I remember watching the original Ginger Snaps soon after its VHS release in the UK. I was still a teen, and this was before I came out as a trans woman. I remember being enraptured by the movie. I adored Ginger and Brigitte, with their strength, their independent nature, and the journey they went on through the movie. Guys I knew who liked the movie would always default to some gross reason, usually their attraction to Katherine Isabelle, and never talked about the movies messages or themes beyond the most surface level male gaze interpretation of 'weird girl got hot because of a werewolf'. I didn't understand it at the time, but it was because the movie was talking to me on a feminist level as a closeted trans woman. It was a powerfully defiant movie, one that bucked the trends of the time, put women in the forefront, and handled topics that other movies would have ran from. Even though it had been many years since I watched it I still cited it as one of the best werewolf films ever made; and so when Second Sight announced that a new Blu-ray release of the entire trilogy was coming out and offered me the opportunity to review it I knew that I couldn't let the opportunity pass me by.
The first Ginger Snaps film begins in the quiet, boring suburb of Bailey Downs in Ontario, where a series of dog killings have been taking place. Despite these brutal attacks, the community remains somewhat insular, unwilling to care for the plight of their neighbours. It's here that we meet sister Ginger (Katherina Isabelle) and Brigitte Fitzgerald (Emily Perkins), two social outcasts struggling to find their place in the world. They insist on living in their homes unfinished basement, they create a slideshow of death images of the two of them for their school project on 'life in Bailey Downs', and they don't really have any friends in their lives. They're isolated and alone, unsure of who they want to be, or even if they want to be.
One night when out to pull a prank on one of the school bullies the two of them are attacked by some kind of large dog, with the creature seemingly focused in on Ginger as she suddenly experiences her first period; the blood apparently drawing its attention. The two of them manage to escape, but Ginger is badly wounded in the attack. However, her wounds begin to heal quickly, much to the worry of Brigitte. As the days go on Ginger begins to change, both in personality and her body, and Brigitte becomes convinced that she's losing her sister to a monstrous transformation. With only a handful of days before the next full moon Brigitte sets out to try and save her sister.
For a genre that's usually dominated by male leads, Ginger Snaps bucked trends and gained international acclaim by putting it's two female leads in the centre stage. Werewolf stories focus on transformation, of the physical changes that twist the human body into something monstrous. With Ginger Snaps, however, the film makes the wonderfully bold choice to link lycanthropy with menstruation and puberty, and doesn't shy away from the horrors that can often come with that experience. There's some very surface level take aways from this linking, the monthly cycle, your body being wracked with pain and aches, the shedding of blood; but for those with a keener eye and the willingness to explore further the film offers a lot more. Ginger Snaps is as much a movie about the female experience of your body's physical transformation, exaggerated her with monstrous effect. We get to watch as Ginger rejects the changes she's going to, wanting to hold onto the life she had before. She's embarrassed by the new attention her mother gives her. She fights through the new rush of desires she begins to experience for the boys around her and the hunger she feels. Ginger Snaps is a monster movie, but the monster is menstruation, not the werewolf.
It was this narrative choice that set Ginger Snaps apart when it first came out, but it was the performances from its two young leads that cemented the film as an all-time great in both the annals of horror and genre of female rage. Katherine Isabelle is much of the focus of the film as the titular Ginger, the young woman who's living through the nightmare of the curse she's fallen under. Isabelle plays the older of the two sisters, the one who believes she must protect her sister, and who holds the most power in their relationship. Over the course of the film you begin to see a somewhat toxic co-dependence pushed by Ginger, one that she's probably not even aware she's creating. She drives so much of Brigitte's life, her choices, and forces her into situations she's not comfortable with, yet never feels obviously manipulative and cruel. If anything Isabelle makes you see the love that drives this toxic pairing, the love that makes Ginger somewhat dangerous, and blind to her own twisted nature. Isabelle is also able to wonderfully capture both sides to Ginger, from the quiet, 'weird' kid who just wants to be left alone, to the girl who suddenly begins to feel confident and sexy in her body; a change that's ironically captured in her hallway walk scene.
It's easy to see why Katherine Isabelle gets her laurels for her performance in Ginger Snaps, but Emily Perkins delivers just as strong a performance as Brigitte. Where Ginger goes through a huge outward change Brigitte experiences a more subtle one. Watching as her sister begins to change around her, Brigitte must go from the meek follower to someone willing to take risks, to stand up to her overbearing older sister, and who puts her life on the line to set things right. Brigitte has just as important an empowerment story, yet often gets forgotten about when people discuss the film, focusing instead on Ginger. But when you watch through the film focusing instead on Brigitte (the real man protagonist) you begin to see how amazing Perkins is in the role. She builds this quiet power over the course of the film, you start to see the defiance build behind her meek facade, and where Katherine Isabelle uses her body and her confidence to show Gingers strengths Perkins does this with her eyes, with the subtle shift in how she holds herself, and ultimately with a truly powerhouse performance come the final act.
