Ginger Snaps (John Fawcett, 2000)

Katharine Isabelle and Emily Perkins in Ginger Snaps

Cast: Emily Perkins, Katharine Isabelle, Kris Lemche, Mimi Rogers, Jesse Moss, Danelle Hampton, John Bourgeois, Peter Keleghan, Christopher Redman, Jimmy McInnis, Lindsay Leese. Screenplay: Karen Walton, John Fawcett. Cinematography: Thom Best. Production design: Todd Cherniawsky. Film editing: Brett Sullivan. Music: Mike Shields.

The title is a silly pun, but I don't know of any other reason why Ginger Snaps is not more widely hailed than it is. It certainly delivers on the blood-and-guts scares that much better known movies only promise. Ginger (Katharine Isabelle) is a 16-year-old girl who is bitten by a werewolf on the day that she first begins to menstruate -- later than usual, as her mother (Mimi Rogers) notes. And while the association of menstruation with the emergence of supernatural powers is nothing new -- e.g., Carrie (Brian De Palma, 1976) -- it gives the werewolf trope a grounding in human psychology and physiology. As the condescending school nurse (Lindsay Leese) tells Ginger, handing her a condom, she can now get pregnant and thus has even more need for "protection." In this case, Ginger needs protection from herself: She begins to change, not only developing signs of lycanthropy, but also exhibiting a sexuality that she has heretofore been inclined to hide behind a façade of goth dress and mannerisms. The person closest to Ginger is her 15-year-old sister, Brigitte (Emily Perkins), who is in the same high school class (she skipped a year) and who shares Ginger's deep alienation to the extent that they have vowed to kill themselves when both turn 16 if they haven't been able to escape their bland suburban existence. Their obsession with death leads them to produce a collection of grisly posed photographs that they exhibit to their class, causing the teacher to refer them to the school guidance counsellor and the rest of the class to shun them as "freaks." Their parents are no help: Their mother (a keen performance by Rogers) is self-centered and ineptly domineering, and their father (John Bourgeois) is a wuss. Their only ally is the school drug dealer, Sam (Kris Lemche), who has a greenhouse where he grows his own in a secret backroom. On the night that Ginger is bitten, Sam runs over the werewolf with his van, killing it but also exposing Ginger's secret. The script by Karen Walton and director John Fawcett skillfully and often wittily blends these elements into more than just a setup for scares. Isabelle and Perkins give smart performances, maintaining the sisters' connection even as the one tries to keep the other from giving in to the urges she can't control. It's a darkly funny movie, but when I found myself laughing amid the horror, I was usually laughing at my own vulnerability to its clever and sometimes fresh manipulation of horror-movie tricks.