How Ginger Snaps Explored the Subversive Horror of Womanhood
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In 2000 Mission: Impossible 2 topped the box office, Gladiator triumphed at the Oscars, and the first X-Men movie ushered in a new era of superhero movies. Meanwhile in Canada, while no one was watching, a new hero was emerging. Her name was Ginger, she was a 16-year-old girl, and ok, she might have turned into a monster and killed a few people but, wow, was she a ferocious figurehead for females everywhere.
“That’s what she’s about. She’s about fuck you, fuck the patriarchy, fuck the standard, fuck society, fuck the norm. And to me, that’s a hero,” says Katharine Isabelle, speaking with Den of Geek via Zoom from her home in Vancouver, 20 years after the film’s debut. Isabelle was just 17 when she stepped into Ginger’s very cool boots and she had no idea it would become a massive cult hit.
“When it first came out, no one fucking watched it. It did well with some critics at a few festivals, but no one cared. No one went to see it,” she recalls. “It wasn’t until it hit the VHS circuit in small town Canada that people were like, ‘Oh, Ginger!.’ Emily [Perkins, who plays Ginger’s sister Brigitte] and I thought we’d be the only people that liked it because we were weird and dark. We had no idea that through the generations it would continue to have an effect on people.”
Watching 20 years on and Ginger Snaps absolutely holds up. More than that, in fact, it looks positively progressive and even transgressive in a year where we were onto our third Scream, our second Urban Legend, and our first Final Destination. Glossy teen slashers were the thing, which didn’t often make for great parts.
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“In the ’90s, as a 17-year-old girl it was ‘be hot, get murdered’,” says Isabelle. “There weren’t a lot of really interesting characters coming out of that, especially in my small Vancouver, Canada acting world. So to see this and be like, ‘Holy shit, this really speaks to me, I am this dark, insecure, troubled, deep, dark humored girl who feels outcast and misunderstood by everybody,’ I was just like, ‘Yes. 100%.’”
Written by Karen Walton who would go on to write for Queer as Folk and Orphan Black, and directed by John Fawcett (one of Orphan Black’s co-creators), Ginger Snaps was a fresh take on the werewolf subgenre and a brand new slant on teen horror. This was about girls for a start – sisters Ginger and Brigitte who are weird outsiders fascinated with death. Though there’s sex in the movie it’s really a love story between the two females while the only male character who we have any sympathy for is a drug dealer who has no sexual interest in either. There are dog maulings along the way, and as we head towards the climax with Ginger becoming more and more monstrous, there’s plenty of gore.
But the most scandalous splash of blood is Ginger’s own first period.
Period piece
“You never see that. The visual of bloody panties is so shocking,” says Isabelle.
“It’s what, 2020 and we’re just seeing feminine hygiene products using red dye instead of this fucking blue shit? We’re always so mortified by this human experience that half of the people on the planet go through. And you know what? At the same time you should be, because being female is a fairly horrific fucking experience in itself. So guess what? Why don’t you fucking look at it once in a while? For it to be labeled as shocking is just so boring to me.”
It would be bold even in 2020. That color matching company Pantone only last month released a new shade of red inspired by periods as part of a campaign to end menstruation stigma shows it very much still exists. So to be this open in discussing it in 2000 in a horror movie – traditionally assumed to be the playground of young men – was a brave move.
“I remember a friend of mine, his older brother had taken his friends to see it and he was like, [Isabelle does impression of bro-tastic young man] ‘Oh yeah, we were all screaming and throwing shit at the fucking screen and then we walked out. All this fucking women shit.’ I was like, ‘Cool. Thanks, buddy. Awesome.’ Fuck you! They thought they were going to see hot girl tits and werewolf stuff and they weren’t prepared for an actual look into what the female experience is like. And they couldn’t handle it. Pussies.”
Suddenly it’s like I’m talking to wolf-Ginger, fierce, articulate, full of fire, the Ginger that punches the mean girl in the face for hurting her sister, the Ginger that isn’t going to stand for any of your shit any longer, the Ginger that could tear the flesh from your bones if she wanted to.
