The plot of Ginger Snaps (2000) starts with sisters Brigitte and Ginger Fitzgerald live in the suburbs and have an affinity for death, even making a pact with one another when they were 8 that they’d leave the suburbs or commit suicide together by the age of 16. Katharine Isabelle plays Ginger, an already 16-year-old Canadian high school student and her 15, almost 16-year-old sister Brigitte is played by Emily Perkins. Written by John Fawcett and Karen Walton, the movie came out in 2000 and did not perform well at the box office despite having a cult following today.
The movie opens with a series of dog deaths caused by a creature of some sort dubbed the Beast of Bailey Downs. The sisters don’t fit in at school, their extremely close relationship and quiet demeanor combined with their interest in death leave them outsiders. Ginger likes this and is the leader of this path whereas Brigitte is clearly beginning to question the status quo between her and her sister.
...death presentation which is an extremely creative and unique approach to their life in Bailey Downs assignment. The class applauds to their dismay and the boys in the class snicker and comment about Ginger's attractiveness in contrast to Brigitte being not attractive. After being overheard talking about Trina Sinclair, a popular girl at their schools, death Trina pushes Brigitte into the carcass of another neighborhood dog while they play field hockey. For unknown reasons the same taunting boys from class are able to watch the girls PE class play field hockey and comment on the entire class uninterrupted.
As a revenge plot the sisters go on a night mission to get back at Trina and Ginger starts her period. The blood from her period causes the werewolf creature that has been attacking dogs to attack Ginger. They get into an intense battle with B using a branch to smack at the wolf so it will free Ginger. Ginger eventually gets free and she and B run into the street narrowly missing being hit with the wolf right behind them. The wolf gets hit and pulverized by the van driven by Sam Miller, played by Kris Lemche. Sam gets out of the car, but the sisters are already gone, rushing home. Back at their house Ginger is severely injured and writhing in pain, B tries to examine her wounds only to find they've healed during the inspection. Ginger convinces Brigitte to not only not get help but to also not tell their parents about what happened.
...and/or stop the transformation Ginger is going through whereas Ginger is fine with the aspects that she likes but wishes to hide the more obvious things like her developing tail. Ginger begins to show an extreme aggression towards Brigitte as she transforms into a werewolf and Brigitte enlists Sam to help. Her jealousy extends to all facets of Brigitte’s life and any pulling away from her despite her also changing.
While Brigitte is transforming into a more independent adult woman Ginger is transforming into a werewolf hungry for sex and flesh with a desire to rip everything apart. Brigitte is appalled when her sister eventually succumbs to being a werewolf, enjoying the kills and sexual confidence as she becomes more and more wolf-like.
Sam is the pivotal romantic relationship, the object of Trina's affection that causes her to snap and confront Brigette after he seems to be interested in her. During this scene she alludes to possibly losing her virginity to Sam at one point and calls him a quote-unquote "cherry hunter" and warns Brigette that he will do the same to her. Trina almost makes it seem like they should work together against Sam, but Ginger comes along and takes Trina hostage inside to present an ultimatum to Brigitte to go along with the transformation. Ginger agrees to try and slow or reverse the transformation, but Trina accidentally dies. They are able to get away with involvement in Trina's death and the town believes she's simply missing.
...from their parents as their father is checked out and their mother is blinded by the desperation to be close with them and be needed by them. At first the extent is only animals and hide-able features, but Ginger soon kills their teacher after propositioning boys in the hallway and then the janitor after he walks in on the other murder. Brigette can't fully condemn Ginger however, even after she makes advances, because of their bond. Ginger goes after Sam after him and B makes a second dose of the cure, previously having tested it on the boy Ginger turned into a werewolf via unprotected sex. The cure is knocked away and Sam is dragged to the basement of their house where he leans against the wall bleeding out.
Ginger wants Brigette to join her and eat Sam, but Brigette can't bring herself to and finally stands up to her sister, shouting, "I won't!" which causes Ginger to kill Sam. Once Sam is dead B runs away and gets to the syringe, she tells Ginger she won't die down in the basement with her and when Ginger attacks she stabs her in the chest and kills her. With the syringe of the cure unused and Ginger dying Brigitte goes to lay on her sister's chest, holding her as she dies.
The two sisters have a general rage throughout the film, initially towards their peers and feeling they cared about vastly different things from them, also towards their parents, specifically their mother’s overwatch of them. Anger towards the boys that ogled their gym class or made comments after their presentation about their bodies, objectifying them rather than providing feedback on their art project.
There is a particular rage towards being forced to become a woman by one’s body and the inability to have a choice in the matter. This mostly comes from Ginger with Brigitte in more of an accomplice than leader role. There’s rage about the circumstances of Ginger becoming a werewolf and rage within their different feelings about that change. Ginger in a lot of ways embraces being a werewolf even when faced with possible solutions from Brigitte but Brigitte is always of the mindset that they are both working towards ending this curse or virus. Ginger takes out her rage on the teacher who is policing her behavior and on the janitor whose kindness she interprets as coming onto Brigitte. She puts all boys and men into the same box to justify her murdering them which is common in this genre.
