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FILM:


Housebound - 2014
Written & Directed by Gerard Johnstone

A number of months back, I wrote about a fun little Irish horror-comedy film that, for me, evoked the spirit of the early and mid 1980s -- the cinematic school that included Steven Spielberg, Joe Dante, John Landis and such.  Now I've come across another film that also evokes that era which, for many, means a rock-solid good time at the theater.  This time it comes from New Zealand, and it's called Housebound.

After rebellious 20-something Kylie gets arrested in a badly botched ATM burglary, the judge hands her a sentence that he believes will provide a stable environment in which to rehabilitate; eight months house arrest living with her mother and step-father.  Never mind that she's been running away from that place metaphorically ever since she ran away from it literally.

Kylie's mum is something of a -- shall we say -- natterer, and her step-father is the personification of the color beige.  Actually, that's not fair to beige.  He's like beige as seen in black and white.  So he's easy enough to ignore, but her mother's stream-of-consciousness monologue of meaningless chatter is virtually impossible to escape.  Sure, Kylie's pissy and bitter about being trapped there, but the endless torrent of gossip and commentary has her even more on edge.  Even when Kylie tries to escape her mother's phone blather by listening to the radio in her room, her mother's voice comes out of the radio, sharing with the talk show host her suspicions that the house is haunted.

It would be easy for the film to portray Kylie as "the good guy" in this dynamic, but it's much more fair than that, and honest about her flaws.  She can't resist the opportunity to mock her mother.  Soon after, however, the creaks and squeaks in the house start to sound more meaningful to her too.  As is the case with so many parent-child relationships, she fears that she might be becoming the mother she couldn't wait to get away from as much as she fears that maybe there is something else in the house.  After a spooky incident in the basement triggers her radio ankle bracelet, Amos the security officer assigned to check in on her takes an immediate interest in the case.  It just so happens that he's an amateur paranormalist.

Despite the experience in the basement, Kylie remains somewhat skeptical, seemingly in reaction to the level of Amos' interest, but they both want to find out what is going on.  Meanwhile, her visiting social worker looks for excuses from what she's experiencing, mostly suggesting that it's all in her head, and her head is not to be trusted.  Having called her mother crazy for believing in ghosts, Kylie is more reluctant than ever to communicate her own concerns.

Housebound is built on a story of mystery and creeping fear with a few good twists, surprises and misdirections.  It's furnished with some very funny moments, most of them exceptionally dry.  And beneath it all, it's richly carpeted with themes of family and personal healing.  There are tense and startling moments, but it's not especially scary, which is okay because it's immensely fun in a way that never feels cheap.  I really can't get over what a well-crafted film this is.

This is writer/director Gerard Johnstone's first film (coming off a NZ sitcom) and he's shown an impressive aptitude for rich and satisfying storytelling.  I eagerly anticipate whatever he decides to do next.  Everyone in the cast does a great job, but the real standout is Rima Te Wiata as Kylie's mother.  Her nervous, chattering energy is so convincing that you'll be tempted to storm off to your room and listen to your headphones yourself.

Coffee Yes

FOOD & BEVERAGE:

We're All Mad Here

After yesterday's Christ-awful terrible cinematic abortion that was See No Evil 2, I felt like we deserved something really, really good today, and boy-howdy, do we have that...

TELEVISION:


American Horror Story
Season 2: Asylum - 2012
Created by Brad Falchuk & Ryan Murphy

I really enjoyed Murder House, the self-contained first season of American Horror Story.  It was a ghost story (my favorite flavor of scare), bursting at the seams with ghosts and interesting character relations, but there were definitely some nagging narrative weaknesses that suggested either incomplete planning or late-season scheduling conflicts.

The second season's story, Asylum, fixes what was broken and improves everything that wasn't, resulting in one of the finest and most compelling horror stories ever created.  The show's team actually courts disaster by filling it with SO MUCH that it should trip over its own subplots and varied ingredients, and yet it pulls it off masterfully.

