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Ginger Snaps Trilogy: Limited Edition
[Blu-ray]
Blu-ray B - United Kingdom - Second Sight Review written by and copyright: Eric Cotenas (2nd December 2023). |
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The Film
 "Two outsider sisters must battle with not just coming of age as women but also accepting the harsh reality of turning into bloodthirsty werewolves" in the three films that comprise the iconic Canadian horror Ginger Snaps Trilogy. Ginger Snaps: The Fitzgerald sisters sixteen-year-old Ginger (Disturbing Behavior's Katharine Isabelle) and fifteen-year-old Bridget (Stephen King's It's Emily Perkins) made a suicide pact when they were eight ("Out by sixteen or dead in the scene, but together forever") and have gone to elaborate means to pre-visualize their gruesome fates turning them into a photo montage for the school assignment "Life in Bailey Downs." Strangely enough, their portraits of the dark side of suburbia are not as off-the-mark as their school counselor (Screwballs' Peter Keleghan) and homemaker mother Pam (The Rapture's Mimi Rogers) would like to think; after all, a "mad dog" has been chomping and tearing its way through the neighborhood's pets. Neither of the sisters have had their periods yet despite their age, further alienating the two Goth siblings from their classmates in the "mindless little breeder's machine" that is high school. Ginger, however, is showing signs of being a late bloomer and starting to catch the attention of the guys particularly alpha douche Jason McCardy (The Uninvited's Jesse Moss) much to the chagrin of Bridget and school bitch Trina (White Knuckles's Danielle Hampton), On the night they decide to kidnap and fake the death of school bitch Trina's Rottweiler, Ginger has her period and is mauled by a massive dog-like creature before it gets crushed under the wheels of a van belonging to local drug dealer Sam (The Frankenstein Theory's Kris Lemche). From that point on, Ginger starts to undergo a change that is worse than "the curse," ("Just so you know... the words 'just' and 'cramps', they don't go together") dismissing her destructive, irrational behavior and suddenly aggressive libido as part of "the change." The sisters grow apart as Ginger starts hanging out with the cool kids and Bridget remains an outcast, only finding companionship in Sam who is clinically depressed and happens to believesin werewolves. When Ginger starts sprouting fur in odd places as well as fangs, claws, dewclaws, and a tail she goes from chomping on the neighborhood pets herself to infecting Jason through unprotected sex ("Ginger Fitzgerald rocked my world!"). As Bridget and Sam scramble to find a cure and discover that the traditional methods do not work, Ginger grows more dangerous as she veers back and forth between suicidal depression and the impulse to "tear living things to pieces" including human beings who piss her off. An example of the then-scarce Canadian independent horror genre from the late nineties/early 2000s when much of what we saw stateside was either from David Cronenberg or American direct-to-video features and genre TV shows set stateside by economically lensed north of the border, Ginger Snaps was more of a word-of-mouth sleeper discovery usually caught via cable since the it didn't exactly leap off the video store walls. Its humorous commentary on suburbia and high school angst is smart without feeling too derivative of other models while the horror angle never supplants the film's dramatic core; and aren't the best werewolf movies inherently tragedies? The performances of Perkins and Isabelle are standouts, but they are ably supported by Rogers and the less-familiar Lemche.. The film's uneven balance of black comedy seems to stem more from the relative inexperience of the director than a deliberate design, but its imperfections make for a refreshing change from the "audience tested to death" Dimension Films horror glutting the screen and video shelves at the time. The werewolf effects are all practical with a simultaneously beautiful and ferocious animatronic beast that may be one of the best werewolf designs since The Howling and somewhat anticipates the look of the beasts of Dog Soldiers. These days, a film like Ginger Snaps is worthy of rediscovery for younger fans whose only exposure to werewolves are the of the whiny Twilight variety.  