Ginger Snaps Back: The Beginning

REVIEW
Ah, what a shame it had to come to this: one of the smartest, wittiest horror movie cycles in recent memory ends not with a bang, but with a whimper. The original Ginger Snaps (2000) was not only the first genre film to breathe life into the werewolf theme since An American Werewolf in London almost two decades prior, but it was also an extraordinarily well-written and tightly crafted contemporary horror masterwork, rich with thematic subtext on the subject of developing female sexuality, and driven by two winning, charismatic lead performances from Emily Perkins and Katherine Isabelle as the Fitzgerald sisters (thankfully, the two actresses have returned for the two sequels). The initial sequel, Ginger Snaps Unleashed, also released earlier in 2004, couldn’t really compare to its predecessor, but it remained an enjoyable continuation of the Fitzgerald lycanthrope saga. The final film in the trilogy, Ginger Snaps Back: The Beginning, shot back-to-back with Unleashed, is – unfortunately – a different story altogether. Whereas the first sequel sporadically succeeded by boldly taking the story into some unpredictable directions, this prequel is content to merely offer a lethargic, largely humorless period-piece retread of the original film’s storyline, with subtext every bit as absent from the proceedings as the previous films’ wit. Set in the 19th century, the film drops Ginger and Brigitte (or, one could suppose, their great-great-grandmothers) in a wintry trading post occupied exclusively by men who are terrified of something which lives in the woods around the fort, and subsequently reluctant to allow the two sisters shelter. No prizes for guessing what that something lurking in the woods is, and the film repeats the original Snaps plotline of having Brigitte take care of her bitten and infected sister Ginger. Ginger Snaps Back is not without its modest attributes: the chilly Canadian locations and 19th century fort setting are utilized effectively, and it’s always a treat to see the wonderful Perkins and Isabelle on screen again. But director Grant Harvey – who served as second unit director for the original Snaps - is unable to locate a distinctive tone for the film, and much of the material, now quite familiar to the series’ fans, seems like everyone is just going through the motions again. Ginger Snaps Back is competent if largely dull (though the often anachronistically contemporary dialogue between the sisters is a notable miscalculation), but it’s a shame the series had to end on such a thoroughly irrelevant, anti-climactic note.