Roughly spanning the 60s (with trips back and forth through time) in the asylum at Briarcliff Manor, we have at least three serial killers, two axe murderers, a mad scientist Nazi war criminal, the twisted victims of said mad science,  a sadistic nun, a demon possessed nun, the Angel of Death, and, oh yeah, space aliens.  That's just the boogeymen (and women, to be fair).  To each of those spooks, there's at least one human story attached, and usually more.  Those stories then entwine with one another, creating a tangled web of "I HAVE TO FIND OUT, BUT DON"T LET IT END!" storytelling.

Honestly, this is one of the single best narrative arcs in television history.  Yeah I said it, and I meant it.

Several cast members from season one are back in new roles.  The most fascinating of these is perennial show-stealer Jessica Lange in a radically different and vastly more complex role.  She plays the tough-as-nails Sister Jude, the nun charged with running the asylum, who has turned it into her personal domain.  Lange has played no shortage of Southern belles throughout her career (including season one), so it's a real delight to see her take on the role of a hard-bitten New England nun with a secret past.  As strong as she is as Sister Jude, she really takes it a few more levels up when she ceases to be Sister Jude and suffers her comeuppance.  This was a remarkably complex character whom we despise and then pity, and ultimately mourn. Okay; Jessica Lange.  Now I get it.

It's virtually impossible to summarize the story (stories) without falling into the trap of a breathless "And then that happened, and then she said, and then -- OH YEAH, I forgot to tell you about..." recounting.  Virtually every character has their own story, and roles to play in other characters' stories.  Every time I start to say "In addition to Sister Jude, there's one other key lead" I realize there was another.  Then when I'm prepared to commit to three leads, I recall another major arc that may not have been key, but certainly was significant.  The strength of this storytelling and juggling of characters compels me to mock the failure of Lost to do the same, despite pretending that it did.  Dear producers; Do this.  Not that.

Realistically speaking, there were indeed three primary characters and their analogous structural story lines.  In addition to Sister Jude, there's the brave and bold reporter, Lana Winters (Sarah Paulson), unjustly imprisoned at Briarcliff for attempting to expose its corruption, and Kit Walker (Evan Peters) who is also unjustly imprisoned there, believed to be the serial killer Bloody Face.  Shockingly, his alibi that he'd been abducted by aliens doesn't help his case.  Both of their stories are strongly rooted in issues of social justice, which apply strongly to their unjust imprisonment.  Like the best of horror, Asylum deals not only in imagined evils, but in genuine evils, and addresses the human condition through one of our most damning and damaging traits; our fear.

Performances are uniformly good-to-outstanding.  I can't think of a single character that I ever wanted to get off the screen so I could see someone else, and I frequently wanted more or just about everyone.  Perhaps the most tantalizingly brief appearance was the few episodes we got with Ian McShane as the hilarious and menacing Santa Claus killer.

I freely admit that the relatively "up" ending went a long way toward formalizing my enjoyment of Asylum as a whole.  So many characters went through their own personal Hells that it was gratifying to see their struggles pay off.  Not that anyone exactly lived all that "happily ever after" and a lot of good people died along the way.  The end felt both authentically human as well as satisfying the narrative.  We don't see that often on television or (even less so) in horror.  Hell, after Glee, I wouldn't have even guessed that Ryan Murphy was capable of either.

If you have any interest in quality television and/or quality horror... [Shalit] ...you'd have to be completely CRAZY... to miss American Horror Story's Asylum. [/Shalit]

Hack Jobs

After revisiting the Ginger Snaps series, I was inspired to check out a couple of other films with actress Katharine Isabelle who was so great in that series and American Mary.  This, despite the fact that both of these sub-genres -- home invasion and straight-up slasher -- are not my particular "bag."  Oh, the things a man will put himself through for a pretty face...

"Who's the leader of the gang that's made for you and me?  C-R-E, E-P-Y M-O-U-S-E!"

"What have I done to deserves this... movie?"