Ginger Snaps: Unleashed: Believing that she has contracted the curse of lycanthropy from her sister Ginger through blood contamination and that the creature that bit Ginger is tracking her, Bridget is living life on the run. Taunted by the Ginger's apparition, Bridget attempts to cure herself or at least delay the effects of the infection with injections of monkshood (that's wolfsbane) and charting its effects by how long it takes self-inflicted cuts on her body to heal (the speed of recovery also being an indicator of the proximity of her inhuman pursuer). Unsettled by her own carnal response to the unwelcome attentions of a horny librarian (Tideland's Brendan Fletcher) who is subsequently torn to shred by the creature, Bridget takes a stronger dose than usual and wakes up in the Happier Times rehab facility after suffering a severe anaphylactic reaction. Despite her bewilderment upon learning that Bridget is addicted to a legal, non-stimulant "sold in craft stores for dried flower arrangements," program director Alice (Bride of Chucky's Janet Kidder) and therapist Dr. Brookner (Dead Like Me's Patricia Idlette) attempt to treat her addiction like any other with group therapy, meditation, and confinement when she attempts to warn them that "If you keep me here, people are gonna die!" Sleazy orderly Tyler (Fifty Shades Darker's Eric Johnson) offers her a fix, but only in return for sexual favors as he does with the other female patients. Bridget rebuffs him, but eventually without her injections of monkshood, her ears become pointed, her canines turn into fangs, and she finds it increasingly difficult not to tear out the throat of bully Beth-Ann (S.W.A.T.: Under Siege's Pascale Hutton). The only person who believes her is Ghost (Orphan Black's Tatiana Maslany) a minor awaiting foster home placement who looks after her grandmother was badly-burned over her entire body and is in the clinic's chronic care ward but she is thrilled at the prospect of meeting a real werewolf. A direct sequel to Ginger Snaps shot back to back with the third film Ginger Snaps: Unleashed feels more scaled back than claustrophobic, and more Girl, Interrupted (or "Werewolf Girl, Interrupted" as acknowledge on the commentary). If the staff and the other patients seem rather two-dimensional and clichιd for the setting, it ultimately serves to keep the focus on Perkins, Maslany, and Johnson who form a warped triangle while Kidder's Alice disappears for the entire middle of the film only to turn up during the climax (although her absence ultimately serves a dramatic necessity). Isabelle's appearance this time around is more of a guest spot, with Perkins getting to be the tough, sarcastic one but also having to don the werewolf transformation prosthetics. The comedy is also scaled back but not absent, including an audacious scene involving a group meditation-turned-masturbation scene and an exchange that equates the "the infinite darkness" with the suburbs. The ending is darker, but the film earns it not just with a reveal of ultimate betrayal but by foreshadowing it from almost the very beginning. For this viewer, Ginger Snaps did not really betray its Canadian setting until late in the film with a bilingual "Missing/Disparu" poster was taped to a locker late in the film the girls playing field hockey seemed at the time to just be an inversion of the high school movie trope of scenes with boys on the field and girls in the bleachers Ginger Snaps: Unleashed never states its snowy location as Alberta, Canada but it does prominently features a curling stone as a weapon.  Ginger Snaps Back: The Beginning finds the Fitzgerald sisters alive and well but lost deep in the snowy Canadian wilderness at the start of the nineteenth century without provisions or transport as their horse bolts after refusing to go further into the animal-ravaged remains of a Cree village. The lone survivor is an old woman (Edna Rain) who disturbs Ginger with the cryptic warning "Kill the boy, or one sister kills the other." When Bridget steps into a bear trap, Ginger assumes a threat in a young Cree hunter (American Outlaws' Nathaniel Arcand) who leads them to the shelter of a fort that serves as a fur trading post for the Hudson's Bay Company. The two sisters are greeted with suspicion by Factor Wallace Rowlands (The Sweet Hereafter's Tom McCamus) and open hostility by Sergeant-Major James (Thir13en Ghosts' JR Bourne) when Ginger tells them of how they came to be lost there after their explorer parents' boat overturned and they washed ashore, and from Reverend Gilbert (Yellowstone's Hugh Dillon) who appears to see them as more than a mere fleshly temptation for the men. Doc Murphy (Alone in the Dark's Matthew Walker) has only leeches to treat Bridget's wound with, and neither he nor hospitable map-maker Finn (Brendan Fletcher) are any more forthcoming about the cause of the fort's high mortality rate that also claimed the lives of Rowland's Cree wife and young son. At dinner, however, they witness tempers flaring between James and the Cree hunter who he believes is working on the inside for raiding parties attacking the fort and resents the intermarriages between the Crees and the likes of Rowlands and Seamus (Wrongfully Accused's Adrien Dorval) whose teenage son Milo ('s ) is on the receiving end of James' abuse. That night, Ginger is awoken by the sound of a child crying and she discovers a locked room, but the child cowering in the corner turns out to be a deformed creature that bites her on the shoulder. The sisters try to leave by cover of night but are stopped from opening the gates by James whose suspicions of them are not allayed by the sudden attack on the fort by a horde of wolf-like creatures. In the aftermath of the attack, the men realize that the creatures are what were once the