GINGER SNAPS TRILOGY (2000-2004)
4K UHD + Blu-ray Limited Edition
Lenticular Hardcase + Poster
GINGER SNAPS (2000)
Label: Via Vision Entertainment
Region Code: Region-Free
Rating: MA
Duration: 108 Minutes 42 Seconds
Audio: Uncompressed English Dolby TrueHD 7.1 with Optional English Subtitles
Video: Dolby Vision HDR10 2160 Ultra HD Widescreen (1.85:1) - 4K UHD, 1080p HD Widescreen (1.78:1) - Blu-ray
Director: John Fawcett
Cast: Mimi Rogers, Kris Lemche, Jesse Moss, Katharine Isabelle, Emily Perkins
Ginger Snaps (2000) follows the exploits of a pair of death-obsessed teenage sisters living in the suburbs of Bailey Downs. The spooky duo are outcasts from even the freak-set at their school - sort of like darker, angstier versions of Lydia from Beetlejuice. Not having friends leaves them plenty of time to plan their suicide pact "out by sixteen or dead in this scene, but together forever", and staging elaborate morbid death scenes they document through Polaroid photography. The younger sister Bridgette (Emily Perkins, Juno) is the mousier one of the pair, Ginger (Katharine Isabelle, TV's Hannibal) is a bit more aggressive and confrontational. On the night that Ginger receives the "curse" - her period - she is attacked by a monstrous beast that drags her into the woods. Torn up and bleeding profusely she escapes the creature when local drug dealer (Kris Lemche, Final Destination 3) splatters it across the front of his minivan by accident. The sisters flee the scene with Ginger torn up pretty bad and near death, but by the time that they arrive home the wounds have begun to heal unnaturally fast. Afterward Ginger begins to sprout hair in weird places (and not the usual kind either) and her personality starts to change, becoming even more aggressive and sexually sure almost overnight, as her own carnal cravings and desires spin wildly out of control. It turns out that what she at first mistakes for sexual urges is actually a deep hunger for flesh. As Ginger deals with her period and newfound blood cravings her dutiful sister Bridget must step out of her sister's shadow and stop her from acting on her murderous impulses, all the while dealing with the newfound distance between them, and also navigating their mother's annoying but kind-hearted attempts to bond with her teen daughters.
The film adheres to some established tropes of the furry lycanthropic kind, but also delivers it with a unique perspective of a menstruating young woman struggling to find her identity while going through some very odd supernatural changes in not only her personality, but her physical form, while younger sister Bridgette struggles to curb her sister's newly acquired murderous instincts, which only becomes more difficult as her transformation progresses. The cast is superb, I completely believed these two were sisters in the way they fought and fed off each other. Mimi Rogers, also very well cast, as their well-meaning but offbeat and disconnected mom, struggles to understand her deeply weird daughters. Being a cool mom she encourages their morbid hobbies - but they don't make it easy for her, and towards the end it's quite fun to see just how far mom would go to protect her misfit daughters. The father is in the picture but his presence is quite minimal and ineffectual - the focus here is on the feminine for sure.
As a character driven slice of horror this is a prime cut of millennial genre delivered with nuance and some nice character development, however the special effects of the low-budget flick are a bit shaky at times. Ginger's more subtle transformations are handled quite nicely as she grows a tail and her nails grow into claws, canine teeth emerge, her eyes change color and her facial features are slightly altered, a well as developing canine nipples along her abdomen. All that was nicely done, but the final werewolf transformation is not the film's strength, I did not care for the hairless werewolf look, even still, I appreciated that this is not your standard issue werewolf flick, and it manages to rise above it's few shortcomings. The characters are what drive the story, plus we get some fun, squeamish body-horror moments peppered throughout though - this is after all a movie about transformation, and it delivers the body-horror.