FILM:


Torment - 2012
Written by Michael Foster & Thomas Pound
Directed by Jordan Barker

Torment is a fairly unadorned home invasion flick, which is really little more than a slasher with the personalized paranoia of viewer vulnerability.  The threat of home invasion is Bible Truth for a large percentage of Americans.  Unfortunately, it's about as factual as the Bible, and believed by many of the same people.  But hey!  At least it sells more guns!  And shut your commie mouth about guns in the home being a greater statistical threat (BY FAR) than home invasion.

I SURE HOPE THIS DOESN'T BECOME IRONIC LATER!

Where was I?  Oh yeah, Torment.  So a newlywed couple and their son (from the widower father's previous marriage) head out to the house in the woods, because that's how these things happen.  As they're settling in, they discover that "Someone's been sleeping in MY bed!" while the house has been empty.  The sheriff comes out and essentially suggests that these things are bound to happen if you don't take better care.  As it turns out, the someone who's been sleeping in their bed is still there.  So much for checking out the house.

Throughout this first part of the film, the director actually does a halfway decent job of building some menace and tension.  There's the evident threat from the strangers, and there's also a somewhat well handled story about the young son's mistrust of his new stepmother.  Dad actually makes some mature choices, parenting his child and calming his bride's fears.  I actually had some hope at this stage.

Then, that night, the boy disappears, leaving shredded stuffed animals behind.  They assume that he's run off and go to look for him.  Everything after this is pretty much what you'd expect and I'm not going to summarize it.

This guy got off lucky

It turns out there are four kidnappers/killers, each wearing the head of one of young Liam's over-sized stuffed animals.  It's a suitably creepy effect, if overly evocative of the masks in You're Next.  Despite just having decapitated the stuffed animals, they treat the heads as though they have always been their identities, and never ever have any problem seeing through them.  In fact, the murderous "family" of killers are entirely overpowered, on top of outnumbering their victims, and the film paces its deaths poorly.  The horror trope of the bad guy suddenly appearing behind you is beaten more severely than any victim or killer in Torment.  As many bad choices as characters make, it's really irrelevant when some big hurkin' dude can silently circle all the way around you unseen and creep up behind you unheard, defying all logical sensibility.

Torment desperately wants to turn it's "family" of killers into a thing, thus accounting for the way that most if not all of them escape both death and police custody at the end.  Unfortunately, they're based on a stupid premise and reveal no actual personality.

Katharine Isabelle is completely wasted here, as are Act 1 efforts at establishing a story.  Make your own joke about "Torment" and the experience of watching it.

Kane's Back -- GET IT?  I WISH the movie were that clever.

And his front.  Can we go back to the back?

See No Evil 2 - 2014
Written Nathan Brookes & Bobby Lee Darby
Directed by Jen & Sylvia Soska

So you know how I just slagged Torment?  I don't want to take any of it back, but I need a much deeper yardstick to measure the suckage of See No Evil 2. I had low, low expectations going in, but I thought maybe there was a chance that the Soska Sisters could but a twist on it after American Mary.  But no, it was just a slasher with an overinflated impression of its ability to challenge Jason Voorhees in a Jason-Off.  As there is exactly ONE surprise in the film, I see no sense in summarizing, and will instead share a few of the thoughts that occurred to me as I endured this cinematic abortion.

The film is produced by WWE films (yes, that fake wrestling show is diversifying -- but not by much) and ultimately serves as a vehicle for one of their fake wrestlers (given that he kills everyone else).  It's pretty bad when an angry slab of hate-meat can't play an angry piece of hate-meat with conviction.  He pretty much behaves the way I'd expect fake wrestlers to behave at home, based on their sociopathic fake wrestling characters.  Evidently WWE owns the fake wrestlers "Kane" identity, so maybe it's not really big dumb guy who's the terrible actor, but "Kane" the fake wrestling character who's terrible, and big dumb guy who signed his identity away in a contract who plays him as a terrible actor.  And isn't signing your identity away a form of slavery?  Given the Tea Party's support of Linda McMahon's political ambitions, I suppose that tracks.

