Review

The Fitzgerald sisters, Ginger and Brigitte, are for no apparent reason cast adrift in the Canadian wilderness in the 19th century. Assuming of course Edmonton was a wilderness back a couple of centuries ago, French speakers can insert their own joke here. G&B, as we here at ScaryMInds affectionately call the gals, come across a Native American encampment that is either in the aftermath of a wild night out or quite possibly the focus of a lupine rampage. Hey it’s a Ginger Snaps movie CGI beasties abound in these things. The sisters come across a survivor, an old woman who advises them “kill the boy, or one sister kills the other”, which leads to one of the great punch lines later in the movie in this hairy dog yarn.

Chasing after their horse, it was out of there cause animals have this sixth sense and stuff, Brigitte gets caught in a wolf/bear/whatever trap but is saved by a mysterious Native American hunter dude. The NA, cause we can’t say Indian, takes the gals to the local company outpost that we find has a few lycanthrope issues of it’s own. It’s rapidly depleting inhabitants, including the requisite crazed preacher, aren’t fielding a full team and the RCMP Officer in charge has a secret of his own. When Ginger gets bitten by a wolf in boys clothing it’s up to Brigitte to find a remedy and defend her Sis from the local nutters. A sort of weird fairy tale re-imagining of the first movie ensues. Ready to howl at the moon?

I have been waiting quite sometime to catch this movie as I simply loved the first couple of Ginger Snaps outings. Unfortunately the movie didn’t get an Aussie cinema release and the DVD was hard to track down. Thanks to a VideoEzy three for $25 deal I finally got my chocolate stained paws on a copy, hence the review. End of day while enjoying the third flick in the series, I was slightly disappointed that Back didn’t match the underpinning of the original, or involve the kick arse ending of Unleashed. That having been said, Back stands head and shoulder above the pack of canine terrors recently unleashed on the citizens of movieland. Yes Wes this is how to make a werewolf flick, still waiting on an apology for Cursed.

In between the carnage, mostly off screen and implied, the Writers are subtle in their use of humour to belay the often times dark gothic nature of Back. You are going to have to listen hard to pick up on some of the one liners being tossed into the arena, with the old NA woman getting the pick of the bunch. Back therefore does require an attention span and is not going to work for modern teen audiences expecting a “gnarly kill” every ten minutes or so to keep them entertained. Sorry this is a real horror movie, not the sort of half arsed dreck being fobbed off by Eli Roth or Rob Zombie. If you enjoy Zombie or Roth’s shock jock tactics then stop reading now, Back isn’t the movie for you. This is real horror, with the movie makers gradually tightening the screws on the Audience and more importantly respecting that Audience.

The special effects ranged from poor to laughable, though still not as bad as Wes's last lupine effort.

Director Grant Harvey uses his locations to perfection, loved those snowed covered forest scenes, and the grotty run down fort. But falls into the trap of using rapid fire scene transitions that do nothing for the overall pacing of the movie. The Director is also limited by some pretty cut rate special effects that are at stages more amusing then sending a chill down your spine. Wolf boy, for example, looks nothing so much as a younger version of Leatherface (Texas Chainsaw Massacre) with the zipper definitely showing in his facial makeup. The less said about the actual lupines the better, if anything they are worse than the one fronting the original movie. And a final smack down was Ginger’s transformation that made her look like a reject from Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Once again Katharine Isabelle (Ginger) and Emily Perkins (Brigitte) stand out in their second reprise of the wolf bane sisters Fitzgerald. Both actresses present strong performances and nail the emotional parts as required. Nathaniel Arcand (The Hunter/The Indian) does what’s required in his strong masculine role, but is at times labouring over some pretty poor dialogue. There’s some shocking performances coming from the supporting caste and I was only too happy to see a number of them become wolf munchies.

T&A didn’t take up much screen time with dudes scoring the big nadda on that end of the cinematic turnstile. Chicks get Arcand showing off the upper body work so calling it gal’s night at the Oasis. Dig on in Ladies, you deserve it.

Apparently Alex Khaskin handed in a score, didn’t notice it to be honest but guess since a baton waver is listed there must have been one. Full apologises to audiophiles, yes have let the side down.

What to do when you are running out of Fitzgerald sisters on the lycanthrope menu, go back in time and do a prequel. Unfortunately I didn’t get the same vibe in Back that I got from the first two movies, the sister’s relationship wasn’t working for me, and I pretty much didn’t give a rats about the storyline trundled out here. Still managed to enjoy myself end of day however. Isabelle and Perkins managed to save this movie just as it appeared to be drowning not waving, probably will forget it in about an hour however. Full respect to the writers for the leach litmus test however, that was something new for our werewolf mythos.

Looks like Ginger Snaps Back didn’t get a theatre release, which is kind of unfortunate as although the movie is flawed it’s about 300% better than the attempts by the Weinsteins and the likes of Rob Zombie to kill off the horror genre once and for. For this review I checked into the R4 DVD release which has a ton of extras, though since my desk is currently collapsing under all those movies I haven’t reviewed yet I didn’t bother checking them out.

Recommended movie for Ginger Snaps fans, worth a look for horror fans in general, and will probably interest a lot of casual horror viewers. Strong performance from the leads saves the day on some pretty dicey plot developments. Ginger Snaps Back may not have you howling at the moon but it’ll give you a good nip to be going on with. Okay that made no sense, we’re done.