John Fawcett’s 2000’s cult classic is still as ferocious as ever! The coming of age, teen werewolf sleeper favorite explores themes of youth, gender, and sexuality through the lens of a young girl, Ginger, bitten by a creature on the night of her first period. It’s as funny and as sexy and as spookily nostalgic as any other Halloween 2000s holiday hit with endless rewatch value, but with a bite that stings still, even two decades later. In an exploration of young womanhood told in the shadow of an October full moon, Ginger Snaps hits the ground running (on all fours!) with a universally nuanced narrative about the trials and tribulations of, historically, one of the hardest tests faced by all mankind: growing up; on your own terms, on your own time, and without losing yourself along the way, even if that means (eventually, inevitably) ‘snapping’ along the way.
Ginger and her equally iconic little sister Brigitte are high school outcasts OBSESSED with the macabre. Their parents, classmates, neighbors of gothic suburbia Bailey Downs don’t understand them, but who cares? Ginger, Brigitte, and their blood-death-pact are all each other needs in life, right? Wrong! One full moon too close to Halloween, Katherine Isabelle’s enigmatic Ginger encounters something more terrifying than any mythical monster: her first period. Not only is Ginger ‘officially a woman’, but she’s also officially survived her first lycanthrope attack…unscathed…? Also wrong! Change can creep in overnight and, well before the next full moon, Brigitte begins to fear she has lost her big sister forever. Ginger’s different now, and not just in that way. She suddenly likes boys and girls and all sorts of teen cliches that the duo would have mocked during the first act of the film. Ginger seems to suddenly like life AND herself!? If this is leaving Brigitte reeling, then how must Ginger feel? It’s not just her world that’s…well…snapped, but her body, too. Brigitte just wants her sister back, but Ginger has unleashed a beast that she can’t, nor wants, to control.
SPOILERS AHEAD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I find the ending to be metaphorical ala the more well known Black Swan, if you will. Brigitte has ‘killed’ her sister. On a surface level, she has killed the skin-walking beast that possessed her sister’s body, robbing Ginger of her own autonomy during what most in the methodically chosen suburban backdrop would refer to as the ‘prime’ of Ginger’s life. Pulling back the layers, with the major motifs of the film in mind, I choose to interpret the climactic ending as allegorical, symbolic of the ‘death’ of Brigitte’s childhood relationship with her older sister. Like it or not, Ginger is growing up and there’s nothing anyone, not Brigitte, not the town, not even Van Helsing if they ever crossed over (okay, epic!), can do to stop it. It’s inevitable, as it will happen to everyone…which is possibly the most startling subtextual discovery Brigitte makes throughout the events of the film. What will her own, fast approaching, inexorable, puberty be like? As violent and as flawed as Ginger’s? Maybe…and actually, that’s okay!
The frivolity of youth is wasted on the youth. It is (arguably) the only acceptable time in person’s life to be a complete and total fuck up! Make mistakes, blow off your homework, kiss boys, kiss girls, be mean, yell at your parents, fight with your friends, and fight with your siblings…because you’re entitled to it! Seek forgiveness, or don’t! Learn, or don’t! Just grow, because you MUST! Ginger didn’t ask for any of this (life, growing up, a werewolf bite, etc), but she’s learning as she goes in an affectionately messy manner. She is equal parts good and bad, pure and evil, human and monster; so essentially, and above all else, Ginger is a human. Resilient like children, nuanced like young women, and flawed like human beings, both Ginger and Brigitte are wonderfully empathic portrayals of teenagers for who/what they truly are: people. Ginger’s SNAPPED…and she probably will again! Like we, too, have all snapped before, and probably will again! Though we all feel like monsters sometimes, we’re really just people.