The metaphor of werewolf transformation and puberty is a no brainer to Isabelle.
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“You’re going along your life perfectly fine, something happens to you, boom. In one day, you have all these strange urges, you have all these weird thoughts. Your body is completely abandoning you and morphing into something else that you are not comfortable with,” she says. “It’s a complete betrayal of everything you know and how you feel. And it creates this monster in you that you have to reckon with and deal with. It’s a brilliant allegory.”
Ginger Snaps is body horror. It’s a movie about a woman’s own body destroying her from the inside out. Before she knows what’s really going on Ginger is bleeding, weak, crippled with cramps. Weird hair starts sprouting – a shaving scene really hammers home the horror of teenagers taking razors to their legs.
But with this pain comes power. Ginger is suddenly confident, beautiful, strong, the boys at the school all desire her and she knows it. She will take who she wants and do what she wants – there’s some serious wish fulfillment going on at the same time as the trauma of her transformation.
Being Ginger
It’s not really surprising that Isabelle is so like this iconic character. She says she had an immediate affinity to Ginger – both sides of Ginger, the troubled outsider as well as the she-wolf.
“At that time, I wasn’t a good enough actor to have acted it. I just had to be myself,” she laughs, “They showed a pieced-together trailer halfway through to the cast and crew and I had a complete panic attack. It was my first panic attack, and I was like, ‘I’m fucking this up.’ This is the best character in the best movie and I clearly have no idea what I’m doing. I’m obviously the worst, this is terrible. I’m ruining this, I should just die. So all of the insecurity and the manicness…”
This just in: it’s shit being a teenage girl. Even more so when you’re 17, on location without your mother for the first time and working 18 hour days.
“I nearly fucking died!” she says. “Towards the end, it’s like a seven hour prosthetic piece when I’m full blown werewolf. I was living off of Oreos, McCain Deep Delicious Chocolate Cake, cigarettes, and Coca Cola. It was not good. And honestly, I wasn’t a good actor. So everything in that was just me being manic and sleep deprived and upset and insecure.”
Whatever was driving it Isabelle is excellent, flitting from difficult outsider with an undercurrent of fury to a whirlwind of teenage angst, sex, hunger, and violence that feels absolutely authentic.
Becoming the wolf
The effects are practical rather than CGI, which helps Ginger Snaps not to look dated on a rewatch. Ginger transforms gradually from woman to full blown wolf over days – she’s not a traditional werewolf who only becomes a wolf during the night of a full moon, instead once she turns fully she’s not coming back. Her different looks in the movie are cool and iconic – unsurprisingly Ginger Snaps cosplay is a ‘thing’ – which pleases Isabelle. The prosthetics procedure was somewhat less pleasing, however.
“I didn’t understand what the process was,” she says. “You see it in your head like you do when you read a book or whatever, or how the movie is going to be. You don’t think of the six hours on top of your 18 hour shooting day that you’re going to be inhaling alcohol-based paint until you’re high out of your fucking mind.”
The transformation came with other obstacles too.
“The process of losing my senses was a first for me. By the time I’m in the very late stage werewolf with the hair, the contacts and the claws, I can’t see anything, I can’t hear anything, I can’t smell anything, I can’t talk. I have fangs. I had to ADR most of the movie when I have fangs in. Because I had a lisp, so I’d be like, ‘Ask Tham. He’th the exthpert.’” She says, mimicking a line from the movie.
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“It’s just terrible. I couldn’t touch anything and there is blood all over me, and it’s drying and I was trapped in my own body nightmare. You don’t really realize that when you go into it. So now when I read scripts, ever since then, I’m very like, ‘What does that exactly mean for the physical torture I will be experiencing through the duration of this?’ Let’s take a step back and just really look at this more closely,” she laughs.
