Ginger Snaps Back: The Beginning (2004)

I'm saddened. I really wanted to like this movie as I am the biggest fan of the original Ginger Snaps; and its leads, Katharine Isabelle and Emily Perkins for their work in the original, and Perkins even more so for almost single-handedly saving "Ginger Snaps: Unleashed." Alas, I am afraid that this series is like the original Highlander: "There can only be one."

You know you're in for a long ride from the very beginning. It breaks a rule of cinema narration that no scriptwriter was dumb enough to break prior, a rule so dumb to break nobody thought previously to make it a rule: it has two introductions. The first introduction is in screen text, about a hunting party never returning in 1816. Stark, dark, and ominous. Except then they followed it with a narrated introduction by Isabelle. The latter, I am afraid, is an incoherent train-wreck about the curse of the red and black (checkers?) having a chance to be stopped . . . blighting the land . . . the white man bringing diseases . . . oaths higher than God or fate . . . or something. Even Ed Wood, Jr. would have been embarrassed enough to rewrite it. Unfortunately, Isabelle drew the short straw on reading the mess, and I felt sorry for her.

This "has-it-begun-yet" effect starts the movie out at a leaden pace, from which it never recovers, and creates a half-assed horror-myth for the story to depend, which insults the audience, not to mention, perhaps, Native Americans.

The story starts in 1816 as two orphaned teenage girls Ginger (Katharine Isabelle) and Brigitte (Emily Perkins) come to a fort in the wilderness that has been under siege for months by some kind of diabolical creatures (I think they might be werewolves). The remaining men in the fort are just a little suspicious since the sisters were able to reach it untouched when nobody else could reach it or set foot outside it without getting ripped to shreds. Except an Indian called Hunter.

It is apparent that the entire production was in over its head at attempting a period piece like this, from the producer, the scriptwriter, to the director and crew, to the actors. The dialog sounds anachronistic, and isn't very good anyway. The characters do not act 21st century, but neither do they act in a way that's believably 19th century. Isabelle and Perkins, and the other actors, are given no historical point of reference and no dialog coaching to be able to pull this off. I could forgive the dialects being inconsistent; if anything, I think dialects were far more diverse in that area then, but they sounded too commonplace. At this budget, they could have aimed for a squalid, scaled down, timeless feeling, but they did not. I could not believe that Isabelle and Perkins' characters fit into the early 19th century at all. The movie tries to joke about this. Ginger (Isabelle) occasionally pipes in with modern swear words that so lilted her dialog in GS1, but given that this movie never sounded 19th century anyway, the comical contrast never works.

Music was a plus in both the original and "Unleashed." In this movie it is just awful. It sounds like they hired a single cellist to play four notes and then looped them repeatedly.

Then there was Ginger's transformation: at least they should have made it somewhat consistent with what occurred in GS1, instead of making her feverish and dizzy. Please. To see a young woman in that time period misbehaving Ginger did. THAT would have been exciting. What we got was boring.

Fmovies: When I first heard that the third 'Ginger Snaps' film inexplicably transported the weird sisters back into 19th-century Canada, I smiled and thought to myself, 'There isn't another horror series clever enough to pull this off.'

As it turned out, even this series wasn't clever enough, and director Grant Harvey, who worked in the crew on both 'Ginger Snaps' and its witty first sequel 'Unleashed,' seems not to understand what was good about these films in the first place. There's no explanation for the temporal jump, which is fine, but there seems to be no *reason* for it either, which is not. The dialogue manages to be pompous and dull without being authentic to the period, the story's incomprehensible, the supporting characters are ill-defined and unlikable, and there are no jokes. Worst of all, Emily Perkins, who did the heavy lifting in terms of acting in the first two films, is given next to nothing to do here, and Katharine Isabelle, not as gifted an actress, is left to carry the material more or less by herself. She's not terrible here, but she has nothing to work with. About the only thing of interest in the film is the beautiful, spooky cinematography, but even that smacks too much of music videos, with its 'subliminal' cuts and generically nightmarish forest. All in all, this is a real disappointment. 3 out of 10.

After the success of the superior werewolf thriller "Ginger Snaps", it seems Lions Gate rushed to churn out two sequels in the shortest amount of time possible, those being the frightening "Ginger Snaps 2: Unleashed" and the disappointing "Ginger Snaps Back: The Beginning". Where "Unleashed" was a bit of letdown compared to its predecessor, it made sense and it followed the storyline well and even managed to wrangle up a boatload of genuine scares. Then there's "Ginger Snaps Back", the weakest and wholly unnecessary entry into the series. It should have stopped with "Unleashed" but the writers have decided to give our doomed heroines Brigitte and Ginger one last go around.