Whew!  Glass is unbreakable, right guys?  GUYS?

The murder character clearly has an IQ of no more than 80, and I'm just trying to be generous about that.  Whether that's the actor, the character of "Kane" or the killer character than "Kane" plays, I'm not entirely sure.  Perhaps all three of them had to team up to act that stupid.  And yet, despite all this stupidity on display, he's somehow able to predict the movements of others, think 3 steps ahead, and yet still be everywhere that they think of going, but only when they think of going there.  This isn't any freakin' Hannibal Lecter mastermind here.  He's a mental defective raised on even more mentally defective religious psychosis.

And sure, the guy is a burly, seven foot mass of muscle, but none of that makes him a goddamn shadow ninja or part cheetah, yet somehow, after being pumped full of embalming fluid, he manages to sprint 100+ yards faster than a Volvo, and noiselessly go from behind a character to behind him again.  Oh yeah, that embalming fluid.  Just one of the many things that should have killed him but didn't.  You have not earned the surprise when you betray physical reality that way.

You know exactly what happens with the next match

You know how you wanted a GI Joe or a Star Wars figure as a kid and some well-meaning but unaware relative got you Hero Soldier or Space Fighter?  That's what this is to Friday the 13th, except that Friday the 13th was never Star Wars or even GI Joe in the first place.  It was the Hero Soldier to Halloween, which sucked in the first place, making See No Evil the Fight Guy to Hero Soldier.

It's roid rage presented as a character, with all the withered nutsack and delightful personality traits to match.  And that's just "Kane."  The killer character is a couple notches up from that. 

I find it interesting that the first Seen No Evil (which I have not seen and will not see) was directed by Gregory Dark, formerly of the weirdo porn producing team, the Dark Brothers (New Wave Hookers), and See No Evil 2 was directed by the weirdo horror producing team (with edgy sexual themes), the Soska Sisters (Dead Hooker in a Trunk).  Porn would be more honorable than this ugly, stupid, nihilist garbage.

Paging Dr. Buxom

The film starts with the meek morgue worker pining for his hot co-worker, and they end up being the last two alive.  Despite working there, the dead guy knows his way around better than they do.  But while they are the last two alive, they finally share that kiss.  I couldn't help wondering how that might have worked out for them...

"Grandma, tell us again how you met!"

"Well, I was working in the morgue and Grampa worked there with me."

"No, Grandma, not how you met, but how you fell in love!"

"Oh, that old story.  Well, as you know, we were working there one night when the unkillable slab of angry hate-meat was brought in..."

"Yeah...!"

"And then he murdered my brother and all my slutty friends and our co-worker, Wheelchair Guy, and it was just so romantic, I knew we'd be together for the rest of out lives!"

Grandma wasn't far off about that.

In fact, the only surprise in the movie is that Sexy Morgue Doctor gets killed before Meek Morgue Worker.  Now you know so I've spoiled the movie for you, and saved your sanity.

Best "effect" in the movie

Now, because I believe in fairness, I will say this.  Katharine Isabelle is a lot of fun in her scenes as the Perverted Slutty Girl with her boyfriend Greasy Guy.  Times have changed and there's more than one slutty girl in slashers nowadays.  There's also a Sad Slutty Girl who crushes on Overprotective Patriarchal Brother.

I should have just walked away once the dead slab of angry hate-meat arose, because the movie had nothing fun to offer after that point.  The movie picks up immediately after See No Evil, which came out EIGHT years ago, and it's desperately obvious about thinking it deserves to become a series.  It doesn't.  Don't allow that.  You are a bad person if you give this movie your money.

Ugh.  Fuck this shitty movie.  Fuck "Kane" and fuck Vince McMahon.

REDEEM YOURSELVES, SOSKAS.


OPENS TODAY!

