Ginger Snaps is a low budget Canadian horror film that also has a subtext of growing up and puberty.

Bridgette (Emily Perkins) and Ginger (Katharine Isabelle) are two sisters who are very close and have fascination about death. They stage and photograph death scenes and regarded as weird at High School where they are regarded as outcasts and suffer from bullying. Ginger is one year older than Bridgette and is starting her period rather late.

Ginger gets attacked by a werewolf very close to her first period and her body undergoes changes. Hair, mood swings, pains, bleeding, sexualisation and a tail. You see the parallels to growing up and becoming a werewolf. Heck there is even a 28 day cycle!

Of course as the blood lust takes effect Ginger gets more savage and starts to kill. This is after the guys at High School find her hot and appealing which means she has no trouble attracting victims. Its left to Bridgette and high school drug dealer Sam to find a cure for lycanthropy and save Ginger.

There is nothing much original about a werewolf film. Writer Karen Walton has given this film a feminist twist and a lot of it is due to the bond between the two sisters and Bridgette wanting to save Ginger out of that love.

Director John Fawcett goes for a more realistic portrayal of High School life and more honest representation of family relationships when children hit adolescent. Mimi Rogers plays the mother and although the father does not speak a lot when he does his remarks are rather waspish.

The film suffers slightly from its low budget and it could been tighter. I think the climax loses its way a bit and should had been better presented.

Its a rare combination of intellectual horror and dark comedy which works to an extent but never quiet pulls it off successfully.

A breath of fresh air for the teen horror film and a thumbs-up for the independent movie, this low-budget Canadian werewolf film is a real shocker which starts off slowly and gradually builds to a fantastic climax which is pretty much edge-of-your-seat kind of stuff. The standard "innocent is bitten by werewolf and begins to turn" story is propelled by some original touches, like the puberty angle which sees the teenage bite victim mistaking her transformation for mere menstrual woes. Frank dialogue, excellent developed characters, and actors who play each other off superbly are just some of the reasons this film became something of a sleeper hit, garnering generally rave reviews from critics who actually bothered watching it.

What kept me watching the film closely is the unpredictability of the narrative; you're never quite sure where the film is going, or who might be the next victim, so you just have to keep watching to see where they're going with the story. The pacing is spot-on and the story ideal. Things start off on a decidedly realistic tone, with teenage woes and high school heartbreak on the top of the list. This gives us time to learn about and even like the principal characters, namely Emily Perkins and Katharine Isabelle as teenage sisters Brigitte and Ginger. Once the characters are properly introduced, the morbid and gory events begin to build up and we're then sucked into the film all the while, eagerly awaiting the next macabre happening and seeing what will happen. Themes of morbidity, friendship, and power run throughout to keep things interesting and the characters are likable only because they're all too human - no mindless sentimentalising here, thank god.

Emily Perkins is the unorthodox leading lady and has a really interesting, thought-out character. Thankfully she isn't the pretty, vacuous untalented crowd-pulling lead a la Katie Holmes but instead a damn good actress. The person who really shines, however, is Katharine Isabelle, lending pathos and sympathy to her character's plight whilst at the same time being the monster and the villain. Some of her scenes are heartbreaking and difficult to watch as you end up liking her character so much despite her actions. The supporting cast are uniformly excellent, whether it be Mimi Rogers as the quirky mother or even the Chinese janitor. Respect to Kris Lemche, who invests his drug dealer with subtlety and charm.

Thankfully for a modern horror flick, GINGER SNAPS doesn't skimp on the gore effects either. It isn't the goriest film ever made or anything but there are plenty of severed body parts and arterial fountains to appeal to the car-crash crowd, especially in the blood-drenched finale. But a sense of humour and lots of black comedy (involving severed fingers) keep it from becoming just too dark. Being a low budget film, the special effects aren't exceptional but they are solid and more than adequate, especially the much-criticised werewolves which aren't so bad either - it's nice to see animatronic creatures instead of CGI abominations and I know which I would take over the other any day. Despite being a tragic, downbeat tale this is never less than gripping and one of the best modern horrors I've seen for some time.

Sisters Brigitte (Emily Perkins) and Ginger Fitzgerald (Katharine Isabelle) live in the cookie-cutter suburbs of Bailey Downs where something is killing the dogs. They are obsessed with death and are outcasts in school. Ginger intends to hold Brigitte to their pact. "Out by 16 or dead on the scene but together forever." They love staging bizarre deaths. Brigitte is picked on by popular girl Trina Sinclair and the girls try to stage killing Trina's dog. Ginger finally has her first period at 15 but is attacked by a werewolf. Brigitte saves Ginger and drug dealer Sam runs over the wolf with his van. Soon Ginger starts turning and turning heads at school. Brigitte tries to find a cure for Ginger with the help of Sam.

I love so much about this movie. Firstly I love both actresses. They have terrific sister chemistry. Katharine Isabelle does a great slow walk down the hall. Emily Perkins is a terrific disheveled nerd. That song is hauntingly beautiful. I love all the bizarre deaths staged by the sisters. This is such an unique take on the werewolf transformation weaving it into the sisters hormonal transformation. It's one of the reasons why the original Carrie was so great. There is great sly humor and Mimi Rogers is a good solid foundation at home. The gore is a bit amateurish but that's indie horror for you. What they lack in expertise, they make up for it in fun. Slipping on your own vomit is such a great way to die.