I want to ask about the themes of Ginger Snaps, its prequel and its sequel, because I don't think I get them all.
The first movie talks about puberty and other things through the werewolves storyline, but what else?
What about the other movies? Can anyone explain it to me, please?
Apart from puberty, I'd say the original also is about the dark side of sexuality (the attack on Ginger and Jason's failed attack on Brigitte have the imagery of rape, werewolfism is transmitted as an STD, etc). It's also a bit of a critique of run-of-the-mill horror (the over-the-top werewolf film Brigitte watches on TV, the focus on the girls instead of the females' sole role being being sexy and dying, etc). There's also a bit of critique of suburbia (the parents' and teachers' cluelessness, the failure to do anything about Trina's bullying, the focus on comparatively trivial issues like skipping school while there are life-or-death matters at stake - the mother's worried about Ginger having had a fight with Trina while Ginger is trying to cut her tail off, etc).
I don't think the sprequels really have any underlying themes at all (besides, they had a different director and screenwriter than the original), I don't think they have any depths beyond the obvious plot. The prequel was never salvageable IMO, but the sequel might've been saved if they'd done something with the Ghost angle - apart from the huge plot holes in having her there, they wasted some of the potential that storyline had. For example, they could've treated it as a parody of motherhood gone wrong (which kind of would've made sense as a sequel to puberty gone wrong) - with Brigitte "mothering" Ghost, and what worse "parenthood" than having a dangerous, delusional, entirely psychopathic child?
This hasn't gotten a lot of airplay, but a major theme in the the original GS was about devotion, the meaning and limits to it, especially in the transition between child and adult.
Watch the first two scenes that the sisters have together. Notice first that when Ginger recites the oath and raises her hand, Brigitte only reluctantly takes it. She has reservations about the suicide pact, and points out that they made the oath “when they were eight,” and she says those words in a tone as though meaning, “Come on, we were children then.”
When she does clasp Ginger's hand, she gives a condition: “United against life as we know it.” I'm betting this wasn't in their original oath.
To Ginger, the oath is her concept of devotion, and she reads it like this: “You will follow me into death.” In fact, she's grooming Brigitte for suicide. Whereas Brigitte has a far more mature idea of devotion, she's not independent enough to stand up to Ginger about it.
At the end of that scene, when the sister's clasp, there's a line drawing of two skulls on the wall behind them. The paper is white, and the word “Forever” is at the top of it. Their clasped hands are centered in the white, and the word “Forever” is over them. The drawing by the way, is two skulls, one halfway off the paper.
And if you look at the room around it, Brigitte's room has a counterpart to everything on Ginger's side, and it should be symmetric, but it's not. Everything on Ginger's side is lower than on Brigitte's, indicating, I think, that Ginger is about to fall away from the clasp.
You go to the next scene, the suicide slide show. When the two girls are shown having poisoned tea and being dead hand-in-hand, it all seems very morbid, except it's also these two showing their adoration for each other in front of the class, in a way that's completely non-sexual, so their classmates wouldn't embarrass them with any innuendo. Because those two were sexually latent at the start, any suggestion of it nauseated them. Of course, Ginger changes swiftly. And what comes between them and their ardor for each other first? Ginger gets a sex drive, and Brigitte doesn't.
There are a lot of other things about the movie I could tell you about the devotion theme. It's better, though, if you watch certain scenes. Watch the scene after the janitor dies, and listen to the dialog. Also, watch the sisters' first scene and then fast forward to the last scene and watch that. Pay attention to the “clasp” shot and the last shot of them movie, and compare them.
One theme in "Unleashed" is of an adolescence gone awry and a trauma to recover from. They introduce the theme, but they don't take it anywhere. Brigitte's werewolfism might have been a good comparison to the other girls win the ward who had real-life problems. Brigitte's self-medicating after losing Ginger was an exact counterpoint to the girls in the ward who used drugs for their pains. However, after introducing it that way quite blatantly by showing Brigitte shooting the monkshood at the beginning, the movie goes nowhere with it.
There was also another theme: the werewolf chasing Brigitte is like every girl's nightmare stalker. It might symbolize avoiding ones sexuality. But again, little is done with it.