members of their party who were to sail to Hudson's Bay for supplies but never returned. Believing herself to be infected, Ginger decides to follow the old woman's warning and kill the boy who bit her while Bridget must prevent the others from finding out and killing her sister. More of a loose remake than a direct sequel or even really a prequel despite the subtitle, Ginger Snaps Back: The Beginning returns to the first film's dynamic between the sisters minus the comic elements and couched in a historical setting that brings to mind the influence of then then-current Brotherhood of the Wolf. Apart from a few exchanges between Ginger and Bridget ("These people are fucked"), the characterizations of the two are sisters are less vivid and their attachment to one another for the necessity of their physical well-being better depicted than their emotional/psychological co-dependency this time around (making the film's status as sort of an origin story of lycanthropy in The New World less dramatically compelling). This would be to the film's detriment if the audience did not share their outrage at being mistreated by the male characters. Also working in the film's favor is its great supporting cast of Canadian character actors including stage, TV, and screen actor McCamus as well as Bourne who was later part of the regular cast of MGM's six season television spin-off Teen Wolf, some striking location work and art direction, as well as the handsome cinematography of Michael Marshall (Cult of Chucky). Obviously the higher-budgeted of the two sequels, Ginger Snaps Back: The Beginning features the more elaborate effects gags from KNB Efx Group including more full-body werewolves, more strewn guts, the simultaneously repulsive and pitiable wolf boy creature, as well as a bit involving the effects of lyncanthropy-infected blood on a leech. If the two sequels are not quite up to the level of the first film, the films still make a satisfying trilogy in terms of entertainment value more so than continuity. 
Video
While DVDs of the film's two sequels received special edition DVDs here via LionsGate, the 2001 Artisan DVD of Ginger Snaps was both barebones and fullscreen with only a 2.0 surround downmix of the 5.1 original mix (Key DVD's 2005 reissue was reportedly similar in terms of technical specs). Overseas releases were anamorphic and had extras, but the interested stateside needed only to look up north to Canada for a loaded special edition of the film including much of the content carried over to subsequent Blu-ray releases of the film starting with Scream Factory's Blu-ray/DVD combo as well as the more recent German mediabook and the Australian trilogy set. Second Sight's 1080p24 MPEG-4 AVC 1.78:1 widescreen Blu-ray features the same HD master as the earlier releases. Thanks to some professional lensing and generally well-lit environments, the transfer offers good to great detail in close-ups, blood pops, and the all-practical werewolf effects still hold up well for an older master. The night exteriors and the moodily-lit basement bedroom set hide some of the rough edges of the effects work, but shadow detail could be better given the sense of depth evident in some of the mobile camerawork in brighter scenes.  Unlike the first film, Lionsgate's DVD of Ginger Snaps 2: Unleashed was anamorphic and fully fitted out with extras, mirroring the content of the Canadian Seville Pictures edition and the German e-m-s edition which split the same content over two discs (as with the first film, the U.K. edition dropped the commentary track). While the first film's rights had reverted, the sequel stayed with Lionsgate who funded the second and third films, which is why the film did not receive a Blu-ray release stateside. Fans of the film had to track down an elusive Taiwanese edition if they wanted a Blu-ray until recently with the German mediabook and the aforementioned Australian trilogy set. The same is largely true of Ginger Snaps Back: The Beginning with an anamorphic, special edition Lionsgate DVD and identical Canadian and two-disc German editions (and the U.K. edition once again dropping the commentary track). As with the second film, there was a hard-to-find Taiwanese Blu-ray that was the only game in town until the more recent German mediabook and the aforementioned Australian trilogy editions. Second Sight's 1080p24 MPEG-4 AVC 1.78:1 widescreen Blu-rays of the two sequels come from the same older HD master, but the two films despite being shot in more trying conditions on location look sharper thanks primarily to the cinematography even with the low-light interiors and day-for-night exteriors of the third film with the Blu-rays offering up finer facial detail and textures in the gritty locations of the second film and the historic replica fort of the third film compared to the DVD editions. There is room for improvement in the darker areas of the disused wings of the hospital and the shadowed corridors of the fort, but one wonders if Lionsgate will even bother with new masters should they decide to do a stateside release as part of their Vestron line.
