I watched GS 1 on Halloween. Observations:
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Archived from the IMDb Discussion Forums — Ginger Snaps
freeist — 10 years ago(November 06, 2015 09:52 AM)
I watched GS 1 on Halloween. Observations:
- In the scene after the attack with Ginger bloodied up, Ginger knows she doomed. She was hoping Brigitte would come up with a better explanation for what it was then a "friggin bear." Brigitte then catches the same sinking feeling when the wounds heal before her eyes (I have to admit that would creep me out, too). Then Ginger goes into denial and swears Brigitte to secrecy about the attack. By Brigitte's gaze, you know she thinks that's insane and it is.
So, I think I've always been right: I believe Ginger's mind was being altered from the very time of the attack. The "virus" also alters Brigitte's mind just as much at the end. - What must Brigitte be thinking when she's piercing Ginger's navel while Ginger growls and sprouts fangs? And there's no way she could have missed the fangs at the angle she was sitting. I take it chalked it up as a sign that the silver didn't work.
From that scene on, Ginger has this maniacal look in her eye for the rest of the movie, up until the time they replace it with contacts. Katie Isabelle does the maniacal look just perfectly, like, "I'm going to kick your ass and I don't care what happens." When she's wearing contacts, they give Ginger a sort of dazed, cold look, like a rabid animal.
With all of its flaws, the movie is still fantastic, and I've lost count on how many times I've viewed the full movie.
- In the scene after the attack with Ginger bloodied up, Ginger knows she doomed. She was hoping Brigitte would come up with a better explanation for what it was then a "friggin bear." Brigitte then catches the same sinking feeling when the wounds heal before her eyes (I have to admit that would creep me out, too). Then Ginger goes into denial and swears Brigitte to secrecy about the attack. By Brigitte's gaze, you know she thinks that's insane and it is.
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freeist — 10 years ago(November 06, 2015 03:14 PM)
Of course, there's polysemy in every creative work. Plot points and set pieces are open to more then one explanation. So, what I say is not the only interpretation.
Nevertheless, the way Katie Isabelle delivers the line "It wasn't a beep bear, there aren't any beep bears near here!" and the fact that the moment earlier she was pleading with Brigitte to give her some rational real-world explanation for what happened, only to reject the only one Brigitte gives.
Let's look at what the sisters know. They know it's a full moon (they were outside, and Brigitte confirms they both knew this in the bathroom stall scene). Brigitte knows the creature tossed her fifteen feet through the air, at least. Ginger knows it was powerful enough to kill or incapacitate her, like crush her bones, but it didn't; though it had control over her for long enough.
Instead, it wounded her superficially in as many different parts as it could. Perhaps it was playing, and perhaps it wanted to mate with Ginger (eventually) so tried to see she was thoroughly infected. Meanwhile, who knows what Ginger saw in the time it had her to itself?
Part of the artistry to any scene like this is to make the most logical explanation (she was just traumatized) the explanation that you'd have in any (somewhat) similar animal mauling in the real world. But at the same time hint in subtle ways that things are not quite what they seem. Not only in plot points, but in character behavior.
There's one other thing that bears repeating (no pun intended): Ginger swearing Brigitte to secrecy about it was something that Brigitte found very odd, and not just ill-advised, and Brigitte knew Ginger's relationship with their Mom better than anyone.