Papa Was a Howlin' Stone

FILM:


Werewolf: The Beast Among Us - 2012
See link for writing team
Directed by Louis Morneau

I hadn't heard of this one at all until the other day when I wrote about In the Company of Wolves and found that Stephen Rea had three werewolf movies to his credit.  Having seen the other two (Underworld: Awakening being the other) I decided to give it a shot.  The prospect of paranoia within the community sounded vaguely intriguing.

It wasn't that intriguing.

The Beast Among Us is an action movie first, and a fairly generic one at that.  The horror is primarily relegated to a bit of gratuitous gore.  It packs very little punch because it doesn't give us anything to care about.

Somewhere in the poorly defined Europe of the poorly defined past, a plague of poorly defined werewolves has stricken the countryside.  A team of werewolf hunters rides into town to deal with the menace.  But this isn't your run-of-the-mill werewolf (within this movie's mill-house, anyway).  This one turns on the waxing and waning nights of the full moon as well; rather than simply the fully full moon.  Because gravity, evidently -- and just you hush your mouth about the moon having the same gravity every night no matter which direction it's reflecting.  All you need to worry about is that these kinds of werewolves are deadlier, and potentially able to transform at will, possibly because they were born, not made.  The werewolf lore gets pretty cluttered except for in the places where it's not explained at all.

There's plenty of mistrust to go around, but very little of it plays into the kind of tense cat-and-mouse story mechanics that you wish it would.  In fact, there just really aren't many reasons to care about anything that happens because the characters are generally dull and unpleasant, and indeed, there turn out to be more bad guys than good guys.  The twists are supposed to be engaging, but they're so telegraphed by secretive behavior that they never really matter.

Oh, the film tries to define the characters, but does so through making them types.  This most strongly stands out with the hunters who are cartoonishly defined the way that "colorful" teams of mercenaries are in b-movies; through their appearance and/or their weapons.  Team leader is a Cowboy.  His lieutenant is the Casanova.  There's the Battle-Scarred Brute with the eye patch and the 2-legged horse, and his yeah-yeah-you-tell-'em-boss Toady.  And there's the Sassy Chick with the Big Guns (or an over-sized crossbow anyway).  Among the townspeople, the overworked doctor is the Stern Master to the Earnest Scholar, son of the Seen-It-All Barmaid and boyfriend of the Pretty Rich Girl.

The werewolf effects show about the same level of imagination, delivering mediocre CGI so uninspired and unexamined that the creature's downy hair makes it look cuddly.  The transformation constitutes little more than a morphing effect, which simply isn't interesting in the slightest.  The beast is most menacing when you don't see it at all.  Like the film as a whole, there's potential there, but the execution is tepid.

It's not even inspiring enough to really bag on it.  Six months from now, I'll probably stumble across it again on IMDb and think it sounds interesting, only to remember that I've seen it and it wasn't.

Wolf Children - 2012
Written by Mamoru Hosada & Satoko Okudera
Directed by Mamoru Hosada

For as little as The Best Among Us gave me to care about as a viewer, the anime film Wolf Children did the opposite.  This movie is ALL ABOUT caring, and its pacing and characterizations draw in the viewer in subtle and powerful ways.  Not a horror movie in the slightest, it is nevertheless about wolves who are people too, or vice versa.  The subject of full moons and silver bullets is addressed early on, only so it can be dismissed as mythology and the things that really matter can be explored.

Wolf Children is roughly three stories in one, and action is central to none of them.  It sets a rather leisurely pace, relying on its establishment of humanity within its characters to compel interest in what might happen next, or simply, what we might learn next.

Timid yet joyously spirited college student Hana notices a new student in class one day, and develops an instant infatuation with him.  As it turns out, he's not officially a student at all, but a humble yet decidedly dreamy mover.  Soon, they're a couple, due largely to her efforts.  His initially aloof behavior is rooted in a desire to protect himself, for you see, he is a wolf.  Rather than scaring Hana away, she accepts him as he is.  He is, as far as he knows, the last wolf left in Japan.  They're not an aggressive species, but often forced into isolation simply out of societal fears. Within two years, they've had two babies with wolfy dispositions of their own.  With all those mouths to feed, he goes out hunting one night... and doesn't return.  Between school, work and two babies who are sometimes wolves, Hana can't keep up, and decides a fresh start out in the country is called for.

