Puberty is rough, man. I'm just gonna go ahead and give it away right there like that. After watching Freddy vs. Jason, I remembered Katharine Isabelle and of course Ginger Snaps. A terrible box office hit. Absolutely terrible. But it's a cult classic. There aren't a lot of movies that really capture how much fun it is getting your period for the first time. That was until Ginger Snaps. It's the perfect metaphor. I guess in the late 90s and early 00s. The whole werewolf metaphor was more targeted towards teen boys going through puberty. You know, gross, hairy and moody. Oh wait. We have Ginger and her younger sister Bridgette, who are the dark misunderstood goth girls at school. Constantly getting bullied about you know, being virgins and stuff. Regular high school stuff. They're both pretty good looking, I mean I wouldn't tease them. So Ginger and "B" are constantly fantasizing about death as 15/16-year-old girls do. (Just me?) Ever since they were eight years old they had formed a pact together that they would die by the time they were sixteen years old. You know, teenage girl stuff. And all the while, there is also a wild dog running around eating all the dogs in the town. Just a side note, nothing to worry about.
After one of the popular girls at school pushes Bridgette to the ground after calling her a loser, the girls' plot to kidnap this girl's dog and make sure it gets mauled by whatever is terrorizing the town animals. I mean. Casual animal cruelty. Ginger has been complaining about her back and her stomach hurting. And you know what that means! Ginger is gonna get her period! So that night, the girls sneak out to go to get Pam's (the bully) dog. But of course, tonight is a full moon, and in the process the girls have a run-in with said wild animal. (Gross) But obviously the animal could smell the blood coming from Ginger. I mean I'm sure somewhere in the werewolf manual it explains how they're attracted to menstrual blood, but I'll continue to be a 16-year-old girl about it. So Ginger gets absolutely owned by the animal, but they manage to dodge it and run back to the highway. Where they almost get hit by a van, driven by none other than the school drug dealer, Sam. He misses the girl but punts the werewolf and kills it.
Bridgette carries Sam home, who is bleeding all over the place cause she just got mauled by a fricken werewolf. (Well and she got her first period. It's a rough night for Ging.) Of course the parents are conveniently out of the house because HOW on earth would we explain this to them?!? Once Bridgette gets Ginger back to their bedroom, Ginger's scars start healing almost immediately so they decide against going to a hospital. So they go to sleep and try and act like nothing happened. Except she does need tampons. Whether or not the werewolf thing actually happened. And guess who is working the counter at the grocery store. Some pervy catcalling loser from school who really wants to bang Ginger. I, for once, am thankful they have self-checkouts these days for the future teenagers having to buy their first condoms, tampons, or pregnancy tests without some fuckin' gross remark from some asshole. By some chance he convinces Ginger to smoke some weed because it will help her cramps allegedly. So off she sneaks into a van to smoke weed with the catcalling loser. But who's van is it? Sam's of course.
Since Ginger basically shunned Bridgette and left her outside the van, she runs into Sam on his way back to his vehicle. Where she tries to ask him if he saw what he hit last night. To fit our plot, Sam has to be a werewolf expert right? I mean Bridgette and Ginger are the obvious experts of all things creepy, but Sam is a drug dealer right? He should know too. This movie does a really great job of exaggerating pubescent mood swings into full-fledged lycanthropy. Is the feeling inside just hormones and sex drive or does Ginger really want to rip everyone to pieces and feast on their flesh? Does puberty pull even the closest of sisters apart? Even if one of them is growing a tail? I give this movie 4/5 razors full of grey thick werewolf hair clogging up the bathtub. Bless Canadian film.
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