27: Ginger Snaps

Brigitte and Ginger Fitzgerald (Emily Perkins and Katherine Isabella) are as close as two sisters can be. They are each other's best (only, actually) friend. It is the two of them against the world. There friendship is tested when, on the night of Ginger's first period, she is attacked by a wolf. She becomes moody and distant with her sister. She starts having sex with strange guys, and growing hair in odd places. Then she eats the neighbors dog.

Ginger Snaps Lycanthropy as puberty angle has been done before in other movies (Teen Wolf probably being the most popular example), but what really sets this film apart is the acting and story. The main characters have great chemistry, and it is hard not to love them whenever they are onscreen together. You really care about the fate of Ginger and Brigitte, which is not the most common thing in horror movies. Emily Perkins is great as the sulky Brigitte worried about her older sister, and Katherine Isabella is amazing as the increasingly demented Ginger. Add in the sometimes hilarious and sometimes disturbing mother character (Mimi Rogers), and you have a recipe for a great film.

The film's first half has a black comedy feel to it as well. A bumbling group of adults try to help Ginger through her hard times, including the aforementioned hilarious mother character. The high school is your standard film fare of jocks and nerds and popular girls, but they all manage to entertain so I can forgive the film for a bit of cliché here. The one thing that is never funny is the films supernatural elements, which are always played dead serious. You will see this a lot in the better supernatural comedies like Ghostbusters or Zombieland, where the humor comes from the characters rather than the the fantastical elements.

When Ginger Snaps is at its best, it reminds me of David Cronenberg's The Fly. Considering that The Fly is my favorite horror film of all time, this is high praise. The idea that someone you love could change unrecognizably into something else is already disturbing, but the point of films like The Fly and Ginger Snaps is that they are recognizable. Even when Jeff Goldblum is full transformed into the fly, you are not allowed to forget he is still Jeff Goldblum. He never goes around screaming “I'm going to eat your brains.” He always says things like “Why would you want to kill my son” or “You can help me, all I need is your body.” And even when Ginger is at her most monstrous, she still cares deeply for her sister. Enough to kill for her, even.

Ginger's full transformation into a werewolf ran the risk of being incredibly campy, especially since the special effects aren't the best. But since it is treated so seriously throughout the whole movie, it manages to really be scary. Even the mother character loses her darkly comedic edge near the end, which really helps show the films major shift in tone. This is all leading up to one of the most intense climaxes I have seen in films in quite a while. I really don't want to spoil it, but the film would be worth watching just for the last 15 minutes. But you shouldn't have to watch it just for the last 15 minutes, because the first 93 are all excellent as well.