smeared undies while doing the laundry (they don’t belong to Ginger…), concluding correctly that her daughter had her first menstruation and celebrates the occasion by presenting Ginger with a cake decorated with red syrup…
The climax is both gory and sad, with most of the main characters dead and it’s not spoiling things when it is revealed here that Ginger won’t survive, whereas Brigitte, who now clearly is the stronger of the two sisters, survives the ordeal.

GINGER SNAPS 2: UNLEASHED followed in 2004 and it’s now established that Brigitte, although initially surviving the horrific events which took place four years earlier, had somehow become infected as her transformed sister lay dying and uses monkshood in order to stop the possibility of turning into a werewolf herself. We know she is infected because she keeps on shaving excess hair and other things. What we don’t know is what became of her parents since the tragic events years earlier, because Brigitte now wanders from motel to motel, addicted and injecting herself with monkshood. One night, Ginger appears as an apparition with the warning that injecting the plant won’t prevent the transformation into a werewolf, it merely slows down the process. Before we know it, Brigitte, menstruating, is stalked by a werewolf sensing she is ‘in heat’. To the rescue jumps flirtatious librarian Jeremy who knocks on her door to bring her some books (as you do) which she attempted to borrow from the library earlier on and is baffled to see her in a state which indicates toxic shock syndrome. Worried, he is about to get her into his car and drive her to the next hospital when out of nowhere, our werewolf attacks and kills his ‘male competitor’ Jeremy.

Brigitte manages to escape but later collapses in the snow and wakes up again in a drug rehabilitation hospital. Due to needle traces from her many monkshood injections, the doctors assume she is a heroin addict and refuse to let her go. While at the clinic and with various failed attempts to escape the facility, she meets a young girl named ‘Ghost’ (Tatiana Maslany) who is the granddaughter of a female patient  named Barbara, who lies in a different ward heavily bandaged due to burn wounds. We don’t know anything about Ghost’s mother or dad but what we do know within minutes of observing her is that she’s trouble… big time! She takes a huge interest in oddball Brigitte who initially feels irritated by Ghost - no surprises here because Ghost is an irritating character. However, after joining forces (and with Ginger appearing in numerous more apparitions) the two girls manage to flee the facility together is a spectacular escape sequence, littered with, you guessed it, bodies! Now the trouble really begins because not only does Brigitte transform more and more (pointy ears, pointy teeth and all of that) but Ghost begins to reveal her true colours… and the hues are deeply disturbing!
While GINGER SNAPS 2 lacks the occasional irony and humour the first instalment was liberally peppered with, and while for the most part of the film we are in the facility of a clinic, it’s filled with tension and action from the go. How does it end for Brigitte though? Well, you just have to watch it and get ready for the twist…

In the same year, the final instalment GINGER SNAPS BACK: THE BEGINNING was filmed, ironically, this ‘prequel’ is set during the Canadian frontier days and we are informed that each spring, a hunting party from a fort travels to Hudson Bay to trade pelts for winter provisions, but in 1815, nobody returns… This on-screen message is then intercut with brief glimpses of a rampaging werewolf, what else! Cue for Ginger and Brigitte Fitzgerald, who both sit on the same horse riding through the icy-cold Canadian wilderness, clearly having lost their way. Eventually, they stumble upon an abandoned native American camp which has been destroyed, only an elderly woman, a seer belonging to the Cree tribe, urges the sisters they must kill a boy first in order to prevent one sister from killing the other. Not that he Cree woman’s words make any sense to them, but it soon will… While contemplating which direction to take next, an unseen creature, presumably a wolf, starts howling and frightens the horse away. Panic-stricken, Ginger and Brigitte run after the animal but fail to capture it, instead, Brigitte steps into a bear trap hidden in the snow and ends up with a badly injured leg. A young Cree warrior, simply known as the Hunter (Nathaniel Arcand) appears out of nowhere, frees Brigitte and guides the two sisters to Fort Bailey, where the Hunter is known to everyone. The sisters, who explain that they are the daughters of a drowned trader and now seek passage east, are given a room and soon we meet the main characters: physician Doc Murphy (Matthew Walker), a somewhat shady individual who uses leeches as his preferred all-cure. The fort’s leader, Wallace Rowland (Tom McCamus) who mentions that both his wife and son were killed though doesn’t mention how. Sadistic Sergeant James (JR Bourne), a bully and misogynist. Reverend Gilbert (Hugh Dillon), a fire-and-brimstone preacher who makes no secret out of the fact that he considers the two girls a possible danger to the morale of the Fort’s men, and three other men: Mad Finn (Brendan Fletcher), Seamus (Adrien Dorval) and Claude (David La Haye), who constantly is at loggerheads both with the Reverend and with Sergeant James.

During one night in their guest room (it belonged to Wallace Rowland’s dead son), Ginger wakes up from a strange sound coming from another room. When inspecting the hidden room, she discovers a deformed boy who bites her… As it transpires, the deformed boy is none other than Geoffrey (Stevie Mitchell), the dead son of Fort keeper Wallace Rowland and he isn’t dead at all but is - oh, you know the answer - a werewolf! This is what the Cree woman meant when she said the sisters have to kill a boy first in order to prevent killing one another but of course, it didn’t happen that way and now that Ginger has been bitten, it doesn’t take long before she too turns and it’s back to the usual gory mayhem, made worse by the fact that all the Fort dwellers cannot leave (with the exception of the Hunter, who seems to have shamanic powers) because the Fort is surrounded by countless werewolves waiting to attack…awooo… This is great stuff and the idea to see Ginger and Brigitte transported back in time (obviously, they play the same characters albeit living in a different century) pays off. Although the dialogue tends to be too modern for early 19th century Canada, there’s plenty of scope for character development, seeing how the action is primarily set within the walls of Fort Bailey.
Each of the three discs offers its own Bonus Material, including Interviews, Audio commentaries, Behind-the-Scene footage, Deleted scenes, The Making of…, Growing Pains: Puberty in horror films, Cast auditions, Storyboards, Trailers and TV-spots etc.