Pain and gain
Isabelle is funny – like Ginger, she has a dark sense of humor and though we genuinely get the sense that the shoot was traumatic (“We were all fucking ill and we were shooting nights for about three weeks in a row, so you do not see daylight. You lose your mind. It wasn’t quite Apocalypse Now, but it felt like that to me when I was 17.”), she’s got great stories. Like the time she gave herself a concussion…
“There’s a scene where I slam my head on a desk and I was like, ‘Ginger probably really slammed her head on the desk.’ So I really did it a bunch of times and then woke up the next day with a fucking full on concussion headache. They had a doctor come in because I was fucked. He gave me Tylenol T3s and I took them on an empty stomach. I’m vomiting on set and they’re holding the roll, and I’ve got a bucket I’m puking into. And then immediately I had to do the slow motion walk down the hall scene. I was so fucked they had to put tape on the floor. I couldn’t walk in a straight line. I’m so mad every time I see that. I’m like ‘Fuck, you only get so many slow motion walking down the hallway looking cool and hot in your whole career, and you really fucked this one.’”
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Of course, it doesn’t play that way on screen. It’s a key moment in the movie and even 20 years on, Ginger’s look still stands out. Costume designer Lea Carlson put together her outfits from thrift stores to create a kind of indie/goth cool with spot on accessories for an aesthetic that matched Ginger’s newly awakened give-no-fucks vibe.
“When that infection hits and she’s got that fucking attitude, it’s like, don’t we all wish we could just walk around with that attitude like a hero?” says Isabelle.
She says she can watch the movie now and enjoy it, though she couldn’t for a while.
”I haven’t seen it in 15 years because I tend to not revisit my most awkward moments on film as a teenager,” she laughs. But she now speaks fondly of this “wonderful sisterly love story.”
Ginger and B
She and co-star Perkins had known each other “forever” before filming began, having even been born in the same hospital and gone to the same elementary school so they auditioned for Ginger Snaps together. Perkins as the younger Brigitte (even though Isabelle is actually four years younger than Perkins) is sympathetic, awkward, vulnerable, and eventually heroic and there’s an obvious chemistry between the two. Isabelle recalls how between one of the auditions and the first time director John Fawcett came out to meet them Emily had shaved her head.
”I was like, ‘What are you doing? You’ve fucked this for us!’, I didn’t even recognize her in the room. And then thank God, we got the part. And that’s why she’s wearing this wig, this very offensive wig throughout the film…”
Why did she shave her head during casting for this movie? We can’t not ask…
“I don’t know. I don’t know. She was having a moment. She’s a very smart, progressive woman, and she was feeling her oats,” Isabelle laughs.
Despite the traumas of the prosthetics and the shoot, Isabelle has clear affection for the movie and a character who rings incredibly true even 20 years later, largely because of her authentic performance “It connects still to this day with people who weren’t even born when it came out. And that’s always shocking to me,” she says.
So what would today’s Katharine Isabelle tell her 17 year old self, 20 years ago?
“Oh, God. Fucking suck it up, you whiny bitch.” she says, all wolf-Ginger before swapping back to pre-transformation Ginger. “No, I would be like, ‘Yo, this is good, and you’re going to be okay. You’re gonna be good, and you’re not going to hate yourself as much as you think you do. And eventually, in 17 years, you’ll be able to watch this without having a total meltdown about how obviously terrible and insecure you are.”
She pauses.
cnx.cmd.push(function() { cnx({ playerId: "106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530", }).render("0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796"); });
“Isn’t that what everyone says to themselves 20 years ago? ‘You’ll be okay, don’t be so insecure, believe in yourself, you got this?’ I think that’s what everyone would say to their younger self. Also, ask for more money.”
The post How Ginger Snaps Explored the Subversive Horror of Womanhood appeared first on Den of Geek.
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Zugzwang (Maeve x Reader)
Title: Zugzwang
Rating: T
Word Count: 2353
Warnings: angst
Summary: After finding the apartment you shared with your girlfriend ransacked, a card filled with a particular chess term is all that remains.