Ginger Snaps was something of a low budget monster movie made in the early 2000's, and as such I was expecting the film to have aged somewhat poorly. But I was still surprised with how well the film looked on screen. Director John Fawcett manages to capture a dreariness in the film, a sense of grey, empty everyday life that teenagers of the time wanted to escape from. The film looks dull in many ways, the lack of colour and the boring normalness of it may not have been a conscious choice, perhaps one driven by lack of any other option, but the end result is a film that despite two and a half decades of age feels just as fresh and interesting as when it first came out. It has a low budget feel to it, but one that feels intentional, and one that perfectly suits the tone of the film. A flashier, more Hollywood version of Ginger Snaps not only wouldn't work, but would ruin the entire flavour of the film, and it wouldn't hold up anywhere near as well as it has managed to do.
Alongside the movie Ginger Snaps comes with a trio of audio commentary tracks. There's an audio commentary with Director John Fawcett, and another with Writer Karen Walton that have been on previous releases of the film and offer some wonderful insight into the creative process that went into the movie, as well as the impact the film had. The third commentary track is new for the Second Sight release, and features May Beth McAndrews and Terry Mesnard from the Scarred For Life podcast, who offer insight into the film from the perspective of expert fans of the genre, and people who grew up with the film shaping their experiences of horror. There's also a short video essay, some new interviews with crew members such as Director John Fawcett, Producer Steve Hoban, and Storyboard Artist Vincenzo Natali. Some behind the scenes featurettes that go into the making of movie, the creation of the monster effects, and rehearsals accompany deleted scenes and trailers. There's a lot of special features included, and even without the commentary tracks there's enough here to take hours to go through; giving any fan of the movie a load to sink their teeth into.
Ginger Snaps 2: Unleashed is the first of the concurrently produced sequel films, and directly picks up where the first film left off (spoilers ahead for the end of Ginger Snaps). With Brigitte having been forced to kill her sister following her monstrous transformation at the end of the first film, and now dealing with her own growing infection, we find Brigitte on the run, tracking the progress of the 'cure' from the first film that has turned out to be a temporary solution, only slowing the transformation instead of preventing it. Haunted by the spectre of her sister (and our way of featuring Katherine Isabelle in the film still), Brigitte is trying to stay one step ahead of a male werewolf that's on her trail, hoping to mate with her. When the male wolf catches up with her, killing a library worker looking to help her, it leaves Brigitte injured, waking up in a youth drug rehab centre as authorities believe her werewolf serum and needles point to her being a drug addict.
Locked inside the facility, and with no access to the to the drug that will slow her transformation, Brigitte is desperate to find a way to escape. She soon finds herself teaming up with the young Ghost (Tatiana Maslany), a girl who's there awaiting a foster care placement after her grandmother was injured in a fire, and who quickly recognises Brigitte's condition from her horror comics and love of monsters. Together the two of them must find a way to escape the facility and prevent the pursuing male werewolf from taking Brigitte as his mate.
I never saw Ginger Snaps 2: Unleashed when it was first released, and knew nothing about it before watching it other than the previous films two leads were in it. I didn't even know how Katherine Isabelle featured, and if they would somehow bring Ginger back from the dead. This would have been the easier approach, the one that a lesser film would have made, somehow undoing the ending of the previous movie and removing the impact it had just to get one of its stars back. However, Ginger Snaps 2: Unleashed made the more impressive choice of sticking to their guns. Ginger is dead, and now it's impossible to deny that Brigitte is the real star of the series as she's forced into the role of the one fighting the werewolf infection.
Despite only being set a few weeks after the first movie it's impressive how much Brigitte has changed. She's outwardly assertive now, the quiet, almost nervous energy of the first film having been shed to make way for a young woman fighting for power, to be recognised as someone who knows what she's doing, as respected enough that others allow her to advocate for herself. Despite this change, it's fully believable with her journey, and whilst the Brigitte of the first movie wouldn't be threatening bullies with violence, or sternly talking down to counsellors, she has more than earned that strength now. This is a Brigitte without Gingers shadow, and she could easily stand beside other horror icons like Sarah Connor or Ellen Ripley as a woman coming into her own and finding the strength to fight against overwhelming odds.
Emily Perkins also gets the chance to invert the sister role from the first film, as she steps into the protective elder role with the inclusion of Ghost. Ghost gives Brigitte the excuse to become the protector, to become more like Ginger; and there are moments in the film that mirror scenes from the first one where Brigitte is now the one angrily telling the younger girl to leave her alone as she tries to deal with her transformation alone whilst the younger girl keeps trying to help her. It's a great inversion, and you can almost see the hesitancy from Brigitte as this dynamic starts to form, likely not wanting things to end the way they did for her and Ginger with this new friend. It also helps that Ghost is played wonderfully by a young Tatiana Maslany, who manages to inject warmth, comedy, and kindness into Ghost, whilst also bringing a level of darkness that makes her a character you're never quite sure of, who keeps you guessing right up until the end of the film.
