Film Stats
Ginger Snaps is a Canadian horror film released in 2000 directed by John Fawcett.
It stars Katharine Isabelle as Ginger, Emily Perkins as Bridgitte and Kris Lemche as Sam.
The film was well received in Canada and the UK but not as well in the US, grossing a little over $2,500 on it’s opening weekend. Critics had good reviews of the film Rotten Tomatoes rated it an 88% and some critics dubbed the film as feminist due to it’s very strong female roles.
Historical and Political Context
The film had difficulty funding because of the violent adolescent storyline set in a suburban high school soon after the Columbine Massacre. The nation and world was shook to hear about the horrific reality of the Columbine massacre that took place in Colorado on April 20th 1999. Two students entered the high school with semi automatic weapons and selectively killed 13 students and injuring 21 others. The incident sparked waves of controversy on topics of gun control, school safety, teenage violence and drug use. Columbine magnified the attention of millions on the social dynamics of high schools, cliques, bullying and subcultures. Media and the devastated community surrounding Columbine blamed the massacre on the popularity of violence in videogames and films, the rise of internet use and the occult goth subculture. Ginger Snaps was controversial at the moment because of the proximity of its’ release to the Columbine Massacre and their closely connected storylines. Shortly thereafter activist and filmmaker Michael Moore released the documentary Bowling for Columbine which explored gun culture and violence in the United States.
During the time of the release of Ginger Snaps was going through a period of political debate with new Democratic Bill Clinton in office after the conservative and Republican George H. W. Bush. Bill Clinton’s terms were sprinkled with scandal, the most famous being his impeachement on claims of perjury as well as his adulterous relationship with Monica Lewinsky. Later, the impeachment was acquitted and Clinton fulfilled his second term in the White House. He left office with a very high public approval rating and remains politically favourable till this day. High public approval ratings aside, the political climate around 2001 was tense while conservative morals battled those of the liberals. Bill Clinton was said to have been the most investigated presidents in the history of US governance aside from Nixon.
An Extended Synopsis
The story is set in a suburban Canadian town and focuses mainly on two premenstrual adolescent sisters Ginger Fitzgerald, 16 and Bridgitte Fitzgerald, 15. The two girls are social outcasts who are labeled as freaks in their high school. Like most teens the sisters are rebellious, and apathetic, however, these girls are clearly preoccupied with the macabre. They stage their own deaths in gory photo shoots and swear on a suicide pact to “be out by sixteen, dead in a scene but together forever”. The girls have learned to cope with their oppressive environment by sticking together and relying on each other’s support. The viewer can identify with the sisters because the other characters in the film cruelly treat the protagonists. By telling the story through the pessimistic gaze of an outcast teen, struggling to find a place in society, the spectator can recall their own adolescent trials. Also, telling the story through Ginger and Bridgitte, the viewer then forms a unique sympathy for both the sisters which will later become both victim and monster.
Gruesome Photo Shoot
Aside from the fake gory photo shoots the girls put on, real terror has taken over their town, Bailey Downs: mangled and shredded family pets are appearing all over their neighborhood. On one night when the girls go to retaliate against a classmate’s bullying, Ginger is faced with an encounter that will change the course of her development dramatically. She gets her first period and is then immediately attacked by a wild and unidentifiable beast, later to be recognized as a lycanthrope or werewolf. During the attack, Bridgitte manages to grab Ginger and lead her in an escape from the scene of the assault. As the girls run across the street, the beast is hit by an oncoming van, coincidentally belonging to the drug dealer, Sam who hangs around their high school and is the object of desire for one of the more popular girls and later victims, Trina. The girls scurry home only to find their parents absent. As Ginger screams in pain, Bridgitte uncovers her wound, and realizes that her sister’s fleshy wounds are already healing. Bridgitte protests, exclaiming “this isn’t right!” and suggests calling an ambulance. Ginger refuses, as though her pain has instantly relinquished. While Ginger is absent, Bridgitte uncovers a blurry polaroid that she managed to snap during the attack. It bares the cropped image of the beast that attacked her.