At times I was reminded of Heathers in that Ginger Snaps has it's own witty, goth-infused high school vernacular - it sets a tone and atmosphere and carries it through consistently. We have some nice moments of gore and black humor sprinkled throughout with an abundance of blood, dead pets, and a dude with a werewolf STD pissing blood - because as it turns out lycanthropy is sexually transmitted and Ginger's out of control sexual urges prove problematic.
GINGER SNAPS II: UNLEASHED (2003)
Label: Via Vision Entertainment
Region Code: Region-Free
Rating: MA
Duration: 94 Minutes
Audio: English DTS-HD MA 5.1 with Optional English Subtitles
Video: 1080p HD Widescreen (1.78:1)
Director: Brett Sullivan
Cast: Katharine Isabelle, Emily Perkins, Eric Johnson, Janet Kidder, Pascale Hutton, Patricia Idlette, Tatiana Maslany
Post the events of the first film Brigitte (Emily Perkins) flees the suburbs of Bailey Downs and lives a nomadic lifestyle, intravenously shooting monkshood extract to stave off the effects of her own lycanthropic condition. We find out that she's being stalked by a werewolf looking to breed with her, and it's this werewolf that attacks a guy giving her a lift early on in the film. Afterward she is found unconscious in the street, when the cops see her needle works they assume she's a junkie and send her to drug rehabilitation clinic run by Alice Seversen (Janet Kidder, Bride of Chucky). Locked away inside where she has no access to monkshood to stop her transformation she begins sprouting hair and her ear begins to turn pointy like a wolf, plus she's gets rather horny, fantasizing about masturbation during a yoga session with embarrassing results. While locked away inside she has to contend with a scumbag orderly named Tyler (Eric Johnson, American Gods) who trades drugs for sex acts with the women at the facility, a comic book loving 14-year-old Miranda aka Ghost (Tatiana Maslany, Orphan Black), and a catty junkie named Bath-Ann (Pascale Hutton, Shred). Realizing the werewolf that is stalking her is getting nearer she looks for an escape, and ends up teaming-up with Ghost who sneaks her out of the facility with the pair then holing-up in the vacant home of Ghost's Grandma, till the werewolf eventually catches up to them.
I've always thought the first film stood well enough on it;s own, and that this sequel has always felt a bit unnecessary to be honest, but it manages to be entertaining and does enough different that it's not merely a retread the first film. SPOILER AHAEAD - Katharine Isabelle is largely absent this time around having died in the previous film, but she shows up as her sister's "dark passenger" or sorts. The werewolves this time around look a bit different as well, they're much hairier and better designed, which I quite liked. On the downside the film is not quite as gory as the previous, but it's still a solid werewolf entry. Another highlight is Ghost who is played by Tatiana Maslany, this was pretty much her first film role and she has since gone onto star in the fantastic Orphan Black TV series and Marvel's She-Hulk on Disney+. She's done quite well for herself and had star potential even here the teen Ghost who harbors dark secrets her own secrets. As I said before, I don't think the first film needed a sequel, it was nicely self-contained, but Perkins does fine work carrying the picture on her own, still the same jaded, negative goth girl, but harder edged, but still sympathetic. The way it comes to an end didn't exactly thrill me, but it also didn't ruin anything, still a solid sequel, just lesser than the first film.
