You have to give the the Ginger Snaps franchise all the respect in the world for the way it approached its sequels when the powers that be announced that they would be following up the magnificent original with two follow up that were shot in rapid succession and unleashed direct to DVD. Most movies in this position would simply be content to recycle the same old stuff, but Ginger Snaps, much like the infamous Fitzgerald sisters, wasn’t afraid to be defiantly different and stand out from the crowd.
The first sequel followed on from the events of the original story and swapped out lycanthropy equals puberty comparisons for contrasting a slow transformation into a werewolf with teen mental health issues actually wasn’t that bad at all despite being way less witty than its predecessor; but the third movie chose to reinvent the wheel entirely, resetting the entire status quo to sometime during the early nineteenth century and locating it deep in the Canadian wilderness. However, a courageous reset of the status quo aside, does such an extreme shift actually benefit the werewolf saga, or is this transformation one step too far?
Some time in the 1800s, sisters Ginger and Bridget Fitzgerald find themselves stumbling through the snowy wastes of the Canadian wilderness after their trader parents were drowned when their boat experienced some major difficulties. However, their luck seems to be permanently set on bad when after briefly taking refuge with a Native American seer woman who cryptically tells them that that they must kill a boy to avoid killing one another, the younger Bridget later mauls her ankle after stepping in a trap. They are ultimately saved by a Cree hunter who also manages to fend off some mysterious large beasts lurking in the snow coated forrest, however, after being safely escorted to Fort Bailey, the sisters get a strong feeling that they might have been better off roaming in the woods.
It seems that the last survivors of the fort have been trying to fend off wolf attacks for a while and as a result, their numbers have either dropped due to death by giant incisors or a mass exodus. This has resulted in the survivors becoming horribly paranoid as the fire and brimstone ranting of Father Gilbert has everyone on edge, but while their leader, Wallace Rowlands, welcomes the girls in, this angers some of the other inhabitants who believe the Fitzgerald sisters dance with the devil.
However, it soon becomes apparent that there’s something way more sinister than fundamentalism gone mad when Ginger discovers a small boy locked away in secret who is midway through a transformation into a lupin beast and infects her with a panicked bite. With werewolves howling at the fort gates and a Cree prophecy starting to come to fruition due to Ginger’s wolfy condition, the sisters have to try to stick together and survive in an increasingly hostile environment.
Again, I have to tip the brim to my non-existent hat to the fact that Ginger Snaps Back: The Beginning, goes all out to rock the boat and shoot for some sort of originality; but all the ambitious good intentions in the work amount to a pile of wolf poo if your film isn’t interesting. Unfortunately, despite the crazy shift into period piece territory, the third movie in the Ginger Snaps odyssey kind of stumbles over its own paws while striving to mix things up and ultimately ends up sidelining it’s two most important characters.
While the set up isn’t a million miles away from Antoina Bird’s 1999 cannibal oddity, Ravenous, Ginger Snaps Back does manage to give us half decent production values thanks to some expansive sets and some genuinely uncomfortable looking Canadian winters, but for anyone looking forward to seeing the fabulous Fitzgerald sister ride together once again, the movie seems strangely uncertain as how to approach them in such a socially harsh setting. While there’s plenty of menfolk ready to place their various hang ups on the two girls, the film’s metaphors simply aren’t as clever or relatable as either of the first two movies and the dynamic between Bridget and Ginger seems disappointingly muted thanks to the period setting. The script for the first film was about as razor sharp as a wolf’s dental work and gave both Katherine Isabelle and Emily Perkins plenty to work with as the outcast siblings at their high school. However, try as they might, even these two can’t bring a rather drab script to life that lays out its themes annoyingly on the nose. Yes, two young women trapped in an isolated location with a scattering of desperate men is bad news, but we’ve seen this many times before and considering how innovative the franchise has been thus far with it’s metaphors, Ginger Snaps Back has strangely not much new to say about the cruelty of men, the treatment of women, or the freedom the steady transformation into a beast affords someone who is restrained by social constructs.
As a result, Ginger barely snaps and instead of her steadily growing more commanding and confident around a cluster of terrified men used to seeing women faint and flutter, we’re delivered a more bog standard survival flick that also throws in Native American beliefs and a slightly dull power struggle as the menfolk try and gain control of the situation.
Virtually none of the characters are particularly memorable and a whole subplot involving Rowland’s hidden half werewolf may kick everything off when he infects Ginger, but it soon goes nowhere fast and everything else about the film kind of follows suit. The angry reverend and a particularly anti-female member of the fort don’t do anything new with the topes they have to work with and the whole enterprise sort of collapses into chaotic indifference when the film should have us on the edge of our seats.
However, a couple of things do stand out. For a start, the sight of Nathaniel Arcand’s Native American werewolf hunter feels like it deserves its own movie as he lays waste to his lycanthrope prey with tomahawks, knives and arrows like he’s getting paid for it. Elsewhere, the movie manages to sell Ginger’s transformation – if only in a single image – when she opens the door to the fort and ushers in a wave of werewolves like they’re her own personal attack dogs and there’s a neat idea that has leeches being used to spot potential carriers of the werewolf curse because they react so violently.
However, even with the occasional cool moment and break outs of gore, Ginger Snaps Back: The Beginning is ultimately a disappointment that fails to utilise its brand new setting or even the basic aspects of a Ginger Snaps film. While it is good to see Isabelle and Perkins “sister up” one last time, the movie commits the ultimate and unforgivable sin of making the siblings into more typical horror protagonists who are more victim than anarchic anti-hero. For a Ginger Snaps movie, that just takes the biscuit.
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