Best of Frightfest: As the twentieth anniversary of Arrow Video Frightfest approaches, we at team THN take a look back at some of the best and brightest films that have screened over the last two decades. Our attention today shifts to Ginger Snaps.
Ginger (Katharine Isabelle) and Bridgette (Emily Perkins) are inseparable sisters. The pair are social outcasts, but can’t care less as they have each other. Favouring a taste in the macabre, they soon find themselves living a real-life horror film as Ginger is attacked by a large dog during a full moon. It soon becomes clear though that the beast might not have been a dog at all, as Ginger starts to change. As the next full moon approaches, Ginger’s transformation starts to manifest physically, and Bridgette begins to realise that her sister might be becoming a werewolf. She must work out first how to help her, and if she can’t, how to stop her.
On paper Ginger Snaps might technically be a horror film, but it’s a horror film that also does a pretty spot on job of portraying the horror of female adolescence. In particular, it highlights the ‘changes’ that us females go through wrapped up inside a nifty werewolf film. Ginger Snaps focuses heavily on the parallels of the monthly changes of a werewolf and the monthly changes of womankind. Resonating particularly with teenage girls, the film shows the turbulent minefield in which young women have to traverse in order to make it to adulthood.
What makes Ginger Snaps so strong is the relationship between Bridgette and Ginger. Their bond was strong enough that two further films were made in the series, one a direct sequel, the second a prequel set hundreds of years earlier. The chemistry between Isabelle and Perkins is fantastic, and at times it’s hard to believe that they aren’t actual real-life sisters. They clearly get along too as, in addition to the sequels, they returned to play sisters in Another Cinderella Story. In Ginger Snaps, the bond between the sisters isn’t the healthiest though. The two are each other’s entire world, choosing to not mix with anyone outside of each other until Ginger begins her change. It’s a destructive dynamic to toxic levels, but one that makes for great viewing. This theme of sisterhood theme is something that director John Fawcett would use again in his co-creation of television series Orphan Black.
Arrow Video Frightfest returns for its twentieth year on 22nd August 2019. Full details about the event can be found on the Frightfest website.
Kat Hughes is a UK born film critic and interviewer who has a passion for horror films. An editor for THN, Kat is also a Rotten Tomatoes Approved Critic. She has bylines with Ghouls Magazine, Arrow Video, Film Stories, Certified Forgotten and FILMHOUNDS and has had essays published in home entertainment releases by Vinegar Syndrome and Second Sight. When not writing about horror, Kat hosts micro podcast Movies with Mummy along with her five-year-old daughter.