GINGER SNAPS BACK: THE BEGINNING (2004)
Label: Via Vision Entertainment
Region Code: Region-Free
Rating: MA
Duration: 95 Minutes
Audio: English Dolby True HD 7.1 (4K UHD), DTS-HD MA 5.1 Surround (Blu-ray) with Optional English Subtitles
Video: 1080p HD Widescreen (1.78:1)
Director: Grant Harvey
Cast: Katharine Isabelle, Emily Perkins
In the third film we get an in-another-lifetime style prequel set in 1815 Canada, we again have the Fitzgerald sisters, Ginger (Katharine Isabelle) and Brigitte (Emily Perkins) lost in the Canadian wilderness after a boating accident killed their fur-trading parents. They come across a Cree Native Americana village that looks like it's just been attacked. An old woman there sees them and tells them they are cursed, that one of them is destined to kill the other, which spooks them, so they move on quickly. Not long after Gingers steps on a beer trap and is injured, but they are found by an indigenous Cree hunter (Nathaniel Arcand, Pathfinder) who leads them to nearby Fort Bailey, home of the Northern Legion Trading Company. The fort seems to have also come attack by same creatures that attacked the Cree village, it's wooden gates marred by deep claw marks and blood. It turns out that werewolves have claimed many lives at the fort and most of the surviving inhabitant have fled, leaving behind only a handful of either hearty or foolish men. What is left is a skeletal crew consisting of fort leader James (JR Bourne, Thir13en Ghosts), the brimstone and fire Reverend Gilbert (Hugh Dillon, TV's The Killing), physician Murphy (Matthew Walker, The Crush) and a man named Wallace (Tom McCamus, TV's Orphan Black), as well as a few other scrappy stragglers. The sister's arrival is met with great suspicion, and they are subjected to tests designed to see if they are the creatures who attacked, werewolves. The test involves attaching a leach to sample their blood, if the leeches ingest infected blood they react violently and swell to abnormal size, sort of like the blood test in The Thing, which I thought was a cool touch.
With the Fort at high alert and under near nightly attack from flesh-hungry werewolves that the atmosphere is tense and distrustful, suspicion continues to follow the sisters. It's later discovered that one of the fort men are hiding away an infected boy who bites Ginger, and thus she begins to transform, feeding into the Cree curse that was foretold earlier in the film.
Why the film which is set in the 1800's still features characters by the same name played by the same actresses is not explained, and I don't care either. I was just pleased to see Isabelle and Perkins properly teamed-up again after missing their team-up in the previous sequel, they have great sisterly chemistry, and despite an anachronistic line delivery or two I just went with it. It's plenty bloody, the werewolves are the best they've looked in the trilogy, and I had a blast watching it, I prefer this sequel to the previous.
Audio/Video: This release from Via Vision Entertainment offers the first film on 4K UHD and Blu-ray, plus the two sequels on Blu-ray. Ginger Snaps (2000) arrives on 4K Ultra HD from Via Vision Entertainment, licensing the same 4K UHD master utilized by Lionsgate for their 2026 Vestron Video Collector's Series 4K UHD. The film is presented in 1.85:1 widescreen 2160p UHD with Dolby Vision HDR10 color-grade was supervised by director John Fawcett. This looks to be sourced from an existing 2K master, as I could find no verbiage on the packaging or online that references this being a new 4K scan, if you know differently let me know. It certainly looks the best I've seen it on home video, I own the trilogy sets that were previously released on Blu-ray from Via Vision and Second Sight Films, and this is easily the best-looking presentation I've seen of the first film look. The 4K resolution offers slightly sharper detail and textures, with improved depth and clarity, the grain is better resolved, and the WCG offers deep more nuanced colors with superior black levels and noticeably improved contrast and shadow detail. That said, this was always sort scrappy looking indie flick, and it still has that gritty look to it, but this is an appreciable uptick over previous Blu-ray editions.
Audio on the Ginger Snaps UHD comes by way of Dolby TrueHD 7.1 with optional English subtitles. The track is clean and well-balanced, with nicely prioritized dialogue, the sounds of screaming, feral growls and flesh tearing are impactful, and the score by Mike Shields benefits the most from the surround action.
Aside from the 4K release the remaining discs in this set, including the Ginger Snaps (200) Blu-ray, are recycled discs from the 2022 Via Vision trilogy Blu-ray set. These are region-free Blu-rays presenting the film in 1080p HD framed in 1.78:1 widescreen with uncompressed English language DTS-HD MA 5.1 with optional English subtitles. Dialogue is delivered cleanly and free of issues and the scores are well-balanced, I thought they sounded quite good.