Audio
Ginger Snaps' audio options include a recommended DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 mix and a serviceable 2.0 downmix. The discrete surround mix better conveys the film's use of surround effects, particularly early on with neighborhood sounds from dog cries to resident screams, and the movement of the creature stalking Ginger and Bridget. The score gets some nice spread but, unlike most teen-oriented horror films of the period, the soundtrack is not glutted with alternative and hard rock. Optional English HoH subtitles are also included. Ginger Snaps 2: Unleashed and Ginger Snaps Back: The Beginning both feature their original 5.1 tracks and 2.0 downmixes in lossless DTS-HD Master Audio. Outside of some of the monster set-pieces including the chase in the disused wing, the second film mainly utilizes the surrounds for the grungy scoring and atmospheric effects. The third film has more elaborate sound design from atmosphere, a richer-sounding score, directionality in larger scale action during the climax as well as the "jump scare" flash cutaways. Both films include optional English HoH subtitles. 
Extras
Ginger Snaps includes three commentary tracks, two from the earlier special editions and the third newly-recorded for this release. On the audio commentary by director John Fawcett, Fawcett attempts an all-around commentary covering the plot, characterization, performances, and technical aspects. The result is kind of dry but he does convey his enthusiasm as well as his appreciation for the efforts of his collaborators. He discusses his inspirations for the project including his love of Goth girls as a straight-laced teenager as well as monster movies and his initial but thankfully abandoned conceptions for the film's style (which would have put it more in line with the other teen horror films of the time with plenty of pop culture references and a compilation song soundtrack). On the audio commentary by writer Karen Walton, she starts off about the reasons she had not to do the film: the portrayal of women in horror films, the unlikeliness of getting a genre product produced unless it was helmed by Cronenberg, and violence for the sake of violence. Fawcett convinced her that the smartest thing to do would be to write a horror film that she would go and see. Understandably, she identifies with the Bridget character and her view of life during the high school years ("nothing matters unless it's happening to you" and the constant impulse to do something outrageous to "shake your life up") and suburbia. She goes into detail about combining the coming-of-age and horror genres, setting up stock figures from the two and then finding ways to put twists on them and invest them with depth (particularly in the case of drug dealer Sam, mean girl Trina, and seemingly oblivious mother Pam). Since Walton was also on set, she is able to also discuss how the shooting conditions altered the scenes as scripted, Walton also gives credit to Ken Chubb, who was the film's story editor (a credit more common and appreciated in the Canadian, British, and Australian film business) and helped her shape the film's metaphors and associations. Overall, the Walton track is the more engaging one because she is able to convey her ideas without jumping around or cutting herself off to catch up with onscreen action. The new track is an audio commentary by film historians Mary Beth McAndrews and Terry Mesnard which starts off rather fan-ish and bubbly but covers a range of themes, from the way the film subverts the then-current "beauty of dead female bodies" trend seen in the likes of Twin Peaks and The Virgin Suicides, and how the grisly images that the sisters are seen being sexualized by the men (including the guidance counselor), inversions like the females as jocks and the males as observers, and despite Ginger being the sexually-aggressive one and Jason experiencing "spotting" that he will still be the hero and she the lay. Also of interest is the way they contrast the sisters rejecting womanhood with the performative femininity of Trina and their own mother (which they liken to almost a drag performance), as well as the way the co-dependent dynamics of the sisters shifts back and forth pointing out early signs of Ginger's jealousy whenever Bridget is shown any male attention, as well as the sisters awareness and ability to weaponize female tropes (as when Bridget distracts her mother by suddenly showing an interest in knowing "what guys want" and Ginger's "we'll just coast on how the world works"). They also discuss the ways in which the film is a "proto-Jennifer's Body."  