For the prequel, and this is a spoiler, if there was a theme, it was at the end. All the time up until then, we're told things have been predestined, that is prophecized that one sister will kill the other. But Brigitte screws it over, out of devotion. The only thing good about that movie was the end, because it turns out, whatever God sent that prophecy was wrong, meaning it thought of itself as all-knowing, but wasn't.
It was a great twist, but I'm not sure if it's worth watching the movie to get to it.
True, devotion is one the major themes in the original GS, mainly Brigitte towards Ginger, but also to a lesser extent Sam towards Brigitte. The "united against life as we know it" scene to me firmly established Brigitte as the more mature, rational of the sisters (Brigitte and Sam are almost like the voices of reason caught between Ginger's animalistic irrationality and the conventional, clueless stupidity of all authority figures around them).
The plot clearly contrasts real devotion (Brigitte, Sam, even Pam in the deleted scenes) with what Ginger demands - Brigitte doesn't hesitate to put her life on the line to help her sister, but she will not throw away her life for no good reason just because Ginger asks her to.
The innuendo is clear enough both in dialogue after killing the janitor and after Brigitte walks in when Ginger hurts Sam because he pushed her off.
The problem with the unexplored parallelism between the monkshood and drugs in Unleashed is that it can be at most superficial - after all, the use of monkshood is more like taking medicine to manage an incurable illness, and not only is it not escapist, but it serves to protect others, and Brigitte had no real alternative to self-medication. Plus, the other inmates at least had a sort of second chance to turn their lives around (or at least quit drugs at any rate) whereas Brigitte really had no "best case scenario" to speak of.
The problem with the "twist" in the prequel is that (*spoilers*) two different versions of the prophecy are given - that one sister will kill the other unless the boy is killed first (the old woman at the beginning), or that the curse on the land will get stronger unless one sister kills the other (the hunter's version) - like so much else in the prequel, it's inconsistent and a bit random. The prequel would've actually made sense as a fantasy of Ghost (except for the lack of any character she'd be likely to identify with - even the way it handles the devotion between the sisters, needing to tell us without really showing us, would've made sense as a product of a psychopathic child's mind, instead of being put down to inept writing), but they didn't go down that route.
What goes on between Sam and Brigitte does not actually seem to be thematic, it seems more devised, if you understand the meaning. It's consistent with the devotion theme and underlines it.
As a device, Sam admires Brigitte's dedication to Ginger, so much so he can't let her go in alone.
The dialog in the hallway scene is interesting, because Ginger wants to renew the blood oath. Why? Well, in horror terms, they're both different species at that point. "It's like we're not even related anymore." But otherwise, now that she's crossed into puberty, that's still the childish way she understands devotion.
But the point is, she's trying to repair their bond. Brigitte sees it differently. She wants to dispense with the oath. But here's the thing: if they dispense with the oath, there's a risk that they will see the entire bond they had in childhood as being-- childish. At least I think Ginger would. She can't let go of the blood oath because it would falsify her love for Brigitte too.
Then at the end when Ginger has jumped over the moon, she forces Brigitte to drink Sam's blood, and drinks it with her. Now she was letting Sam live and heal there. There are so many shades of disturbing in that scene. When he turned, was it Ginger's idea to share him with Brigitte? The irony there is, that even in beast form, Ginger was still trying to repair the bond with another blood oath.
For Unleashed, actually, taking a "drug" to soothe the trauma of her break with Ginger, not to mention of having to stab her, is exactly the perfect symbolism. It might have led another theme of recovering from trauma.
But, actually, the scenario fails in my mind for utterly different reasons. It doesn't make sense in the way they contrive it. Nobody wakes up in a rehab center. They also don't rehab anybody the way they tried with Brigitte. Seeing her as a danger to herself and confining her to a mental hospital makes a little more sense, but still they would have had psychiatrist talk to her first when she woke up.
About the prequel: it sounds to me like what you call the two versions of the prophecy were actually two different prophecies. One for what would happen if they didn't kill the boy, and the other for what happens now that the boy has bitten Ginger. One warned about keeping the sh*t from hitting the fan, the other one was about how to clean it up. But the first one applied to the second: Brigitte was supposed to kill Ginger, and the consequences of her not doing it were dire. And, of course, Brigitte would work for the greater good. That's what the prophecy seemed to presume.
However, no, Brigitte went with her devotion.