The next scenes of the film show Ginger changing physically and emotionally. She experiences extreme pain, and begins hanging out with high school boys. Deviating from the “normalcy” her and Bridgitte have established. Neighborhood dogs begin to attack her sensing that she is becoming a monster, and she starts growing fur where her bite marks are. It is in this scene where Bridgitte brings up her assumption that her sister is turning into a werewolf. Ginger in turn scowls her for not being sympathetic enough to what she is experiencing. Entirely denying the reality of her transformation. Blood trickles on the ground, causing concern within Ginger “what if I’m dying, or something?” They go to the school nurse where they are reassured that all of this is “normal” and part of being a young woman, further disgusting them with the feminine transformation and convincing Ginger she is experiencing only puberty. The nurse then warns them of the dangers of sex and STD’s and the scene ends.
Ginger continues to distance her sister by preoccupying herself with a new boyfriend and denying the changes her body is going through. Meanwhile, Bridgitte does research on werewolves and reluctantly forms an investigative relationship with Sam, the boy who hit the lycanthrope with his car.
While Ginger is sleeping, Bridgitte discovers that she is growing a tail. Bridgitte then turns to Sam for help, claiming she is the one transforming, and not her sister in order to protect her. Ginger has unprotected sex with her date. When she returns, she is bloodied at the mouth, and vomiting. She admits to killing their neighbor’s dog because she felt like it. This is the moment she realizes she is not normal and wants to change. They pierce her stomach with a silver earring, thinking she will react if she is a werewolf, she doesn’t, disproving the Hollywood myth. Ginger’s sexual partner begins to bleed from his penis and becomes covered with scabs signifying that he is infected. Ginger continues to show uncontrollable rage to protect her sister, attacking her first human victim. It is now very clear that Ginger is transforming.
Sam, Bridgitte and Ginger then discover a possible antidote for the transformation: the plant Monkswood. Later on, the first human death within the film occurs. Ginger accidentally kills Trina, who slips and falls in their kitchen while they are having a confrontation. The girls hide the corpse in the freezer, it going unnoticed by their oblivious parents. They bury the frozen body under their shed.
It is now Halloween, and Bridgitte locks her sister in the bathroom thinking she is too dangerous to be let out of the house. She goes to create the Monkswood antidote. Ginger kicks and screams and bloodies the walls eventually breaking out of the bathroom and going on to terrorize her high school by killing her second human victim, one of her teachers. Bridgitte is warned that the antidote may be dangerous, so she first tries it on the infected sexual partner of Ginger. The antidote works. When Bridgitte discovers her sister in the dead guidance counselors office. Ginger already looks like a monster. Thankfully this can be disguised as a Halloween costume. She kills her third victim, the janitor whom she believes perversely looks at Bridgitte. The film begins to escalate rapidly from hereon in.
Heightening cinematic techniques classic to the horror genre are in full play from this point on. Tinted chiarroscurro lighting, tight shots, heavy breathing and the return of the shaky hand held camera. The hand held camera makes it seem as though we are watching through the victim’s frightened eyes. Allowing the viewer to identify with the victim and instill fear.
Ginger appears at the Halloween party almost entirely transformed, but still visibly human. While Ginger is at the party, Bridgitte sees her mom driving in her car, searching for her and her sister. The mother admits, that she knows that the girls killed Trina and offers them an escape plan. Meanwhile, Ginger is attempting to have sex with Sam at the party. Bridgitte bursts in at the right moment preventing the copulation. By this point, Bridgitte is terrified of her monster sister, proclaiming that she doesn’t want her sister to hurt any more people. She desperately insists on a blood oath with the werewolf. In order for them to be infected together, forever.
Bridgitte attempts to take Ginger home, but Ginger is turning too fast. By the time Sam, Bridgitte and the monster get to the Fitzgerald house, she has escaped Sam’s van. They scramble to find the antidote as we hear noises of destruction coming from within the house. Ginger is now fully transformed into the werewolf.
