Centring on two macabre, suicide-obsessed teenage sisters who are way too old to have never menstruated; Bold and sexual Ginger (Katharine Isabelle) and mousy Brigitte (Emily Perkins), who are savagely set upon by a wolf one night. Brigitte is unharmed, but Ginger gets bitten. But this appears to have been no ordinary wolf, as Ginger’s wounds seem to heal rapidly, and she starts getting hairy…and even growing a tail! And then there’s the craving for human flesh. Teenage angst with a side order of shape-shifting and flesh-eating are today’s specials it seems. Mimi Rogers is well-cast as the girls’ useless and entirely clueless mother.
One of the better horror films of the 00s, this 2000 Canadian teen werewolf movie from director John Fawcett (who has directed episodes of “Xena”, “The Bridge”, “Orphan Black”, and the underrated “Lost Girl” but not many films) and writer Karen Walton is like a hairy “Carrie”. Or better yet, it’s like “Teeth” done right. Fawcett and Walton make for a good team here as the former knows his horror, and the latter knows teenage female sexuality issues. This is kind of like the “Donnie Darko” of werewolf films, with its theme of teen suicide and other bleak goings on, and that sets it well apart from any other werewolf film I’ve seen. In fact, for all the references and influences I could name, the film is ultimately its own beast. Yep, went there. It definitely comes from a post-Cobain POV of disaffected youth, which this Cobain-era guy could somewhat relate to, I have to say.
Katharine Isabelle and especially the underrated Emily Perkins (Remember young Beverly in “IT”?) are excellent as the two very different sisters here; One zonked-out, depressed misfit (borderline Columbine), the other a trashy hellcat, though sadly played by an actress with an all-too obvious no-nudity clause. Isabelle certainly plays the alpha female, dominant sister well, though, and has obvious charisma, presence, and sex appeal. She may be hairy, but she makes hairy sexier than anyone since Sybil Danning in “The Howling II: Stirba- Werewolf Bitch” (I still can’t get over that title).
It’s also a well-shot film with odd camera angles, without coming off as self-conscious, pretentious MTV crap. But Fawcett is definitely a fan of Raimi and Kubrick, with one moment involving Ginger being locked in the bathroom offering up a direct visual cue from “The Shining”. But if you’re gonna steal, steal from the best, and that film is definitely one of the best. There’s also an impressively shot and edited werewolf attack where you get enough of an impression without seeing too much of the FX, save for one full body shot (that is too short to really register the quality of the FX you’re seeing). It’s a bit of a shame that the low budget mostly restricts things on the lycanthrope front to fangs more often than not. Fangs could just as easily signify vampires as werewolves.
OVERALL SUMMARY
Overlength is really the only drawback of this minor classic, which is definitely one of the better horror films to deal with teenage sexuality. Probably one of the ten best werewolf movies ever made, too. I’m not sure how high of a distinction that one is, though.
