Personal reaction and logic holes in the plot
I didn’t watch either <i>Ginger Snaps</i> or its sequel. Therefore this is the first of the series that I’ve seen.
Having said that, I didn’t dislike the movie; it’s infinitely better than <i>Blood And Chocolate</i> or <i>Big Bad Wolf</i>, though the latter was a pretty good horror/comedy genre film which didn’t take itself too seriously.
I also kind of liked the werewolves, for two reasons. First, the idea of a <i>permanent</i> change after being bitten makes sense, especially one which is relatively slow and long-drawn-out and not an instantaneous thing. It makes much more sense than an instantaneous change, especially one which is apparently triggered by no more than the effect of the full moon or the werewolf’s desire. And I liked the werewolves themselves, though they looked and moved like ursids (bears) instead of canids (wolves, dogs and foxes).
However, the sisters themselves left me cold, especially Brigitte. Ginger, except in her moments of wide-gooseberry-eyed glaring, was OK. Brigitte wasn’t. Her open-mouthed stares, which take up so much of the film, are more indicative of abysmal stupidity than extreme horror. And don’t even get me started on their modern use of the English language.
Anyway, werewolves and sisters apart, the film is loaded with logic holes big enough to drive a whole pack of werewolves through. A few I noticed, in no particular order:
1. Where the hell do Brigitte and Ginger turn up from in the first place?
2. If werewolfism is passed on through bites, as it evidently is, with all the symptoms of a progressive infective condition, where does a “curse” come in? How can an infection be cured by killing the person who infected you? If it’s a “curse”, how is it passed on through bites?
3. The prophecy says one sister will kill the other if the boy isn’t killed before he bites. Now, the old Native American seer woman evidently knows all about the boy and what will happen if he isn’t killed. How then does she miss out the fact that the story ends the way it does (trying not to introduce a spoiler here)? How can she prophesise everything correctly up to a point and fail abysmally thereafter? Are we talking about the sisters living on, uninfected, until the time of the first movie of the series? Why does Brigitte “see her own death” and it turns out the way it does, which, in turn, has nothing at all to do with the end of the film?
4. How have the seer and the hunter escaped the werewolves?
5. Geoffrey Rowlands. He’s there, in the fort, just bolted up in a room, not even locked, and crying loud enough for Ginger, a newcomer to the fort, to find him almost at once. Yet the people who are living in the fort never find him; not even the Reverend Gilbert, who’s the sort of man who wanders around looking for a sin to punish.
6. Why does Ginger, at the end of the film, resemble a vampire and not a werewolf? She isn’t showing the muzzle growth and physical deformation the boy showed.
7. The first dead werewolf – Claude’s brother – has, apart from a glass eye, a tattoo. Why isn’t the hair growing around and on that tattoo? Does werewolfism leave tattoos untouched as a mark of identification?
Those who have watched all the parts of the film may well find other holes. Big ones.