The next part of the film is primarily concerned with the the struggles of single-motherhood, especially when your children are apt to turn into canines in the blink of an eye.  Hana has to learn how to farm to keep her family fed, and the help she's given is delivered in the most begrudging way possible by a surly old neighbor.  Once harvest comes and she hasn't given up, she's finally accepted into the community.  Her daughter, Yuki is a rambunctious pup, and her son Ame is a sickly little thing.  They both require their own kind of attention, on top of the needs of farm life.

The last major arc in the story concerns the children's lives as students.  Hana has learned to manage things at home a little better and takes a part time job with a conservationist group.  Yuki starts school after convincing her mother that she can control her changes, chanting "I'm going to be a little girl all the way home" to calm herself.  She thrives on the social contact.  Ame, when it's his turn for school, doesn't, and finds himself troubled by the role of wolves in the stories that they read.  In time, their relationships outside the home; Yuki with a sensitive new boy in class and Ame with his "sensei," the fox that roams the mountain behind their home, will open up new and very different paths for them and their future lives.

Wolf Children is similar in tone to some of Studio Ghibli's quieter films like Whisper of the Heart or Only Yesterday.  There were a number of moments that specifically evoked Ghibli movie for me.  It takes a very slice-of-life approach to its fantasy-based premise, and ultimately uses that premise as a vehicle for telling an allegorical tale about aspects of the human condition; single parenthood and the life choices of children coming into their own chief among them.  I don't know how intentional it was, 'cause Japan, but there would seem to be a pretty powerful story here about the struggles of raising mixed-race children in a world that hasn't come to terms with the concept as much as it thinks it has.

If I had to complain (and it's the internet, so, you know, there's a law that I must), it would be that the wolfish side of the kids and their father is pretty mild.  It's not until Ame's story arc emerges that being wolf really takes on much gravity of its own.  I also have some reservations about the wolves keeping their human hair, and this strays uncomfortably close to the world of "furries."  I feel uneasy even typing the word.  Google with caution if you're curious about the movie.  That territory is arguably breached when Hana and her wolfy young swain "mate" while he's in transitional form.  I respect that it's symbolic of her acceptance and his ability to be "naked" to her in a uniquely vulnerable way, but damn you internet for tainting this moment!  Okay, obligation fulfilled; petty complaints registered, much of it not the film's fault.

Wolf Children is simply beautiful in every possible way.  The art is exceptional.  The music affecting.  It's not that it's slow-paced as much as it leaves the spaces in between the beats, and it's in those spaces that the characters have room to grow.  It's the growth of those characters that engages us and reveals the tenderness of their humanity, which is the greatest beauty of all.  It's not about things happening, it's about the thing they make happen; the people they are over time and the choices they make, most often as expressions of love deeply felt.

Yeah I bawled.  I bawled at the moon.

That wraps it up for Werewolf Week.  I have to admit that I enjoyed it more, overall, than Anthoholic.  Starting tomorrow, we'll be back to a more arbitrary selection process leading us on through Halloween.  BE THERE.

What It Feels Like for a Girl (Part Two: The Snappening)

As discussed yesterday, Ginger Snaps attained a certain level of cultish success, at least within horror circles, and relative to cost analyses for mid-to-low budget Canadian horror.  As is the way with horror, the idea of sequels became a consideration, however Ginger Snaps ended with a relatively conclusive story closure.  For one thing, how do you make a sequel to "Ginger Snaps" when Ginger is dead?  Well, the producers found two ways (or found writers who found ways) that differed as greatly from the original as they did from each other, and then released them both in the same calendar year.