The disc also includes a quartet of new interviews, three of them with crew members. As with the other new interviews in the set, Second Sight is to be commended for not just using them as digest versions of the commentaries when they share participants (as often happens when a commentary and interview are shot at the same time). Despite the commentary track being recorded over twenty years ago, the new Fawcett interview "A Blood Red Moon" (26:44) is used by the director to better cover the origins of the project, including his time at the Canadian Film Center where he met Walton and her contribution in the voice of the characters, how the Columbine massacre made the media and governmental bodies sensitive to content about violence in a high school setting and the resulting difficulties with certain casting directors and in securing some locations. Some aspects of the discussion were previously covered in the Scream Factory documentary also included in the set. In "What Are You Wereing?" (24:39), producer Steve Hoban (Haunter) recalls meeting Fawcett and Walton at the Canadian Film Center, the development of the script over a few years, learning by doing with regard to finding funding, that the $4.7 million dollar budget was the most expensive local production at the time, and that Fawcett's actual directorial debut during that development period The Boys Club helped establish the director as a talent. He too discusses the difficulties they ran into post-Columbine. "The Art of Horror" (20:52) is an interview with storyboard artist Vincenzo Natali who recalls that he found work at the Canadian Film Center before he was able to apply by doing storyboarding on other people's shorts, including Fawcett's Half-Nelson, and that Ginger Snaps would be his swan song in that position, taking it on at the last moment after his producers had pulled the plug after a year-long development on a project (which he would not get to finally realize until 2009 as Splice). Also new is "Canadian Uncanny: Stacey Abbott on Ginger Snaps" (14:07) in which academic Abbott discusses the particularly Canadian way the film subverted the werewolf film genre away from the Gothic trappings with a different "lexicon of imagery," the cold indifference of suburbia, the menstruation metaphor while also noting that the change is linked to adolescent changes, contrasting hyper-masculinity and female rage, and the film's biological and scientific treatment of lycanthropy linking folklore to homeopathy. Ported over from the Canadian special edition are several unfinished deleted scenes (25:02) are offered up with optional commentary by Fawcett and Walton on separate tracks. Fawcett's rationale for deleting them mainly has to do with pacing or lack of coverage, but he does miss the character bits, while Walton discusses how these bits were relevant to characterization. Most disappointing is the loss of shots and scenes from the climax, which had already been scaled down from the "Hollywood budget" version, and then further butchered at the expense of the participation of the Rogers and Moss characters which would have been more satisfying. While the film works with the other scenes, the climax as it is in the finished film does indeed feel scaled down and worked around, leaving subplots hanging in the air. "The Making of Ginger Snaps" (4:49) is a brief montage of talking heads Fawcett, Walton, Isabelle, Perkins, Rogers, Lemche, and co-producer Karen Lee Hall and clips from the film that is interesting as a retrospective extra, but this type of EPK stuff wasn't really that interesting even when fresh, The cast auditions and rehearsals (17:45) features Isabelle's and Perkins' individual auditions the second for the latter since Fawcett recalls in the documentary featurette that Perkins had cut all of her hair off in between the first and second auditions and had to wear a wig for the shoot as well as a handful of rehearsed scenes in which they are already fully in-character and Fawcett is already trying to block out camera angles, The "Creation of the Beast" (4:58) is video shot at Paul Jones' make-up effects warehouse with a look at the creature molds and discussion of where to place hair on the mostly hairless beast (Lewis' rationale being the need to cover up zippers and other places where the suit disarticulates). From the Scream Factory release comes "Ginger Snaps: Blood, Teeth and Fur" (66:34) features new interviews with director Fawcett, writer Walton, actors Perkins and Moss, producer Hoban, make-up effects artist Jones, composer Mike Shields (Tucker & Dale Vs. Evil), and editor and Ginger Snaps 2: Unleashed director Brett Sullivan. Fawcett