Film Fatale: Ginger Snaps and Unnerving Girl Autumn
As October approaches and you look back on July as a melancholic, hazy, rose-tinted memory, the only hope is to open the door to Unnerving Girl Autumn and bathe in oversize leather jackets, the neighbourhood ghouls and gazing into the full moon. Ginger Snaps (2000) directed by John Fawcett is a top tier Unnerving Girl Autumn film. We’re all aware that women and horror go hand in hand; That a girl hitting puberty has uncanny similarities to transforming into the type of ravenous, feared creature from folklore. Ginger Snaps is one of the most notable versions is the ‘weird’ high school girl turned monstrous woman and devouring the ones who have wronged her. Combining self-aware comedic moments with gruesome scenes of body horror, the film utilises all of the genre's cliches to the narrative's advantage and engages audiences in a film that could be passed off as just another corny teen horror at first glance.
The film follows Ginger and Brigitte, high school outcast sisters who live in the basement of their family home. They smoke cigarettes and roll their eyes at their school peers as they socialise, play sports, and just simply don’t get it like they do. No matter what the surrounding narrative is, I can never tire of a film which features weird, unnerving women at the forefront, be it The Craft (1996), May (2002) or Carrie (1976). This film introduces us to Ginger and Brigitte with their suicide themed photography class project. Their angst and teen existentialism are through the roof and their fashion of big jackets and ankle length skirts are impeccably on brand twenty two years later. Ginger is the older sibling and has a few of the popular boys crush on her, boys that she snubs off to her sister’s approval. They comically scare their all-American suburban parents at the dinner table and they shudder when their mom enthusiastically announces that it sounds like Ginger is starting her period.
The theme of ‘transformation’ in horror films has been done repeatedly, in both the B-Movie world to the Top 10 Horror Movies To Watch Before You Die world. Just like there is no escape of the teenage girl turning into a monster after the first signs of puberty, there is no escape for the audience in a reimagined Carrie body horror. What makes Ginger Snaps stand out is the ease of the early 2000’s horror trend of embracing clichés, mixed with deeper themes of the inevitable issues a young woman will face as she gets older. It’s the horror show of being dragged out of your safety net filled with your favourite weird hobbies and rampant imagination, to be faced with disgusting boys, recreational pot smoking that will give you panic attacks and potentially losing your bestie to all the things you used to hate together.
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Almost all late 90’s / 2000’s high school horror films are considered cheesy, low-brow and/or camp. The Scary Movie franchise says a lot about what these films mean to a wider audience (not much). But although this is the case, many become unforgettable and reach cult status as they usually offer up some form of a relatable, or at least unique, young female character. Think of all the variations of Jennifer´s Body (2009) and The Craft (1996) Halloween costumes that we put together every year, daydreaming about how great you will emulate Nancy Downs in that year even when it’s only March. These monstrous women tap into all the feelings we consistently repress – rage, passion, fear, horror. The genre gives us escapism through fantasy and horror whilst also connecting to our own experiences and feelings we can’t tap into elsewhere, especially not IRL.
“The outfits, the post-grunge, weird internet-forum surfer attitude makes these films all the more fruitful and entertaining.”
Werewolf films are generally unfeminine: Werewolves themselves are probably the most stereotypically male monster villain of them all. When choosing what I’d be when playing out as a kid, a werewolf would never cross my mind. Vampires are cool, pretty, calm and collected. A witch can be ugly but not if it’s one like Sabrina. Ghosts are reserved and mysterious. So, werewolves are obviously for the boys. In one of my favourite horror films, An American Werewolf in London, the body shifts, and breaks. He becomes a horrific creature – hairy, grunting, starving and relentless - it’s all very masculine. But really, Ginger Snaps is right. You feel all these things as a teenage girl – you scare yourself and others around you with the unspoken hormonal changes, screaming at family members to not open the door because you feel the need to deal with everything yourself. The werewolf aligns perfectly with female rage and as Ginger gets more and more gruesome, you become more excited. It’s cathartic to watch the tables turn.
With the hyper fixation of reboots, I hope to God that they don’t try to bring this classic into the modern day like they did with The Craft. The crooked special effects and having Brigitte read up on werewolves over candlelight in a book is exactly what horror should entail – and the film being set in the year 2000 is such an important part. The outfits, the post-grunge, weird internet-forum surfer attitude makes these films all the more fruitful and entertaining. In this case, it would be better to let sleeping dogs lie.
Words: Charlotte Amy Landrum