Author's Note: woo boi I've been so hyped to finally post this. I love Maeve, but also love some AngstTM, so I felt this a good mix :,) I'd love to do a follow up or prequel or something about this, so let me know if that's something you'd be into. Without further ado~
"The dark nights? You have no idea how long the dark lasts when you can't close your eyes to it- Tyler Knott Gregson."
•••
Your fingers twirled around brunette curls as your girlfriend cuddled into you, nipping at the skin of your neck softly.
In the eight months you had spent intimately with Dr. Maeve Donnovan, the times together on your bed were your favorite. Her delicate fingers would trace every curve and dip of your body as she smiled adoringly at you, a look no one else had spared.
You knew of her stalker, and despite her once desperate pleads, you had began seeing each other frequently. With a gun and badge at your hip, worries had almost immediately subsided.
That you were thankful for. The thought that that you could have once lived without her laugh, her eyes, her every idiosyncrasy, seemed foreign and unreal to you. She was your entire life, your sunshine, your happily ever after, and you hers.
You groaned as your phone began to ring and turned away from Maeve's drowsy face. "Hey, lover-girl, we've got a case," Garcia teased when she heard Maeve's whispers in the background. "M-kay, I'll be there within the hour," you answered before hanging up.
"You're gonna leave me?" she whined, rolling over to hold your arm. "Unfortunately," you replied before sitting up slightly. The task seemed difficult as she held your arm securely. "I'm gonna go get ready, ok genius?" you murmured before leaning down to capture her pink lips in yours.
"Ok, agent," she replied with a giggle. You moaned and groaned before finally leaving the safe haven of your bed, leaving the sleeping beauty behind,
•••
Four days later, you stumbled back into your apartment, sleep deprived and lonely. "Love? I'm hoooome!" you called out, peeking inside rooms.
Upon seeing the broken glass, and other clear signs of a break-in, panic rose in your tightening chest. "Maeve!" you practically shrieked before falling to your knees. You looked around the disturbed area before wrapping your trembling fingers around an envelope.
The paper looked like it had been dipped in tea, and the red wax seal did nothing to dispute its aged aesthetic. You carefully opened it and immediately broke down again after scanning its contents. The single word echoed in your brain as the cursive burned itself into your memory.
Zugzwang.
••
You called Hotch the minute you got in the car. "Hotch! It's Maeve- she's been a-abducted. Please help her," you sobbed into the speaker. "Listen to me, Y/N. I need you to calm down. Breathe. We'll meet you at Quantico. Drive safely," he ordered before ending the call.
His curt attitude didn't faze you as you kept at the speed limit, trying desperately to calm yourself. A small sense of relief flooded your chest as you pulled into a parking space. You noticed everyone else's cars already in the lot, and you were thankful for their rush.
You snatched your things from the front seat and ran into the building. The elevator couldn't go fast enough; your heart was beating 10x faster. After the excruciatingly long wait, you sprinted into the bullpen.
Your brow furrowed in confusion as you noticed everyone surrounding a very disheveled Reid. "What's going on?" you asked, drawing everyone's attention. JJ ran to you with open arms. "It's going to be ok, don't worry," she soothed while stroking your hair.
Over her shoulder, you noticed Hotch's uncomfortable expression. You pulled back from the blonde before flashing her a thankful smile. "Hotch, what's going on?" you repeated yourself. "Reid says his girlfriend has been abducted as well." You gasped and walked quickly to the man in question.
"Spence.. I'm so sorry," you whispered before hugging him softly. He couldn't speak as tears slipped from the corners of his eyes, which he wiped on the shoulders of your top. "This has to be an attack on the bureau, right? It's not just Maeve-" your thoughts were interrupted by Spencer. "What?" he gasped and pulled away from you.
Everyone else looked to the ground with guilt in their eyes, having already realized the truth in the situation. "My girlfriend, Maeve..?" you trailed off. "Is she geneticist?" You nodded. "Yeah, best in her field. Spence what's this about?" Hotch intervened by standing between you. "Apparently, you were both dating the same woman," he said apologetically.
