Ginger Snaps, the film that so memorably (and graphically) approached lycanthropy as a metaphor for a young woman’s coming of age (and, perhaps more sensationally, the menstrual cycle), is a modern-day horror classic. Ginger Snaps Back, the third installment in the series, is not. However, kudos to the producers for making this three-quel a prequel, and one that’s a period piece, at that — it isn’t in every film that you get to see a recreation of bleak, snowy 19th-century Canada. Emily Perkins and Katharine Isabelle are back, and once again they play characters named Brigitte and Ginger, respectively, though these aren’t the same girls from the first two films (there’s no time travel going on or anything); here, they’re orphaned sisters wandering across the blustery landscape, eventually taking refuge at a trader’s fort that’s soon besieged by werewolves. After Ginger is bit by one of the beasties and begins to transform herself, the sisters desperately try to decipher the prophecy they had heard earlier from an elderly Indian woman — unless they “kill the boy,” one sister will kill the other. So who’s this “boy?” You’ll have a lot of fun finding out, even if Ginger Snaps Back is ultimately crushed by its own (admirable) ambitions — it just doesn’t quite have the budget or resources to pull something like this off, even though the cast gives it their all — especially the two female leads, who once again seem right at home with this strange material.
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New On Netflix: Ginger Snaps Back