Knock on Wood

As of writing, it has been exactly nine days since I watched the 2000 film Ginger Snaps for the first time. Of those nine days, I have been able to stop thinking about it for about zero of them.

If you’re a movie fan, Ginger Snaps is the kind of hidden gem you dream of finding. One that not many have seen, but it just hits you so powerfully and distinctly that you have to tell anyone you think might like it that they must see it. It might make me that person, yes, but honestly, it’s entirely worth it. The simple fact is that not nearly enough people have seen this ferocious, funny, and emotional film, and I hope by the end of reading this you feel jazzed enough about it to check it out.

When it comes to horror, it’s everything I could hope for in a new watch. It scared me, for one, and in that alone it succeeds in being a good horror film. Apart from that, though, it’s just a good movie in general. Beyond genre, it has a truly unique creative voice. Rarely does any other horror film truly feel quite like this. Most importantly for me, though, it fully buys into the emotional journey of these characters in a way that will leave you truly stunned by the final moments. I found it truly unforgettable.

Ginger Snaps follows two tightly-knit teenage sisters, Ginger (Katharine Isabelle) and Brigitte Fitzgerald (Emily Perkins). After Ginger suffers a seemingly random werewolf attack at night, she and her sister struggle to maintain a normal life and a functional relationship while dealing with the new changes to Ginger’s body, and her dangerous new appetite.

You can probably already tell by my synopsis, but this is a pretty cut-and-dry metaphor for the changes women go through after they get their first period. This is all handled surprisingly well for a film made in the year 2000 and also directed by a man (Canadian filmmaker John Fawcett). I’d call the authorial perspective viscerally feminine, not some clearly uninformed and fetishized version of it that feels detached from reality, but a still hyperreal and stylized portrayal that is willing to show both the power of femininity and the ugliness that every woman (or any human in general) deals with. It is evident throughout that it comes from a place of total empathy, and with a film with this subject matter in this era, that is a very rare and special thing. It is worth noting the film is co-written by a woman, Karen Walton, who, even though I have done no research to confirm this, seems to have been instrumental in the creative process.

Every aspect of Ginger’s change from human to wolf serves this contextual framing more than any adherence to traditional werewolf lore, the most significant change being the nature of the transformation itself. It’s characterized as a very slow Jeff Goldblum-in-The Fly-style change over time rather than any full moon scheduled full metamorphosis, to then return to normal once the sun is up. The changes you see are permanent and there is no going back, and there’s no lunar phase that can change that. It lends such a different sense of not only body horror, but looming dread over these already gloomy, but quite lovable teens.

This is my favorite aspect of Ginger Snaps: the sisterhood of the Fitzgeralds. Their bond is at the heart of everything that happens throughout. Every moment that Ginger does something to possibly drive them further apart it aches, and every time they share a moment of genuine sisterly love for one another it is deeply heartwarming. By the end, I treasured their relationship as if I was also part of their family. It doesn’t at all overstate or overplay it, but it lets the most genuine of its moments play out with such a sincerity that it would make it hard for me not to absolutely fall in love with their connection. They bicker and argue, but they also support each other in their worst and ugliest moments. Even when most people would’ve considered Ginger too far gone, Brigitte is still risking life and limb to save her, because to Brigitte, a life without her is like a life not worth living. Being able to sell that kind of connection when the tension is at its highest in a horror film’s climax is my primary reason for loving it.

We truly do need more films like this. It feels to me that in American culture, we are terrified of any portrayal of the feminine experience beyond the kind that is easy for the most stereotypically ill-intentioned men to simply gawk at. I loved seeing these two strong characters feel so unsure. To see them dealing with the anxiety of literally seeing hair grow in new places, feeling bizarre emotional swings that they never even realized they were having, and even being portrayed every now and then as pretty damn unflattering. This made them feel real, so truly real that every time they had a small moment of victory, it felt so much more gratifying than if they were the normalized sexy “adult teens” we’re used to seeing in movies. In this way, I feel this is a precursor to films like Jennifer’s Body and Lisa Frankenstein. A set of films that feel ahead of their time for an era that seemingly hasn’t happened yet. If we don’t get a bunch of fantastic feminized hilarious teen horror films grounded in the coming-of-age experience of teen girls, then we are sorely missing out.

The emotions I felt in the final moments of Ginger Snaps utterly floored me. The final shot is something that has been echoing in the back of my brain for over a week now. It haunted me and saddened me in a way that no just-scary horror films ever could. I even dreamed about it one night, and I don’t normally remember my dreams. It inspired me not only to write my first article for this website, but to also treasure the people closest to me in my life even more. After it ended, I looked at my girlfriend, and I gave her the biggest hug I could. Her being with me, and me being with her is a beautiful thing, and I intend to treasure it even more as we go on. If a film can evoke those feelings, then I’m pretty comfortable calling it an absolute favorite. I hope you check it out for yourself and get something out of it.