Teenage Canadian goth girl werewolves and the menstrual menace are the subjects of this entertaining horror flick that delivers its themes with a sledgehammer, but makes it work. Teen drama doesn’t need subtlety.
Actually, our leads aren’t so much goths as they are nihilists on an adolescent hate trip. Ginger (Katherine Isabelle) and Brigitte (Emily Perkins) are two sisters who talk about suicide like other girls talk about the Homecoming dance. They use salty language at their parents, dress in about nineteen layers of frumpy black clothing, and want nothing to do with anyone at school. They say things like “Wrists are for girls; I’m slitting my throat”. For kicks, they take Polaroid pics of each other in realistic staged death scenes.
They love each other and no one or nothing else.
There’s a touch of humor in it, but overall the film affords Ginger and Brigitte some weird dignity. They’re the freaks of the school and that’s okay.
In the middle of that, director John Fawcett and writer Karen Walton twist the werewolf movie formula by turning it into an allegory for growing up, which is something that Ginger and Brigitte dread. Having boyfriends, living past your teens, and even menstruating–which both lead characters have yet to do at the beginning of the movie, though they’re well into their pubescent years–are all sell-out moves to them.
When older sister Ginger finally has her first “time of the month”, she’s attacked at the very same moment by a mysterious werewolf that’s been killing pets late at night in their small town. She suffers a nasty scratch and you know what means.
Ginger is not only now a woman, but she’s now a werewolf, too. And here comes the theme of the film like a Ford F-150 through a plate glass window. CRASH!
Here, you don’t just wolf out during the full moon. Nope, in this movie it’s a metamorphosis in which one acquires a tail, fangs, patches of fur, an aggressive attitude and a taste for blood over a few days until they finally go full wolf, permanent-like. You never get your old self back.
As she makes her transformation, Ginger also starts going to parties, dressing to drive the boys crazy, and having sex.
Meanwhile, the younger one feels betrayed, but she’s still there for her sister and it’s oddly moving and it’s one of those things that makes this film effective. Sure, the supporting characters are on the cartoonish side (especially Mimi Rogers as the girls’ mother, who openly discusses matters of menses at the dinner table), but the two leads are allowed to show real humanity behind their scowls. They’re memorable characters with full arcs and dialogue sharpened to razor points. They’re ready to be cult icons for disaffected youth.
This did well on the festival circuit and was a mild hit in Canada, but didn’t play much in US theaters. Here, it was a common video store find and got around well as a rental. Between all of that, it became popular enough for both a sequel and a prequel.