The Werewolf
Bridgitte and Sam create the antidote and get ready to administer it to the beast. Sam suggests he goes first. As he attempts to venture out the door, he is dragged out of the pantry by the werewolf and ripped to shreds. Bridgitte exits the pantry in her last attempt to save her sister. It is clear from blood trails that the werewolf dragged Sam into the basement. Bridgitte follows the trail but becomes too weak to stand on her feet from the effects of her infection. She drops the syringe and falls down the stairs. She sees the monster perched over the still breathing mangled body of Sam. She bravely addresses the werewolf as “Ginger” and tries to reason with it by lapping up some of Sam’s blood only to be attacked by the no longer human monster. The film ends in uncertainty where the viewer is left unsure if the werewolf or Bridgitte survive.
The Monstrous Feminine and Abjection
After Ginger receives her first period and is attacked, her transformation into a woman is analogous to her transformation into the monster and the monstrous feminine. The attack can be read as the punishment for puberty, and the perversion of the feminine nature. The intensity of her transformation is masked by the turbulent nature of puberty itself. Her mood swings, aggression, pain, fatigue and hair growth can be written off as PMS, while in reality she is undergoing cellular mutation into werewolf.
Ginger Gets Cramps
Ginger Wonders What’s Wrong With Her
Narratively, this is a wise choice, because it disguises the process of the transformation to the viewer heightening the intensity and horror of her final lycanthropian state. Analytically, Ginger is experiencing the abject while becoming it simultaneously. As abject blood seeps from her vagina, the girl becomes the abject monster herself. By menstruating she is becoming corrupted and differentiated from the other sex. Kristeva states that “Menstrual blood, on the contrary, stands for the danger issuing from within identity (social or sexual); it threatens the relationship between sexes within a social aggregate and, through internalization, the identity of each sex in the face of sexual difference. (p.71)” (Carol Clover, The Dread of Difference p.42) Menstruation is a marker of abjection and sexual difference generates terror which is the monster within the feminine.
Ginger Almost Turned
Another factor which differentiates the sexes is what Freud coined as the fear of castration. After sexual intercourse, Ginger’s partner begins bleeding from his penis, realizing his internal fear of castration, he too becomes animalistic. The Monstrous Feminine has succeeded in castrating him figuratively because he starts urinating blood.
The abjection of a werewolf lies in that it’s “collapse of boundaries between human and animal” (Barbara Creed, The Dread of Difference Pg.39) Ginger has become so animalistic, she admits that she at first thought her “ache” was for sex, but then realized it’s to “rip everything to pieces”. This signifies that she has crossed the border between animal and human, intelligent and primal making her abject and even more repulsive to the viewer.
Gender, Sexuality, Genre and The Final Girl
Although fifteen and sixteen, the sisters are still premenstrual and are incredibly reluctant to the idea of becoming women like everyone else. They refer to menstruation as “the curse” and reject feminine gendered sexual maturity with disgust. However, Ginger is already becoming objectified sexually by male classmates.
Following the werewolf attack, the narrative begins to show the growing separation between the sisters. While Ginger begins her transformation into monster, Bridgitte passively watches from afar. Despite, appearance, Bridgitte is gendered as feminine because of her passivity and cowardice. However, her inquisitive nature leads her to investigate the attack in order to prevent the loss of her only companion, her dear sister. Her perspiration suggests that Bridgitte’s reluctance could in fact be wise, and help her in the end.
The Fitzgerald Sisters
Ginger’s physical and internal transformation is happening rapidly and with great intensity. She deviates from the normalcy her and Bridgitte have established by associating with the sex specific gender norms she has thus far rejected. As Ginger becomes more and more werewolf. She starts adapting masculine gendered traits like aggression and violence. She also develops an abnormally heightened sexual appetite and interest in the masculine sex, more than that which is expected of normal adolescents. Her sexuality becomes so intensified it is carnal. She harnesses this new power and uses her sexuality to manipulate men, acting sexually aggressive and having forced unprotected sex. Ginger reverses gender roles sexually while copulating she takes on the dominant role rather aggressively after her date suggests she “relaxes” and then asks “who’s the guy here?”.