The extras largely mirror Via Vision's 2022 trilogy set, except for the inclusion of the 21-min The Pact: Ginger Snaps Forever which was previously exclusive to the 2026 Lionsgate Limited 4k UHD release. The rest of the extras are archival and have previously appeared on the original DVD and the 2022 Via Vision trilogy Blu-ray set. Note, this release does not include any of the exclusive extras created by Second Sight Films for their 2023 trilogy Blu-ray release, which is reviewed HERE.
The 4-disc UHD/BD arrive in an oversized black keep case with a flipper tray housing the discs, the wrap in 2-sided non-reversible, featuring the same artwork as the 2022 trilogy Blu-ray set from Via Vision. This comes housed inside a side-loading 3-D Lenticular Hardcase with the same artwork. Furthermore, tucked away inside is a large format folded poster measuring 26x18.5 inches featuring the same artwork. Note, that this set is limited to just 2000 numbered editions, so snap it up quick if you're interested, direct from Via Vision https://viavision.com.au/products/ginger-snaps-trilogy-4k.
The Ginger Snaps trilogy is a bit uneven, but even still it's a solid trilogy and I love the feminine take on the werewolf lore mixed in with a demented coming-of-age story about two death-obsessed sisters, it's good stuff, especially the first film, and this is a terrific set from Via Vision that offers the first film in 4K UHD, all three film on Blu-ray, and a wealth of new and archival extras.
Special Features:
Disc 1: Ginger Snaps (2000) - 4K Ultra HD
- Dolby Vision and HDR10 2160p ultra-high-definition presentation on 4K UHD
- Audio commentary by director John Fawcett
- Audio commentary by writer Karen Walton
- The Pact: Ginger Snaps Forever - featurette (21:19)
- Ginger Snaps: Blood, Teeth and Fur - featurette (66:34)
- Growing Pains: Puberty in Horror Films - featurette (27:09)
- Deleted Scenes with optional audio commentary by director John Fawcett and writer Karen Walton (25:02)
- Archival Making Of featurette (4:50)
- Cast Auditions and Rehearsals - featurette (14:45)
- Creation of the Beast - featurette (4:58)
- Being John Fawcett - featurette (1:57)
- Theatrical Trailers (3:34)
- Production Design Artwork (1:15)
Disc 2: Ginger Snaps (2000) - Blu-ray
- Deleted Scenes with optional audio commentary by director John Fawcett and writer Karen Walton (25:02)
- Cast Auditions and Rehearsals - featurette (14:45)
- Creation of the Beast - featurette (4:58)
- Being John Fawcett - featurette (1:57)
- Archival Making Of featurette (4:50)
- Theatrical Trailer (3:34)
Disc 3: Ginger Snaps 2: Unleashed (2004) - Blu-ray
- Audio commentary by director Brett Sullivan, executive producers John Fawcett & Noah Segal, and producer Paula Devonshire
- Behind the Scenes: Beast is Built (1:10) Fun On Set (4:30), Locations (6:15), Special Make-Up (5:47) Stunts (4:08)
- Deleted Scenes: Alice Makes An Offer (2:21), Brigette's Introduction (4:13), Plan To Action (2:08), Trapped/Carnivore (2:46)
- Screen Tests: Eric Johnson (3:31), Janet Kidder (2:05), Pascal Hutton (2:29), Patricia Idlette (2:13), Tatiana Maslany (2:34)
- Storyboards (4:06)
- Theatrical Trailer (1:22)
Disc 4: Ginger Snaps Back: The Beginning (2004) - Blu-ray
- Audio commentary with director Grant Harvey, writer Stephen Massicotte and editor Ken Filewych
- Deleted Scenes: Old Wives Tales (9:00), You Lie (2:22), Extended Burial Scene (2:14)
- Grant Harvey’s Video Diary (10:16)
- Wolf Boy – featurette (1:58)
- Blood Guts & Fire – featurette (8:55)
- Production Design Walk Through – featurette (5:28)
- Fun On Set – featurette (3:51)
- Costume Design – featurette (3:37)
- Photo Gallery (2:15)
- Theatrical Trailer (1:24)