This time Ginger and Brigitte (a major plus is that Katharine Isabelle reprises her role as Ginger whereas she was missing in the second film save for a few scenes) are wandering around in the Canadian wilderness after being stranded in the early 1800's. For some reason it's a prequel that has nothing to do with the story that was developed in the first two films, so what's the point besides some cheap werewolf scares? When they come across a wrecked Indian camp that depicts carnage and brutal murder, they hastily make way to find shelter. That's when they find a strange fort in the middle of nowhere that some soldiers reside in, and that's where the nightmare begins. At night, a pack of vicious werewolves continually attacks the fort outside the thick log walls, and by day things take a nasty turn for Ginger when she is bitten... again. It's all apparently a foreshadowing of the events in the first film but none of it is needed. There's no tension or intrigue where there was in the first and second, plus any trace of black humor that made the first film so ingenious is not apparent anywhere. The editing and cinematography seem rushed and at times I found the film almost incoherent. A huge disappointment that further ruins the integrity of the first. They should leave Ginger and Brigitte alone now.

Ginger Snaps Back: The Beginning fmovies. Origin Stories are Cool, most of the time. But in the Original Ginger Snaps the Origin was Original enough to make it the Sleeper Hit of its Era. It was sharp, smart, and, yes, snappy. This Movie is none of the above, it is dull, depressing, and slow.

It looks good and there seemed to be some Energy in the Production but it all gets lost in a wildly muddled Script. The Characters are all bland and the Native American Curse stuff is painful and confusing. Our two Sisters huddle together forever and look out of place and out of time/space.

An unwanted and ill received mess, this is not horrible but really takes an effort to like. A shame, because the Audience is with this from the beginning. Bringing along previous thoughts and anxieties from the first two Movies that had a genuine allure.

This one is Soul less with rough edges that are never smoothed into a believable and exciting Film. It tries way too hard to be a Profound Period Piece, adding depth to the Trilogy. In the end it is an unwelcome miss on most levels, but Horror Fans may give it a Pass. Ginger Snap Fans may give it a Fail.

I was reading these comments and i was kind of perturbed to find that no one wanted to really try to make sense of the fact that the third Ginger Snaps was ... a bit far-fetched and unlinked from the other two. I first saw the original Ginger Snaps back about 5 years ago, on HBO. and the thing that got me to look away from my computer and watch the movie that was playing on the TV was the Slide Show in the beginning. The music by Michael Sheilds got me to look over, and the slide show play to my morbid humor. after that it was the awesome script and oddly humorous situations. The Second one in which i finally watched last year , proverbially knocked me off my feet. That movie not only followed the sad tragic truth of the downward spiral of infected Brigette after Ginger Fitzgerald, but had twisted that messed with you. I loved the Second one Just as much as the first. The Third is an awesome film ( i just recently watched that for the first time about 4 days ago) but with both of the Fitz's before the curse.. in the 19th century is out of place and doesn't really tie in with the other two. Now depending on how creative you are you can look at this two different ways. 1) that its just a different way so telling the Ginger Snaps story... or 2) [ this is how i look at it ] Since it is suppose to be the beginning of their curse I feel that this movie is trying to portray the fact that Ginger and Bridgette were actually Cursed in or before the 19th century and then, Their Damnation is that they relive life over and over again only to be infected and die once more. This may be because [ this is my reasoning from the prequel] there was a set destiny for the girls and their pact and love for one another ( To be together no matter what ) disrupted the flow of destiny that was suppose to set everything right.. and now they are damned.. and they will never change their way .. Their pact is their curse. If the third movie portrayed this .. These movies would be very very deep and imaginative.. and i throughly believe they are leaning toward this Story line... And if thats the case .. their could be a fourth...fifth .. This could be the equal to The Lord of the Rings .. The Dark Tower... In its own respected Field mind you . I'm partial to these movies to start with tho. Watch them all at least once.. you wont be disappointed

In 1815, in Canada, the sisters Ginger (Katharine Isabelle) and Brigitte (Emily Perkins) survive to a boat sinking, where her parents die. Alone and lost in the forest, they meet an old clairvoyant Indian that foresees their fate. Later, they are guided by the Indian The Hunter (Nathaniel Arcand) to a fort, and they seek for shelter with the men of the Northern Legion Trading Company. They note that the place is under siege of "Wendigos", a sort of werewolf that has killed most of the dwellers of the place, and the survivals are very afraid. Their lives are put in danger by the deranged locals and by the surrounding beasts.

I usually hate sequels and remakes, but "Ginger Snaps Back: The Beginning" is a great movie and I liked it more than the cult "Ginger Snaps". The cold cinematography is very sad and beautiful. The good story try to explain the curse of the two sisters, but is completely different from "Ginger Snaps" and "Ginger Snaps: Unleashed". It uses only the characters of Ginger and Brigitte, and werewolves of course, taking place in different time and situations. The costumes of the sisters, specially the dark "Little Red Riding Hood" clothes of Ginger, are scary and complete the atmosphere imposing a sort of fear. The make-up of the werewolves is excellent. The DVD is full of Extras. Therefore, I liked this film a lot and highly recommend it to the fans of these cult characters. My vote is eight.

Title (Brazil): "Possuída – O Início" ("Possessed – The Beginning")