With an abundance of brilliant extras, the highly anticipated Ginger Snaps Trilogy Blu-ray collection from Second Sight celebrates the trilogy’s legacy, now in even gorier detail.
Twenty-six years after its release, Ginger Snaps remains a staple of the feminist horror film canon. A unique blend of the werewolf and coming-of-age genres, it has stood the test of time as a picture that explores the monstrous-feminine with gore, tragedy and heart. Following its success, Ginger Snaps 2: Unleashed and Ginger Snaps Back: The Beginning were released consecutively, continuing the same sisterhood and rage in new situations. Second Sight Films now brings the pictures together again, complete with commentaries, new interviews and behind-the-scenes bonuses. The new Blu-ray trilogy box set is a must-own for any fan of teenage horror classics.
Ginger Snaps (2000)
Director: John Fawcett
Described as ‘A cross between Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Clueless and An American Werewolf in London’ by BBC Online, Ginger Snaps has persisted as a cult classic for its style, gore and depiction of teenage girlhood. The film uses the lunar cycle in both a literal and symbolic sense, linking werewolf mythology with menstruation in a strikingly original take on body horror that remains unrivalled in the werewolf cinematic canon.
Moody, death-obsessed sisters, Ginger (Katharine Isabelle) and Brigitte (Emily Perkins) Fitzgerald, are trapped in Canadian suburbia with perverted teenage boys and a creature that is violently killing the neighbourhood pets. Set on killing themselves to resist the banality that surrounds them, the pair spend their time staging fake deaths, and become more and more intrigued by the local dog attacks. On the night of Ginger’s first period, she is mauled by the dog-killing monster and begins some slow, unruly transformation that involves a desire to devour. The effects of this lycanthropic metamorphosis collide with those of female pubescence, layering these parallels as Ginger begins to grow hair, breasts, and a tail concurrently.
The younger, paler and gloomier Emily does everything she can to save her sister from her new deadly nature, with only 28 days to do so. What unfolds is a chaotic, bloody story that explores sisterhood. It ends in tragedy, stripping away the creature horror to reveal the deeply human cost so often overlooked in transformation tropes.
Ginger Snaps truly tugs at the abject nature of the monstrous-feminine, exploring the ugly physicality of bodily change in several senses. Like many female-focused horror films, it effectively uses a mythological trope as a vehicle for anxieties and a sense of lack of control. At one point, Ginger describes menstruation as being ‘betrayed by her own body’, an irony soon compounded by the violent changes that follow. It’s clever, if not a little on the nose, but balanced with style and the simplistic expectations of 2000s teen horror, it remains a strong and poignant monster film.
What remains iconic about the picture is the dedication to the pouty, gothic aesthetic that the sisters inhabit. The moody dialogue and general angst are not unlike those found in The Craft (1997) or Heathers (1989) before it, but coupled with the gore and heart, Ginger Snaps has a morbid bite that sets it apart.
This Blu-ray release uncovers new elements of the film’s creation, with over 15 special features dedicated to its conception, design and legacy. It’s a true celebration of the effort and artistry behind such an iconic title, shared and explained by those closest to it.
Ginger Snaps 2: Unleashed (2004)
Director: Brett Sullivan
This second instalment begins long after the first’s aftermath, shifting the focus to Brigitte, who has evidently not recovered from her sister’s fate or her own condition. Institutionalised, B tries to suppress her inner beast while trapped in a creepy rehab centre, surrounded by troubled girls and corrupt attendants. This cleverly frames B’s lycanthropy in both a metaphorical and a mythological lens, presenting it as the cause of addiction as well as a supernatural affliction.
Directed by Brett Sullivan, Ginger Snaps 2 shies away from the level of body horror the first film showcases, choosing to build tension as B awaits her own transformation and the presence stalking her. The film effectively blends early-2000s horror formalism with artful cinematic references, splattered with gore here and there. Avoiding the pitfalls that sequels often fall into after a successful horror movie (see Jaws 3D or The Birds II), the film has a grit unique enough to stand apart from its predecessor. It is distanced enough from the previous storyline to steer clear of any discontinuities, especially with both of Ginger Snap’s stars intact (Perkins and Isabelle).
Touching on themes of addiction, self-harm and sexual assault, this isn’t a film for everyone, but like the first, it explores the monstrous trope as a vehicle for inner struggle as B grapples with both the werewolf within her and the one pursuing her too. Especially with a harrowing twist that leans as much into psychological horror as it does into the physical element, Sullivan follows the first film’s singular take on the werewolf genre with one that feels equally fresh, unsettling and female-driven.
Second Sight Film’s new box set release draws attention to this overlooked part of the franchise, which succeeds both as a sequel and as a standalone werewolf film. Featuring deleted scenes with director commentary, a new interview with writer Megan Martin, and audition tapes, the disc shines a new light on Ginger Snaps 2: Unleashed.
Ginger Snaps Back: The Beginning (2004)
Director: Grant Harvey
Katharine Isabelle and Emily Perkins return for the prequel film, this time as different sisters, in a story that imagines the lore of Ginger Snaps. Set in colonial Canada, Isabelle and Perkins play the Fitzgeralds’ ancestors, who stumble upon a cursed, untrustworthy settlement stalked by feral, wolf-like beasts. When one is bitten, and suspicious settlers turn violent, they must decide whether to stay together as sisters or accept their fates as girl and beast.
This third addition to the series slightly loses the conviction of the second, but remains an entertaining, gory and emotional watch. Focusing more on staging two women at war with violent, forceful men rather than their own bodies, the ‘man as beast’ trope becomes the primary exploration in this picture. The theme of sisterhood remains strong, if not stronger, than in the original film, staging their bond as central to the story and its characters.
Swapping the middle-class environments that its predecessors portray for the isolated wilderness of the 1800s gives the film a colder, more fatalistic tone, grounding the trilogy’s familiar body horror and female rage in folklore and survivalism. There are affectionate callbacks to earlier titles dotted throughout, like the sisters’ birdskull necklaces, which feature prominently in the original, and the return of the librarian from the first scenes of Ginger Snaps 2.
Though it lacks the dimension and edge of 1 and 2, Ginger Snaps Back works as an ode to the original, closing the trilogy with a tribute to its distinct use of lycanthropy and the iconic duo of Isabelle and Perkins. Its strongest appeal is in seeing these devices and dynamics return to the screen, reimagined. With commentary, video diaries and closer looks at the set and costume design, Second Sight Films presents this final chapter with the same care and enthusiasm that made the original endure.
Snap up The Ginger Snaps Trilogy Standard Edition Blu-ray from Second Sight Films before it’s too late.
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