Time stood still in that moment, and your heart dropped to the floor. "Wh-what?" you managed to choke out. Spencer looked equally as shocked as his brown eyes grew wide. He stood up and looked between you and your Unit Chief. "I'm sorry, but apparently Maeve had been cheating on you with each other."
You wanted to hug Spencer, you wanted Hotch to stop looking so guilty, you wanted to forget any of this ever happened. However all that escaped your lips was a single sob before you dropped to your knees in an ocean of tears. JJ and Morgan were quick to join you as they attempted to comfort you, but to no avail. The pain radiating through your chest was too great to even comprehend.
"Did you know?" you finally whispered, looking up to meet Spencer's still wide eyes. "What?" he asked quickly. "Did you know?" you repeated a little louder before accepting Morgan's help in standing upright. "Of course I didn't know!" he defended, taking a step away from you. "How far did it go?" you asked as tears continued to slip from your eyes.
"I've never seen her face. We called every Sunday, that's it." You brought your hand to your mouth to silence your cries. "S-she told me she was on the phone with her sister.." you choked out past quivering lips. "She said she loved me," Spencer murmured quietly, the crack in his voice heartbreakingly prominent.
You wanted to hate him. You should've hated him. But his sad eyes were too familiar, too hurt. "You two go wait at the table, please," Hotch instructed, to which you obeyed. Spencer followed behind you as the sound of your footfalls fell into a matching rhythm.
The room was quiet besides the occasional ragged breath. You were the first to speak, the silence like salt in your wound. "I'm sorry," you whimpered. He didn't hesitate in running to you with open arms. You collapsed into his embrace, sobs wracking your body. His shoulders shook beneath your palms as you gently swayed to the beat of your pounding hearts.
"I'm sorry, Y/N. I'm so so sorry," he cried into the crook of your neck. "I-I'm sorry too," you whispered, putting on the most soothing voice you could muster. His sweater was soft against your face and his hair fluffy against your cheek as he held you to him. Truly, you were the only ones who would understand, and that killed you a little inside.
This was a pain you didn't want to share.
•••
"Send L/N and Reid in, and maybe I'll let her go," Diane's voice rang out through the small speaker. You both nodded and rushed towards the door, stopping only when the voice started again. "Unarmed." You showed no hesitation as you pulled your gun out of your holster and handed it to Jennifer, however your heart ached when Spencer showed equal enthusiasm as he did the same.
"Let's go," you muttered before charging into the building. "Well, well, well. If it isn't Thing One and Thing Two," Diane mocked before coming down the stairs. She placed the handle of her gun in her mouth as she quickly bound your wrists with a string before doing the same to Spencer. With a giggle, she placed a tie over his eyes as a makeshift blindfold.
"Cmon, lets go see Princess Charming, shall we?" Diane teased as she ushered you and he up the stairs. The sight of Maeve caused your breath to hitch, however you were quickly shoved to the floor. You watched as guilt clouded over her irises, and you knew it was true: she had been with you both.
Spencer's eyes filled with tears as Diane removed the blindfold, revealing the woman he thought he had known for ten months. "Spencer," Maeve breathed out, her eyes began flooding over. "Spencer, hm?" Diane smirked, a twisted smile you'd only seen in drawings and film.
"I guess he's your lover of choice. I wonder how Y/N feels.. I mean, she was in love with you, Maeve, how could you? Leading the poor thing on like that? Despicable," she mocked. She crouched down to your place on the floor before taking your face in her hands.
You glared at her as her nails dug into your skin. "T-that's not true!" Maeve argued, shooting you pleading looks. "Oh no? The what about Spencer, over here? Hm? What's his story?" She took a seat in his lap, causing him to swallow the rising bile in his throat.
"She told you she'd never seen your face, not even a picture, right?" He nodded slightly before catching Maeve's hurt gaze. "Guess what I found on her internet history? You guessed it! Dr. Spencer Reid, FBI." "M-Maeve?" he croaked, his eyes wild and glossy. "Spencer I swear she's lying!" Maeve cried desperately.