FILM:


Ginger Snaps 2: Unleashed - 2004
Written by Megan Martin
Directed by Brett Sullivan

Following the events of Ginger Snaps, Brigette is now out on her own, laying low, and struggling to keep her own lycanthropic infection at bay.  The Brigette to whom we're re-introduced is still socially reclusive, but clearly stronger and more self-reliant as a matter of maturation through necessity.  Survival is a full-time occupation for Brigette, and she meticulously charts her physical changes, dosing herself on monkshood to fight her slide toward the wild side.  She's on her own, but not totally alone.  She's haunted (and taunted) by visitations (or delusions) of Ginger, particularly when she knows she's slipping.  When she overdoses on the poison to stave off a flare-up, she awakens to find herself in rehab, cut off from the resources she needs to stay in control of herself.

To a large extent, Unleashed plays like a "Women on the Psych Ward" thriller, or alternately, a "Just Say NO to Lycanthropy" after-school special about the horrors of monkshood addiction.  Brigette has to deal with fellow patients while her grasp on self-control is slipping away, an exploitative orderly with access to her medicine, and Ghost, the strange young girl who suspects Brigette's true nature, and just might know a way out of the hospital.  To make matters much worse, she can smell the male werewolf that stalks her, eager for a mate.  This plays into some distinctly sexual connotations about controlling the beast within.

In ways, this is the most horrific of the three Ginger Snaps films.  The humor of the original really didn't make the jump to the sequels.  There are definitely some ironic beats about rehab, but none of the satirical edge that so invigorated the original.  This is Brigette, the sullen one, alone against herself most of all.  If Emily Perkins had to carry the first film, she's bench pressing this one.  Katharine Isabelle's role amounts to little more than a cameo.  That makes Unleashed much darker with a greater sense of foreboding .  It's a high definition, slow motion train wreck as Brigette fights to avoid certain doom.  The ending feels a little undeserved, but it certainly fits the narrative arc of the film and the character.

Ah, there's one more thing that bears mentioning.  I took some issue with the soggy and hairless werewolf in the first film, but the sequels seem to demonstrate that the transformation is by-and-large a much more gradual process than we're accustomed to in other movies.  The werewolves grow more hair over time, the further they move away from being human.  In fact, they turn out to be some of the wolfiest werewolves (that aren't just wolves) in any of werewolf movie I've watched.

Ginger Snaps Back: The Beginning - 2004
Written by Christina Ray & Stephen Massicotte
Directed by Grant Harvey

"Together again... for the very first time!"

Rather than curing and/or resurrecting any characters for another go around, this is a sort-of prequel that inserts Ginger and Brigette into the origins of their curse.  Set in 1815, The Beginning tells the story of a time when the Wendigo's curse from native legends reached a transformative turning point on the Canadian frontier.  Traveling alone in the wilderness, the two girls with secrets behind them arrive at a frontier outpost in the dead of winter to find a dwindling troupe of soldiers and trappers with a few secrets of their own.

On one hand, this entry has the least humor of the bunch.  On the other hand, when Ginger responds to a tense and ominous dinner where simmering rage and racial, sexual & religious bigotry are on full display with "These people are fucked," it's clear that they're not taking themselves TOO seriously.

With a forest full of werewolves, an absent supply shipment and an atmosphere thick with paranoia and superstition, the Fitzgerald girls find themselves walking a precarious path between threats.  The only person who doesn't seem to be completely out of his mind is the native hunter, who just might be able to help them find some answers... if they don't all get killed first.

Ginger Snaps Back plays heavily on the threatening group dynamic.  Every interaction tugs threads of fear, tension and mistrust.  Additionally, it features the most outright carnage, closing things out with a bang.  Less is made of the sexual themes, unless you count the suspicions of the puritanical preacher (the type for whom everything is subtextually sexual) toward the girls.

If The Beginning had actually been the first film released, I doubt that Ginger Snaps would have become the kind of modest phenomenon that it did, but it's a sufficient excuse for getting the band back together one last time, and it's a dark little frontier adventure that metes out tension and a growing sense of fear from start to finish.