Ginger Partialized
Meanwhile, Bridgitte remains shy and virginal, in her relationship with Sam. She is so uncomfortable around the male gender that she resists Sam’s attempts at getting her to help him discover what they both saw. Only in grave necessity does the innocent, uncorrupted, Bridgitte approach the male for help.
After the girl’s first kill, Ginger consciously uses gender stereotypes to rationalize that they wont be suspected of the murder because girls “don’t do shit like that, girls can only be a slut a tease, a bitch or the virgin next door”.
When Ginger is nearly transformed, she attempts to have sex with Sam, attacking him, intentionally wanting to sexually infect him. In a desperate yet noble attempt, Bridgitte suggests sacrificing herself to the werewolf virus, so that the murders stop. At this moment we see Bridgitte as the heroine. Although Bridgitte is transforming herself, she perseveres to save her sister.
The male doubts the heroine saying “she can’t do this by herself” thinking that Bridgitte is too weak and thus “feminine” to do so. She proves him wrong and goes against what is expected of a weak girl. Reversing the role of the victim to the heroine is crucial in identifying the body-slasher genre of this film. Because of Bridgitte’s final actions she can be identified as what Carol Clover calls “The Final Girl” within the thrasher horror genre. Carol Clover describes this thrasher specific character as the one which is the most memorable because ”She is the one who encounters the mutilated bodies of her friends and perceives the full extent of the preceding horror of her own peril; who is chased, cornered, wounded; whom we see scream, stagger, fall, rise, and scream again… she alone finds the strength either to stay the killer long enough to be rescued (ending A) or to kill him herself (ending B)” (Carol Clover, Men Women and Chainsaws Pg. 35) In addition to the reversal of victim and heroine, Thrasher films are known for having their monsters as gender confused. Very much the case of Ginger the girl-monster hybrid.
Bilbliography
Works Cited
Clover, Carol J. Men, Women and Chainsaws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University, 1997. Print.
Ginger Almost Turned. Digital image. N.p., n.d. Web. 13 Dec. 2012.
Ginger Almost Turned. Digital image. N.p., n.d. Web. 13 Dec. 2012.<http://www.tumblr.com/tagged/ginger-snaps>.
Ginger in the Bathtub. Digital image. Watching Horror Films from Behind the Couch. N.p., 19 June 12. Web. 13 Dec. 2012.
Ginger Snaps Cramps. Digital image. Watching Horror Films from Behind the Couch. Blogspot, 19 June 12. Web. 13 Dec. 2012.
Ginger Snaps. Dir. John Fawcett. Perf. Emily Perkins and Katharine Isabelle and Kris Lemche. PutLocker. N.p., n.d. Web. 12 Dec. 2012.
Ginger Snaps Movie Poster. Digital image. IMDB. N.p., 2000. Web. 13 Dec. 2012. <http://www.imdb.com/media/rm3681197824/tt0210070>.
Ginger Snaps on a Fence. Digital image. Lara and the Reel Boy. WordPress, n.d. Web. 13 Dec. 2012. <http://laraandthereelboy.wordpress.com/2011/11/15/cult-classics-ginger-snaps-discussion-part-1-of-3/>.
Ginger Snaps Sisters in Greenhouse. Digital image. 8 Days a Geek. N.p., n.d. Web. 13 Dec. 2012. <http://www.8daysageek.com/2012/08/8-best-werewolf-movies/ginger-snaps-sisters-small/>.
Ginger Snaps Werewolf. Digital image. Horror-movies.wikia.com. N.p., n.d. Web. <http://watchinghorrorfilmsfrombehindthecouch.blogspot.com/2012/06/ginger-snaps.html>.
Ginger Walking in the Hallway. Digital image. Best Movies Ever News. N.p., n.d. Web. 13 Dec. 2012. <http://bestmoviesevernews.com/about-best-movies-ever/best-horror-movies-ever/ginger-snaps/>.
Grant, Barry Keith. The Dread of Difference: Gender and the Horror Film. Austin: University of Texas, 1996. Print.
Ginger Snaps 