discusses his schooling in film from making shorts and a feature-length VHS movie in high school to film school which he attended with Natali among others and the origins of the project. Although Fawcett had gravitated towards horror in his short films, the only werewolf films he liked were The Howling and An American Werewolf In London. As a result, Ginger Snaps was modeled more on films like Carrie and Heavenly Creatures, as well as Cronenberg's The Fly and Dead Ringers (as well as his vampires short Half Nelson). Walton found the horror genre to be a rich venue for subversive ideas while Perkins and Moss discuss "the performance of adolescence" as well as working with prosthetics. Perkins talks about working with Rogers who developed tactics independent of Fawcett to foster a certain onscreen relationship with her and Isabelle while Moss recalls channeling a different kind of strength from the female protagonists as the leader of a predatory wolf-like pack of boys. Hoban recalls how the media and blackballed the production with Toronto casting directors and agents, so they sought talent in Vancouver and New York. Jones recalls not having input into the lighting and shooting of the creature, and his concern about Fawcett's excessive coverage of the effect (which the director would end up cutting down extensively in the editing). Shields giddily recalls the film as his first genre scoring assignment, while editor Sullivan talks about emphasizing Bridget's perspective in the film even though Ginger has the showier scenes. Also from the Scream Factory release is "Growing Pain: Puberty in Horror Films" (27:09) in which Horror Hound writer Kristy Jett hosts a panel on the titular subject that includes Belgian filmmaker Axelle Carolyn (Soulmate), Fangoria writer Rebekah McKendry, and journalist Heidi Honeycutt. Jett differentiates comedy films about puberty from horror films in that the latter tend to me more visceral while the former are comical, and the quartet also draw a connection in horror between puberty and the development of sexual feelings (whereas the two can often be separated by a couple years in reality), Refreshingly, the discussion does not begin with Carrie but with McKendry's discussion of the Czech fantasy Valerie and Her Week of Wonders, as well as Martin as the male perspective on puberty, as well as how there tend to be more vampire than werewolves in horror films about puberty (although Jett brings up The Company of Wolves and Teen Wolf), Honeycutt brings up The Craft and Carolyn Jennifer's Body as films in which the symbolic changes are more empowering, and think less of films by men about killer sex organs (specifically Bad Biology, Teeth, and American Horror Story: Covenin which a character kills every time she has sex). The disc also includes "Production Design Work" gallery (1:15) and a selection of trailers and TV spots (4:45).  Ginger Snaps 2: Unleashed is accompanied by the original DVD audio commentary by director Brett Sullivan, executive producers John Fawcett and Noah Segal, and producer Paula Devonshire in which they discuss Sullivan's work as an editor on the first film which included the memorable opening credits montage and Fawcett's contribution to the credits sequence here (Ginger Snaps second unit director and Ginger Snaps Back: The Beginning director Grant Harvey had a cameo in the sequence actually sticking a needle into his arm). The participants recall shooting the film in minus fifteen to twenty degrees Celsius, the mental hospital location which is closed now but was still operational at the time, casting Ghost (and her parents' concerns over the production dying her hair blonde since she was also working on a television series), and changing their original conception of the Tyler character when they realized he was originally too much like Sam in the first film. They also discuss Perkins' chance to take the lead and re-imagining her as "hot new Bridget" while pulling back on the Ginger apparition scenes to emphasize Bridget's psychology, as well as cutting back on the excessive gore created by KNB's Howard Berger who Fawcett met in New Zealand while directing episodes of Xena: Warrior Princess. "Girl, Interrupted" (24:09) is a new interview with Sullivan who met Fawcett through producer Hoban, was recommended by Hoban to edit The Boys Club but did not get the job but would become Fawcett's regular editor for a number of projects. He recalls being contacted about directing the sequel which was fully-funded along with the third film even though there were no scripts, meeting with Harvey and Hoban and coming up with various ideas before arriving at the