I can see why people might not have liked the second film as much when it first came out, as it's a very different kind of film. Despite her prominent inclusion on the cover and name in the title, Ginger is barely in the film, and when she is she's clearly a manifestation of Brigitte's own internal thoughts and fears instead of her actual sister. Katherine Isabelle received perhaps too much of the praise of the original film, with male audience members focusing on her over her sister, and so I can understand a feeling of disappointment that she wasn't really a part of the follow-up. However, Ginger Snaps 2: Unleashed manages to be just as good as the first film, because of how different they are. Perhaps it helped that I got to watch them pretty much back to back over two days, instead of waiting four years to see it, but I found it to be a well thought out and brilliantly put together follow-up. The first film had a very definitive ending, so any sequel would have been hard pressed to make its existence feel earned, and the second Ginger Snaps not only did this, it also managed to stand on its own as a great piece of feminist film.
The second film comes with an audio commentary with Director Brett Sullivan, as well as a brand new interview with him that goes into the creation of the film. Writer Megan Martin also receives a new interview, and offers her perspective on the movie, as well as going into the difficult creation process. There are also some behind the scenes special features, audition tapes, and deleted scenes that offer more insight into the movie.
Ginger Snaps Back: The Beginning is the most unusual piece of the trilogy, and the movie that I was most interested to finally see. A prequel film set in the harsh wilderness of the Canadian frontier, it sees two sisters, Ginger and Brigitte Fitzgerald, seeking out help as the only survivors of their family party. The film begins with the two of them travelling through the brutal winter conditions on horseback, searching for any kind of help, when they come across a ruined Cree camp. Here they encounter an elderly seer (Edna Rain), who delivers them a cryptic warning that they must 'kill the boy' to prevent one of the sisters from killing the other. The sisters then discover a Cree hunter, simply named The Hunter (Nathaniel Arcand), who leads the two of them to a fort manned by a ragtag group of soldiers and fur-trappers.
The sisters learn that the fort is under siege by monsters that come in the dark, that kill without mercy, or infect you and slowly transform you into one of them. Monsters that the locals call wendigo. With supplies having been cut off for months, no sign of help coming, and losses mounting, the fort inhabitants may be as dangerous to the two sisters and the creatures lurking just beyond the walls. However, when Ginger becomes infected the two sisters must try to figure out a way for them to survive not just the danger that surrounds them, but the prophecy from the Cree elder.
Ginger Snaps Back: The Beginning is a hugely bold move from the creators. The sequels were both greenlight at the same time, and they were given free reign to take the series in whatever direction they wanted, as long as the two leads were in them. Rather than making two films that follow on, which would have limited their options and perhaps locked them into the 'sequel hell' trope, they chose to conclude Brigitte's story at the end of Ginger Snaps 2: Unleashed in a wonderfully dark ending, and decided to have some fun with the third movie by giving audiences something so completely different. And this wild departure is perhaps the reason why a lot of people find it to be the weakest film in the series; and whilst I will say that I prefer the first two I did absolutely love the third one.
I'm a sucker for historical horror. I love it when a horror story, whether that be a book, film, or game, decides to go for a setting that enhances the horror experience. It's bad enough dealing with werewolves in a time where we know the legends, where you have modern weapons, vehicles you can escape in, or the ability to call for help at any moment; but imagine you've got no idea what these things are, you have only candlelight at night, guns are few and far between and only fire a single shot, and you have no way to get help. The added isolation and danger that comes with a historical setting only enhances the themes of being overwhelmed, of danger and powerlessness that most horror stories rely on.
Ginger Snaps Back: The Beginning does this well, putting a handful of characters in a remote, isolate location. They're running out of supplies, their walls are weakening, and they have only the myths and whispered legends of the native people they look down upon to guide them towards an answer. It feels like the most dangerous film of the three, especially as there are multiple werewolves to deal with, alongside violent men. One of the main drawbacks, however, is that I feel the film loses much of the feminist messaging of the previous two. Ginger and Brigitte are meeker in this film, their attitudes and actions restricted by the expectations and roles of the era. Yes, we do see that they're independent women, surviving on their own, but they still become subservient to the men around them, looked down on as weak, lusted over and seen as temptations. Despite the names and the actresses being the same, the Ginger and Brigitte in this film are pretty far from the Ginger and Brigitte we know and love.
For me, the film does manage to stay entertaining thanks to how different it was, but trying to do some new things, and because I have a soft spot for that particular sub-genre, but I certainly understand how it's the black sheep of the trilogy and the most divisive one. As with the other films, the third comes with an audio commentary to accompany it, featuring Director Grant Harvey. Harvey also gets a new interview, in which he goes into the making of the third film, as well as shedding some light on how it and the second were made at the same time and the creative process that led to them. There's also an interview with Producer Paula Devonshire, a making of special feature, deleted scenes, and a video diary.
The new trilogy boxset is an impressive release. It not only gives fans of the series some great new features, but for those like myself who loved the original film when it first came out but struggled to get access to the sequels it's a wonderful way to do so. Ginger Snaps remains as one of the important horror films of recent decades, one that helped to push women into the spotlight as more than just a final girl, and made women's stories and their struggles the main focus. It's wonderful to see the film getting the recognition and attention it deserves with this new set, and hopefully it will give whole new audiences the chance to discover it.
The Ginger Snaps Trilogy is available on Blu-ray from Second Sight Films from 25th May 2026.
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