I won't argue that the entire mythos created in the prequel isn't a total incoherent mess, but the irony at the end did work for me. It's one of the few things in the film that did, which is why I give it two stars and not one.
I don't think Ginger was so much trying to repair the bond as trying to restore Brigitte to being basically her shadow. Brigitte has grown a lot as a person, and was already outgrowing her role before the attack (her viewing the oath as childish), so that's not really going to happen. With "I can't - I won't!" with Sam's blood, Brigitte's transition is complete.
Ginger's "we're almost not even related any more," given her tone of voice, posture, etc suggests sexual innuendo (the commentaries state that this was the intended interpretation) to which Brigitte seems too shell-shocked to react (but that she interpreted it as such is implied later, with the "take me" dialogue after Sam is hurt).
You're right about the rehab centre making no sense - but then again, nothing of the plot in Unleashed makes any sense, really; the sequel's redeeming features are Emily Perkins' performance and the character of Ghost, but not the plot. The basic premise isn't even internally consistent - Brigitte looks older, is living on her own, seems to have no connection with either parent and everyone assumes her to be legally an adult, yet the speed at which the infection is progressing rather suggests it can't be too long after the events in part I, when she was fifteen. There's also no hint on how she's putting food on the table. The premise of her running into Ghost, however, is even worse - there's no way a preteen wouldn't be put in some sort of care home or, if the powers that be decided that she needed psychiatric supervision, in a children's mental ward. Her chances of being put up with adult junkies of all people, would be zero. Plus, the hospital is big enough to have both a rehab clinic and a severe burns unit, so even if Ghost were allowed to visit overnight or something, she'd surely be with the kids in the children's ward or with the adult visitors, yet we never see her have any contact whatsoever with any visitor or any other kid.
About the prequel's ending: The old woman's prophecy, or version of the prophecy, is unambiguously proven wrong, as one sister does not kill the other. The hunter's prophecy is consistent with the 'facts' though - presumably the curse on the land gets worse. Yes, Brigitte was supposed to kill Ginger, and the hunter assumed she would, but the prophecy was phrased as either-or.
Unleashed, I've heard, takes place two years after events in GS. I've always assumed that it does. Which would make Brigitte seventeen, of course. I can guess as to reasons why they did this. Maybe to explain why she looks older. One of the better qualities about Unleashed is the change in Brigitte's character. But we both agree, I think. Unleashed was an idiot plot. Only idiots would put Ghost into that facility. Ghost was an idiot, and the only reason she got away with anything is that everyone around, Tyler, Alice, the entire mental health system, the whole world were idiots. Inadvertently, the entire plot of Unleashed seemed to turn on proving Brigitte was an idiot, too. The shot of her getting kicked down into the cellar showed that explicitly. I can't believe she trusted Ghost, a character who was introduced taunting her!
Now, about the innuendo in the hall: Ginger also told us earlier, that she gets this ache, and it feels like it's for sex . . . you know the rest. When she kills the janitor, she compares killing to masturbation. So, it's apparent Ginger's sexuality is cross-wired with other instincts and desires, mostly violent ones. All that has been confirmed by the creators of the movie, too.
Therefore, if she meant it as a sexual innuendo, it likely wasn't about sex. So, my opinion stands. And even with the sexual component, Ginger was trying in her psychotic way to repair the bond. This also agrees with you that she just wants Brigitte back under her control. Since that's what the bond always was to Ginger, it means she wanted to repair the bond. It doesn't mean there wasn't devotion there, too. I've thought about this a lot. I already had considered what you've pointed out.
Also, we know after Ginger gets the ache what follows. So, after Brigitte scorns her, why was Brigitte still alive? Ginger could have forced herself on her the way she did on Jason. What's more, why does she tell Brigitte where she's going? She wanted Brigitte to catch her doing Sam, meaning, Ginger still has just enough regard for Brigitte that she still respected her choice. That was her last respectful act and I think it took a lot of restraint, for a werewolf.
Of course, I think she was going to kill Brigitte for it. Then they weren't related anymore, but Ginger has to prove to her that Sam is a sleazebag. Then she would have killed them both. She needed to get back at this guy who came between her and Brigitte.
That, however, is only one reason for her actions. She was also horny, that is to say, she needed to tear something into little itsy-bitsy pieces. Who better than Sam?
