|
|
|
Ginger Snaps Back: | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
inger Snaps, which began this successful direct-to-video series, was about what happens to two bored and death-obsessed contemporary suburban teens named Ginger (Isabelle) and Brigitte (Perkins) when the former is bitten by a werewolf and begins her long, bumpy and sensuous transformation into a ravenous monster. Ginger Snaps 2, released earlier this year, followed the surviving sister, Brigitte, into the drug treatment center where she is sent for her dependence on the anti-lycanthropy herb, wolfsbane. By the end of that second film, a sequel of any kind, let alone one that still makes use of the inspired titular pun, seems not only unlikely but downright impossible. For better or worse, both siblings have completed their horrific journey, and there seems nowhere else for them to go.
Now, only a few months later, here's the second Ginger Snaps movie of 2004, which jettisons the contemporary setting in favor of early 19th-century Canada. Two (apparently unrelated) sisters named Ginger and Brigitte, who share the "together forever" relationship of their modern-day counterparts, ride a black horse across snow-covered wilderness. They soon encounter the bloody remains of an Indian village and an old woman who advises them, "Kill the boy, or one sister will kill the other." A fleeing Brigitte gets her foot stuck in a saw-toothed steel-jaw trap.
An enigmatic Indian, Hunter (Arcand), treats her wound and leads the girls to a nearby trader's fort commanded by the haunted William Rowlands (Tom McCamus). The soldiers and traders occupying the fort, all male, seem suspiciously unhappy about the arrival of two attractive young ladies. But when Doc Murphy (Matthew Walker) subjects the wounded Brigitte to a test that involves the application of leeches, an explanation starts to come out. The fort is under siege by werewolves. The curse is transferred to anybody bitten or scratched during an attack. And Rowlands, who claims to have already lost his wife and young son in a previous assault, has been hiding a deadly secret from the others: Far from dead, the boy's still on the premises, and no longer human.
Soon, Ginger is bitten. And begins to change, while a desperate Brigitte searches for a way to save her sister before the transformation is complete ...
A continuing chemistry
The werewolves of the Ginger Snaps series don't function according to the usual Hollywood model. They don't change back and forth between man and monster, but rather—to even more horrific effect—suffer a slow, protracted one-way transformation that over a period of days or weeks obliterates the human half of the equation. In this version of lycanthropy, a person who completes the transformation is lost forever, with no chance of even temporary reprieve, and those who love them have to watch helplessly as they slip away.
The first Ginger Snaps exploited this innovation to heartbreaking effect, separating two sisters who had previously lived only for each other; Ginger Snaps 2 continued the story from the point of view of the surviving sister, as she struggled against her transformation into something she didn't want to be. Both seasoned the horrific stew with a meaty subtext, explicitly comparing lycanthropy to the more common loss of control brought on by adolescence. Both were first-rate. They had a depth, and a power, and a wit, beyond what anybody has any right to expect from throwaway horror films.
Despite its unusual setting, Ginger Snaps Back emerges as significantly more conventional than the previous two. It's still a film about a bunch of disparate characters stuck in an enclosed space while monsters prowl about outside, searching for a way in. It trusts the audience's attention span more than the average modern horror film, and displays a visual flair and sense of place greater than anybody would expect from a film of its low-budget origins, but it still feels like a step down, in that the subtext has vanished. This Ginger and Brigitte fail to resonate except as themselves. The closest the film comes to a genuine zinger occurs when Ginger, whose transformation is well along by now, is knocked to the ground by a blow from the brutal soldier who's been inviting a supernatural comeuppance since her arrival. She snarls at him: "You hit like a girl!" Can any viewer fail to suspect that the nasty fellow's life expectancy can now be measured in minutes?
The palpable chemistry between the leads, Isabelle and Perkins, which powered the earlier installments remains in place here. They each act the hell out of their respective roles, and are absolutely persuasive as sisters intent on staying together forever. Isabelle is again uncommonly fetching both pretransformation and after the physical effects of lycanthropy begin to manifest, and Perkins once again demonstrates a gift for projecting extreme fear at extreme length that dwarfs anything normally expected from actresses cast in the position of scream queen. Ginger Snaps Back may be inferior to its predecessors, but their performances remain world-class, and the best reason to see it anyway. They make the unreal real.
The period dialogue sometimes slips, though I suspect less out of carelessness than filmmaker eagerness for a cheap gag. Still, it's jarring when one of the girls regards the traumatized behavior of the fort denizens with the stage whisper, "These people are really *%^#@ed!" If we're supposed to take from this the implication that this Ginger and Brigitte are somehow the same Ginger and Brigitte from the present day, who do sound like that, it doesn't work. If it's an attempt to pander to contemporary audiences out of fear that they otherwise couldn't relate to 19th-century women, it's downright depressing. Let the story stand on its own. It can. — Adam-Troy
Also in this issue: The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie and Star Trek: The Original Series Season-One DVD
|
 |
|
| Home |
Copyright © 1998-2006, Science Fiction Weekly (TM). All rights reserved. Reproduction in any medium strictly prohibited. Maintained by scifiweekly@scifi.com. |