Freaky 2020 finished filming in 2019 and is somewhat of a time capsule of what would have been. If the pandemic hadn’t happened in 2020, we would have continued down whatever path movies like Tragedy Girls set us down in regard to this genre. Freaky feels like that movie, the one I’d expect to come next-ish in line in the best and worst ways. In contrast the other 2020s movie I’ll cover is Totally Killer which came out post-pandemic for trends in feminism and womanhood.
The opening sequence follows a group of teens hanging out at a mansion with lots of references to Halloween and Michael Meyers, featuring insane kills like a tennis racket through either side of the head from an overpowered killer wearing a mask. This is a good display of the Blissfield Butcher’s abilities and his callous approach to murdering, brutally murdering these teens after breaking into the house. He steals a dagger called the La Dola from the mansion on his way out.
We meet our main character Mille the next day, and her friends Josh and Nyla refer to her mom’s superpower as guilt. Inside school kids are mean to Millie for no clear reason other than her mother working at a discount store in town. We learn it’s been barely a year since Millie’s dad died and her friends are already pressuring her to move on with her life. We also learn that she has a crush on one of the jock guys who she sits next to in a wood shop.
...played by Alan Ruck from Succession, is an actual douchebag who targets her and humiliates her, to which Booker, the jock guy played by Uriah Shelton, looks on with secondhand embarrassment. Woodshop douche, Mr. Banardi, is about to force her to give a presentation a week prior to when he said it would be due, but alerts go off that distract everyone and end the humiliation. Despite the murders the homecoming game isn’t cancelled, and Millie is the mascot. As the mascot beaver, she gets bullied by her own teammates, including Booker. He makes a crude comment about her not even being doable and she overhears that, understandably crushed. Her friends encourage her to quit but she tells them she needs the extracurriculars to get a scholarship.
Millie’s phone dies right after she calls home only to learn her mom is passed out drunk and not just running late to get her. Alone in the parking lot the Butcher appears in the mist, causing Millie to become alarmed. She tries to ward him off with threats that her sister will be there soon and is a cop with a gun, but he walks towards her with the La Dola knife anyways. They end up in a tussle on the field while the storm rages around them, they are transported to the top of a temple and the Butcher stabs Millie in the shoulder which causes him to also bleed in the same spot. Her sister arrives and fires off shots that cause the Butcher to run off, leaving the knife behind.
...and her mom arrives distraught, more worried about her own guilt than Millie. Char, Millie’s sister, and her mom argue while she takes a bath and tries to drown out the noise. That night during the storm she dreams about what happened with the Butcher and at midnight her pig clock denotes the change. Millie’s mother wakes non-Millie to breakfast, who I’ll call Kill Mill when the Butcher is in her body and use he/him pronouns as stated in the movie and then for Millie in the Butcher’s body I’ll call Mill Butch and use she/her pronouns. Kill Mill seems calm and collected about the body switch, instantly ready to take advantage. He breaks into Char’s closet and opts for a leather jacket and red lipstick, very out of Millie’s norm which he comments on.
Across town Mill Butch wakes up in the disgusting under-tunnel lair of the Butcher and is shocked and appalled when she looks in a mirror and is faced with the serial killer. A homeless man comes up and Mill Butch asks if she looks like a teen girl to which the man accuses her of having drugs when she’d previously said she didn’t have drugs. Mill Butch runs out of the den in a stereotypical girly-run way after the homeless man charges her.
Across town Mill Butch wakes up in the disgusting under-tunnel lair of the Butcher and is shocked and appalled when she looks in a mirror and is faced with the serial killer. A homeless man comes up and Mill Butch asks if she looks like a teen girl to which the man accuses her of having drugs when she’d previously said she didn’t have drugs. Mill Butch runs out of the den in a stereotypical girly-run way after the homeless man charges her.
...struts into school past the pep rally festivities to shocked, jaws dropped. Once Kill Mill enters the school the record scratches and a metal rap song blasts out, signifying a more bad ass take on the old high school horror tropes. Her friends, Nyla played by Celeste O’Connor and Josh played by Misha Osherovich, rush Kill Mill questioning what the sudden, drastic change is about and noting her mom wouldn’t have normally let her wear that to school. Due to the attack the night before Billie has star power around the school, enough for the popular girl Ryler, played by Melissa Collazo, to come up and invite her to hang out in sharp contrast to her bullying her the day before. In a shock to both Nyla and Josh, Billie tells them to leave and decides to go with Ryler instead. Ryler immediately talks smack about the Butcher’s appearance from the news and Billie invites her to the locker room, saying they should go somewhere private.