You could only sit in stunned silence, determined to get everyone out of this alive. There must be a way, there had to be a signal for the team. You tuned out the rest of the world: the hurt in Maeve's eyes, the sound of Spencer and Diane's lips moving against each other, focusing only on forming a plan.
Suddenly, the gun in Diane's hand went off, a stray bullet hitting your thigh. A scream tore through you as Spencer wrestled with Diane. "Son of a bitch!" you screeched while blood seeped through your fingers. "Y/N! Y/N, please!" Maeve called out to you as tears trailed down her cheeks.
You met her eyes as Spencer continued to reach for the weapon. You took the opportunity to scramble to over to her chair and undo her ties as she did the same for you. Diane suddenly managed to graze your shoulder with a bullet, causing you to double over as she gripped Maeve to her chest.
"Diane!" Hotch shouted as he and the others filed into the room. "No, no!" you cried, unable to move from your fetal position. "Stay back!" Spencer pleaded. "Take me instead!" you tried to offer, ignoring everyone's shocked stares. "You would do that? For her?" Diane shrieked while waving the gun around. "Yes, of course- I love her!" you sobbed.
Before Maeve could speak, Diane began. "Who do you love more, Maeve? Tell them what you told me." The silence did not go over well with the unsub as she screeched, "Do it!" Maeve murmured something incomprehensible towards the ground.
Diane took her chin in her hand and turned Maeve's head towards you. "Tell Y/N: nice and loud."
Maeve swallowed as salty tears slid down her face in crashing waves. "I love Spencer," she said a bit louder, however still almost unheard above the air conditioning.
Suddenly, oxygen seemed like nothing more than a figment of your imagination. Your lungs felt empty and greedy. Maeve's eyes were wide as she stared at you with desperation: what she was desperate for, you'll never know. Maeve turned her attention to Spencer, perhaps hoping for a better reaction.
He looked like a boy who had boarded a plane by himself for the first time. "Maeve.." "Thomas Merton," she murmured, completely ignoring you now. Spencer's eyes were wide and glossed over.
"What?" Diane shrieked. "Who's Thomas Merton?!" "He knows," Maeve continued without breaking Reid's eye contact. It was quiet for a moment as the wheels in her head turned, worrying you beyond belief.
"Love is our true destiny. We do not find the meaning of life by ourselves alone - we find it with another," you piped up as sweat beaded along your forehead. "Thomas Merton. I-It's your favorite quote," you stammered as blood continued to pool around you.
There was no one else in the room as Maeve stared you down, her loving expression similar to the one she bore mere days before. "Happiness is not a matter of intensity but of balance, order, rhythm and harmony," she said quietly, just loud enough to reach your eager ears.
"Thomas Merton," Reid spoke up, causing both of you to look his way. "What the hell?" Diane yelled again. "He is the one thing you can never take away from us!" Maeve said with finality. Which "us" she was referring to, you couldn't pin down.
"No," Diane said before raising the gun to the side of her head. "Wait!" Spencer begged, as everyone else watched on in horror. Your heart rose to your throats as the bullet released from its chamber.
"Maeve!" you screeched as the two bodies collapsed to the ground. "Son of a bitch!" you cried out as the others lowered their guns. Your ears began to ring as your chest heaved at the sight of the blood staining her soft grey sweater.
Your stomach felt like it was in your toes as tears streamed down your face. The wounds in your thigh and shoulder did nothing to soothe your aching chest.
As the ringing in your ear began to fade, Reid's sobs tore through you. He had fallen to his knees in a pile of tears, curses falling from his chapped lips. Pain bubbled in your chest as you watched his trembling body, oh so similar to yours.
You were dragged away from the scene to be checked out by the paramedics, despite your pleas to stay with Maeve. Without her still warm body in your line of vision, a crushing sense of loneliness fell upon your shoulders. This was it.
••••
"Death sits in the chair across from me and watches. Death sees, but has no eyes. Death knows, but has no mind. We often sit together in the night. Death has one move left, I have none.- unknown."
••••
Tags: @dontshootmespence @reidbyers @cherry-loves-fanfic
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