everyday is halloween!

 ginger snaps [2000]

this is a werewolve film!  after suffering the trauma of watching the frank grillo werewolf movie i was hankering for other movies that featured creatures, great & small, that are hairy, fangy & hungry.  this movie plays all the delicious notes.  i've been aware of this film for nearly 26 years.  i've seen the DVD boxes on store shelves.  i've seen the thumbnail of the poster on movie websites.  but finally, after all these years, i sit down & watch this movie with absolute delight.  

it goes like this.  the fitzgerald sisters, bridgette & ginger, 15 & 16 repectively, live in the suburbs of ontario.  social misfits both they are bound to each other by a shared love of the macabre & violence & death.  often they will create bloody violent scenarios, horror movie style, & photograph each other in these scenes.  scenes of murder & chaos.  they even present these photos as a slideshow for a school assignment that freaked out their teacher.  the girls also made pact.  to die by the age of 16, together, if they have not left their boring suburb.  

another major detail. the sisters do not want to participate in the expected roles of teens girls created by our society.  they do not want to date.  they do not want their bodies changed.  they do not want to become their parents.  they are, in fact, by these round rejections, quite ordinary human beings.  be that is it may, on the day of ginger's first period, proof that she, whether she excepts it or no, is changing she also survives a werewolf attack.  thus, ginger's mental, emotional & physical changes move at warp speed.  ginger's body becomes wolf-like in every respect.  but her desires are quite human even as they are warped by changing into a wolf. 

rightly hailed as a feminist cult classic, the director, john fawcett, & screenwriter, karen walton, achieve a teen flick of great sensibility & nuance.  the fitzgerald sisters are awkward, strong, scared, scary, & utterly relatable to almost all of us who survived our teen years.  & the bond between the girls is unassailable.  bridgette is loyal almost to a fault.  even going so far as to try to become a werewolf herself.  but rather than give the plot away i recommend seeing this movie yourself.  the script is fantastic.  the direction is fabulous.  the editing, lighting & photography are superb.  more so are the fitzgerald girls, bridgette & ginger, played with aplomb & finesse by emily perkins & katharine isabelle.  this is one helluva werewolf movie!

boo!