Ryler assumes Billie is coming onto her and even texts her friends mocking Billie after saying she was fine with her being into women, but it wasn’t her thing. Billie then kills Ryler by trapping her in a cryogenic chamber and cranking it to the most extreme levels. Not quite sure about the science on this one but Mitcher ends up opening the chamber and Ryler’s frozen body falls out and smashes into pieces on the ground, the first switched body murder. Billie goes on to murder the woodshop teacher, dismembering him on a table saw after a battle. Mitcher is able to convince Nyla and Josh that it’s her inside of the Butcher’s body after they run away and try to stop him with kitchen utensils. The final test ends up being their handshake which Mitcher performs flawlessly and that convinces them he’s Millie. They run into Billie in the hall and rather than run away Billie snaps into scared woman mode and screams and cries pointing that the Butcher is after her.
...and they ditch Char, Millie’s sister, in the discount store their mother works in. Inside the store Coral, Millie’s mom, ends up coming onto Mitcher after her trauma dumps him about her relationship with Millie and Mitcher reassures her she’ll never be fully alone. Meanwhile Billie is hanging out with Booker and two other guys from the football team and is pretty straightforward about her intentions, which they take as flirtation. Booker is lured into following Billie in the mini golf course, and they divide and conquer into the course to protect him and Mitcher ends up knocking both out.
The threesome takes Booker and Billie back to a house and ties Billie to a chair while Mitcher watches him sleep longingly, calling him gorgeous. Billie tries to get Booker to listen to her, but Mitcher is sassy and straightforward with the backing of Nyla and Josh. Mitcher recites a love poem she wrote for Booker to convince him of her identity, it’s hella corny but it works. Mitcher is hilarious and not at all as concerned as you’d expect him to be. Now the three are four and they decide to leave Josh behind with Murder Barbie because it’s his house. Mill Butch and Booker wait in the car while Nyla goes to distract Char and get the dagger from the police station and Booker admits he likes Millie. Mill Butch also talks about the benefits of the body switch, even stating she liked the power from the switch. They end up kissing in the car which is really interesting on a lot of layers I don’t have time for in this video.
...a very 2020-esque exchange he comes out as straight to his mother who doesn’t believe him. Kill Mill shouts that his new body is useless in his attempts to get after Josh. Char treats Nyla like she’s the Blissfield Butcher and ends up locked in a cell, confirming she’s the worst cop ever. Kill Mill arrives at the dance with the Dola dagger and is approached by a guy from earlier who wants to redeem himself after she said he made her dry earlier in the film. As the clock runs out the team groups up to quote-unquote, “Stab this asshole.” Just as you feel bad for the jocks because Kill Mill will murder them you find out that the three are planning to assault Kill Mill. He, being the Butcher, slices one’s throat and manages to take all three out, one with a chainsaw.
The Phil jock guy has lured Josh to a secluded area and kisses him. When Josh rejects him, he calls him, and f-slur and Josh throws it right back mocking his lack of self-awareness. He threatens to kill Josh if he talks but Kill Mill hooks him through the eye, killing him. Kill Mill and Mill Butch are battling for her body and the cops shoot at her. Josh and Nyla are track stars that just fly into Kill Mill and tackle her for Mill Butch to stab. The alarm goes off before Mill Butch stabs Kill Mill to switch bodies, but they realize that the timer is wrong and it’s not midnight and Mill Butch flashes back to Booker saying he set the time 5 minutes ahead. There’s time! The stab happens and the switch occurs, Millie is back in her body and the Butcher is back in his. Josh shouts for the cops to shoot the Butcher who falls dead. In the end Millie is just an odd high school girl involved in taking down a serial killer.
...Butcher survived and killed the medics in the ambulance, escaping. The Butcher goes to Millie’s and attacks her, claiming he’ll fix things. He claims he knows how weak she feels but she says she learned stuff too and kicks him in the balls. She ends up delivering the death blow to the Butcher with the aid of her mom and sister. The screen is focused on Millie’s face, blood having poured out of her nose down to her mouth and chin looking at the Butcher’s body.
She says, “I am a fucking piece,” and credits. The pre-pandemic momentum showed an acceptance of bimbofication, domestication, and an edgy self-awareness of the leaning into stereotypes. Not all good or bad it’s a difference you can see when looking back at early pandemic social media content versus end of pandemic trends and what sorts of things came into focus.
...Butcher survived and killed the medics in the ambulance, escaping. The Butcher goes to Millie’s and attacks her, claiming he’ll fix things. He claims he knows how weak she feels but she says she learned stuff too and kicks him in the balls. She ends up delivering the death blow to the Butcher with the aid of her mom and sister. The screen is focused on Millie’s face, blood having poured out of her nose down to her mouth and chin looking at the Butcher’s body.
She says, “I am a fucking piece,” and credits. The pre-pandemic momentum showed an acceptance of bimbofication, domestication, and an edgy self-awareness of the leaning into stereotypes. Not all good or bad it’s a difference you can see when looking back at early pandemic social media content versus end of pandemic trends and what sorts of things came into focus.