About the prequel: Yeah, it was an either-or, but it also wasn't as though it was the only event in the whole universe that could ever happen. Logical progression has an ending. The world doesn't. Also, you must not have ever seen or read another fantasy where the prophecy comes through garbled?
I don't say that you're wrong, so please don't correct me about the prophecies again. All I'm saying is, it's possible to think about it in a way that can make it an enjoyable plot twist. Apparently, that doesn't work for you. I understand. So, stop trying to correct my enjoyment. I realize my interpretation is imperfect, but don't tell me how to stop enjoying the small amount of fun I got from a movie, especially one that was otherwise a pathetic waste of time.
I'm not trying to correct anyone, I'm merely stating the basis of my interpretation. As there is no original source for the prophecy(ies), all we have is hearsay, either prophecy/version of the prophecy or even both could be garbled. It bothered me that, as I saw it, they couldn't even get their act together in terms of having a coherent mythology, I didn't at the time consider the possibility of a garbled prophecy, and both alternatives are possible given what we see on screen.
Yes, Unleashed is an idiot plot, my only quibble is that I don't think Ghost was particularly stupid - she's a child, unlike the rest of the characters, therefore less experienced and mature. I think more than the taunting, the most stupid aspect of Brigitte trusting her was the whole thing about the dog - most children would be pretty upset at finding their pet torn to pieces, but Ghost is merely annoyed and thinks nothing of carrying its head around. Any halfwit would know Ghost was psychopathic or otherwise pretty messed up (this goes for the staff as well, who must've known about the dog's demise, but they were at least presumably not confronted with Ghost carrying the head around).
I don't think Ginger's relative restraint after killing the janitor was so much about repairing the bond, but about what was left of the bond - what was left restrained her from killing or raping Brigitte. More specifically, the submission was the only aspect of the bond that a werewolf might care for, but what was left of human Ginger still had a bond of sisterhood, which restrained her from doing anything beyond kicking her. By the end, human Ginger was completely gone and thus the only thing left of the bond was Ginger's wanting Brigitte to submit. Ginger was of course trying to drive a wedge between her sister and Sam mainly to remove any competing influence on Brigitte - probably, as you note, by using both jealousy and murder.
Even in a bad movie, you could usually see the beginnings of good ideas. As far as story, the problem with the prequel is they needed a few more drafts of that script. The movie needed other things, too, but that's what the story needed. The same thing applies to Unleashed. I did also say that it looks like a script that somebody came up with completely apart from Ginger Snaps, but they chose to graft it in anyway. So, the only things really tying it to the characters in the original are two characters with the same names (played by the same actresses) who, we're told, are sisters and close friends, and we have the bird skull necklaces, which, in the original, didn't enter the plot except as a background thing. Notice that the old woman gave them the necklaces for no apparent reason: they definitely didn't do anything, and didn't sway either of the girl's decisions.
About ghost. I don't even remember if she was any particular age. I actually thought she was older, and her immature mannerisms were because her personality was stunted, or part of her manipulation. I didn't actually think they would put a pre-teen in that place, but with everything else out of whack, why not. Telling you the truth, I had forgotten about that dog head. As I think about it, would Brigitte in her state even be able to tell that was odd? She would definitely be able to tell that Ghost pissed her off, though. Just a thought.
You're right about Ginger's restraint part wasn't about repairing the bond, I just got side-tracked. But you agree she had just enough respect for Brigitte, and that doesn't say that she just cared about a little more than just submission. Think of it: she's going through it alone. She probably wants a pack, but she wants it on her terms. No, she wanted the bond, too, but couldn't accept it for anything but submission.
I always thought these were the themes:
Ginger Snaps: Puberty
Unleashed: drug addiction
Prequel: child abandonment
You're right about Unleashed, except I think it's a little deeper than just drug addiction. It's also about trauma, an adolescence gone wrong, and probably child abuse. Brigitte was broken on the rocks and suffered a terrible betrayal in GS. To begin Unleashed, we find her taking shots not to get high, but to restrain the monster in her. Then she's locked up with a bunch who's adolescence has also gone off track. Then Ghost comes along and the whole thing falls off track. I think they were just a revision or two away from having a great movie.
For the prequel, I never thought about that. I think you're right.