two they used. Of his sequel, he discusses his efforts not to remake the first and audience reactions to the tragic ending which was what he wanted and how it was foreshadowed throughout the film. In "The Bloody Lunar Cycle" (20:31), writer Megan Martin recalls being on the verge of switching careers, applying to Columbia University for a doctorate program in Political Science, when she was offered the sequel. She recalls her admiration for the first film and how it embraced just how a bad periods could be, as well as her desire not to rehash it, focusing instead on the hunger of addiction. She also recalls her traumatic reaction to receiving her first notes from the producers on her script as well as her surprise at her own reaction to seeing the masturbation scene screened publicly. Ported over from the DVD special edition are a series of short EPK behind the scenes featurettes focusing on the creature designs, the locations, make-up and practical special effects, and stunt work, as well as deleted scenes (12:34) with optional commentary by Sullivan, Fawcett, Segal, and Devonshire, audition tapes (12:18), and storyboards (3:53).  Ginger Snaps Back: The Beginning ports over the audio commentary by director Grant Harvey, co-writer Steve Massicotte, and editor Ken Filewych who discuss envisioning the film as a "dark fairytale," recycling footage from elsewhere in the film as well as shooting inserts with Harvey's daughter to restructure the opening to include a jump scare, and adding the native mysticism to the script shortly before shooting started. They also discuss the need to make the sisters less self-aware and the ambiguity was to whether the film is a prequel or reuniting the modern day sisters in a kind of purgatory. They also speak warmly of the cast of Canadian actors writing a Shakespearean monologue before scripting anything else once they cast McCamus and how there was subtle competition between the men to upstage each other in group scenes like the dinner, as well as reusing Fletcher and knowingly casting him as another character who does not last long onscreen. "Snap!" (22:49) is a new interview with Harvey who recalls replacing Natali as second unit director on the second film when he got another project as director, his admiration for the first film, and its continuing cult status even with his own children and their friends. Like Sullivan, he recalls the session tossing out ideas, noting that Fawcett's concept for the third film as "Bridget and Ginger with swords," initially considering a medieval setting before Harvey looked back on his own family's past in the fur trade. He also reveals that he found both the fort and the mental hospital locations in his home town and ended up as producer of the second film to access Alberta's "soft money" but took his job seriously. In "Girls on Film" (19:58), producer Devonshire recalls her days at the Canadian Film Center and working as assistant editor on Natali's short Elevated, a sort of precursor for his film Cube (the trailer of which she also edited). She was dating Sullivan at the time he was working on Ginger Snaps and was able to convince Hoban to hire her as line producer because she was able to provide a house set from a children's show she was working on as a means of doing "scene studies" on video to work out the logistics of shooting and revising the storyboards and script before production. Of the sequels, she recalls the Alberta shoot including the stipulation by the hospital not to shoot any of the werewolf scenes on the property lest a patient see it and believe its the real thing and doubling for Isabelle when she got sick for some climactic scenes where her face was hidden by her hooded cloak. She also recalls that Berger recommended her to George A. Romero when he went to Canada to direct Diary of the Dead and Survival of the Dead. The disc also includes the EPK making of pieces on the "Wolfboy" design, practical effects, production design, and costumes, as well as deleted scenes (13:01) with optional commentary by Harvey, Massicotte, and Filewych, and Grant Harvey's Video Diaries (9:50). 
Packaging
Not supplied for review were the rigid slipcase with new artwork by Michael Dunbabin, the 112-page book with new essays by Meredith Borders, Kat Hughes, Mikel J Koven, Dr Rachel Knightley, Jolene Richardson, Zoλ Rose Smith, and Caelum Vatnsdal, or the five collectors' art cards.
Overall
If the two sequels are not quite up to the level of the first film, The Ginger Snaps Trilogy still make a satisfying trilogy in terms of entertainment value more so than continuity.
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