MovieChat Forums > Ginger Snaps: Unleashed (2004) Discussion > Why this ugly awful makeup when Ginger S...

Why this ugly awful makeup when Ginger Snaps was done well?

posted 16 years ago by jrosekonungrinn
16 replies | jump to latest

Ugh, yuck! I just saw this movie, and wow was I disappointed by the look. The movie was pretty good, but the makeup in this one was just God-awful crap. In the first Ginger Snaps movie, Ginger's makeup effects were done quite well, and oddly beautifully. I understand that Bridgette is the "mousy", "less attractive" sister, but she's a pretty girl in her own right, and didn't deserve to be treated so poorly by whatever talentless jackass they hired for makeup in Ginger Snaps II. Seriously, what the hell? Instead of going with the lovely look Ginger started to change into, and additionally not going animalistic in any regard whatsoever, instead they do ugly wrinkling of the face and then wacky splayed out hillbilly teeth?? That's not werewolf-y- that's not even animalistic, that's just ugly crap. Why would they do that?? What stupid idiot approved that move? Blech.

[–] Amethystlongcat 16 years ago

I think its supposed to look like her body is not only changing into wolf but the monkshood, which only slowed the process, was fighting against it, leaving her face and arm swollen and ugly.

[–] lcsaba 16 years ago

The "talentless jackass" you mentioned was Howard Berger, a makeup legend. One of the best in the SFX industry.

[–] jrosekonungrinn 16 years ago

Well then, I guess it's really too bad he dropped the ball so majorly on this one.

[–] covenant12 16 years ago

He didn't go for the "sexy" look, but the makeup effects were done quite well. Not seeing how he dropped the ball, considering the sisters underwent completely different metamorphoses.

[–] Twitterpated 15 years ago

The make-up effects for this one were overall vastly superior to the original. The werewolf was far more wolf-like than in the previous movie (they had the bigger budget in this one too pull it off). In reference to why they made Brigitte look uglier than Ginger, it was to show that the monkshood was fighting the lycanthropy...so instead of the smooth, attractive change that Ginger went through, Brigitte's was far more painful and twisted, leaving her to appear deformed.

[–] freeist 15 years ago

Vastly superior? Okay, it was a somewhat better werewolf, but the makeup looked terrible. Very stiff and inorganic looking. But I'm not sure how much of it was the failure of the makeup artist and how much was the director of photography. If you don't light and shoot the scene right, you could really blow some very good makeup work.

The makeup in the original worked, well enough anyway, but that was mostly because of the lighting.

[–] freeist 15 years ago

I frankly think totally he blew it here, no matter his reputation. I never knew before werewolves had sow's ears and third-degree burns on their lips. The mask at the very end looks like it's made of papier-mache.

Now, it might not be his fault. Maybe certain materials and compounds weren't available to him on this shoot due to budget. Also, the director and director of photography have to light and shoot the scene in a way that the makeup looks convincing, and they might have fallen down on the job there.

But it looks so bad.

[–] Illyngophobia 15 years ago

Keep in mind B was also dosing up on monkshood a LOT,and her addiction to it ended up messing her up badly.

"Life is pleasant.Death is peaceful.It's the transition that's troublesome." - Isaac Asimov

[–] freeist 15 years ago

I try to keep that in mind, but that also means she would have looked much worse before transformation. And nothing excuses that mask at the end.

[–] BirdCageLive 15 years ago

Since B was supposed to look like a stressed out junkie, the makeup looked great.

[–] noose_and_nail 15 years ago

Um...are you on drugs, very-opionated OP? Ginger's makeup looked like complete crap in the first one. I love the movie to death, but it's miniscule budget definately shows. This one was detailed and disturbing.

[–] freeist 15 years ago

But they knew how to light it, which is why it worked adequately. What she says looked like crap, I think she means that Brigitte never became alluring, when heightened sexuality was such a part of the first. There's a sad truth to that. Katharine Isabelle's allure was used to promote and sell the first movie, to males and females. For the second, they had already had a base audience they knew would see it, so that promotion was unneeded. As a result, Emily Perkins got the orc makeup.

A sad fact for what is essentially a womens' movie, but it's true.

[–] angelexposed 15 years ago

I always figured that Brigitte's transformation to wolf form was so different from Ginger's because unlike Ginger's transformation, there was nothing "organic" about it.

Ginger didn't have the use of the monkshood to fight off the spread of the "virus", so her transformation happened much more naturally and gradually (and much more evenly).

Brigitte is using Monkshood, but has it taken away from her in rehab and the infection starts to accelerate to catch up with itself now that the monkshood isn't there. For all we know while the monkshood has been "preventing" the transformation, it might have also somehow altered the way the "virus" behaves which is why the transformation is very random and working mainly on her right side but not her left).

I thought the makeup was interesting (although I thought the mouth was a bit too puckery and "anus like" for my tastes). But it definitely reveals that the tranformation from human to wolf isn't really meant to be attractive at all, and if (as someone mentioned) the first movie hadn't been aimed so much more at male audiences, Ginger would have been even less attractive than she was.

[–] zvehn 15 years ago

Everyone keeps saying that her deformities were caused by her intake of monkshood/wolfsbane. This can't exactly be the cause since in Ginger Snaps III, the little boy is severely deformed and he hadn't been dosed at all with wolfsbane.

One thing I did definitely notice, though, was that the appearance of Ginger throughout the movie gradually changes from beautiful to horrid in appearance. In the first few scenes, she appears in a slimming body piece and dress, hair nicely combed, and with accenting makeup. As the movie progresses and Bridgette nears the end of her transformation, Ginger's appearance is much more garish and is more reminiscent of a vagrant with a sweater hoodie and unkempt hair.

Going back to the makeup of Brigitte, I had thought that her transformation was different due to the way she was "dosed" with Ginger's blood in the first. A direct blood-to-blood transfusion of the virus may be more severe in effect than the usual scratch-to-blood or bite-to-blood transfusion causing a more accelerated and mutated version of the virus to take effect.

[–] freeist 15 years ago

With burnt lips and a sows ear, and that mask at the end looked like it was bought off a store-shelf.

But for the teeth, remember Brigitte was actually filing her teeth? (That girl really, really, hated werewolfism). That's what's supposed to have wrecked the werewolf dentation (however, they are supposed to heal faster, and Brigitte was able to heal without trouble from a triple fracture!)

They did not try for anything alluring here, they just went for horror. In the first, they tried to balance allure and horror in Katharine Isabelle's character is probably what made them think so carefully about the makeup. Without having to balance that here, maybe that's why it shows less thought.

Even if not, the makeup in this is just bad.

[–] TyLee896 12 years ago

Your're just mad because you couldn't get a hard on, imfao