Movie review: Ginger Snaps 2

[jere7my]

Y'all will probably lose all respect for my reviews when I tell you this, but I liked Ginger Snaps 2 a lot more than Big Fish. The first Ginger Snaps used lycanthropy as a metaphor for female puberty and the onset of menses; the sequel uses the struggle against lycanthropy as a metaphor for the reckless things teenage girls do to deal with puberty.

The movie opens with a teenager in the bathtub, cutting herself with a scalpel. It's a common enough image, but this girl is carefully keeping track of how quickly each cut heals: she's been infected with lycanthropy, and the faster she heals, the closer she is to transforming. (As we all know, werewolves can't be hurt by ordinary blades.) This is the sort of thing Joss Whedon did with Buffy: taking elements of myth and legend and using them as a lens through which to perceive the traumas of growing up. It's darker and gorier, but it's the same impulse.

Ginger Snaps 2 is, for the most part, a simple story told well, and it continues the fairly rigorous exploration of lycanthropy begun in Ginger Snaps. I tend to enjoy a story that unearths a cliche and works through it from a new angle, and this new crop of independent Canadian horror films is particularly good at it. GS2 does have some problems—the makeup FX are a bit ludicrous, and there was a sort of unnecessary twist that I thought strained the metaphor—but as a successor to the excellent Ginger Snaps it doesn't disappoint. And Emily Perkins continues to knock my socks off—geeky, intense, strong, unselfconsciously sexy. If you liked the first, or if you want a darker sort of Buffy episode, give it a look.

(I would advise against starting to eat a hot, drippy strawberry pastry during the opening scenes, though.)

Comments

[quixoticdancer.livejournal.com]

Hmm...this sounds interesting. I've been meaning to check out May as well, and it sounds like the 3 movies would make a great themed evening.

And I was not blown away by Big Fish, either.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_swallow/]

> (I would advise against starting to eat a hot, drippy strawberry pastry during the opening scenes, though.)

Oh man, you too? The original got us in its opening credits with two warm containers of Chinese food. Chicken covered in suddenly- suspicious-looking dark gooey sauce.

<shudders>

(My friend truepenny had some interesting things to say about the the first movie, I think.)

[jere7my.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the pointer to truepenny; it jibes with a lot of what I was thinking when I saw the first one. The discussion that followed was interesting too, particularly the divide between "Puberty was great, so I hated GS!" and "Puberty scared the crap out of me, so I loved GS!" I hope truepenny finally saw and enjoyed the sequel; I, too, am wary of the prequel.