Ginger Snaps (film) - Critical Reception

Critical Reception

Ginger Snaps was well received by critics, and compared favourably with auteur David Cronenberg's work. Critics also praised the lead actresses performances and the film's use of lycanthropy as a metaphor for puberty. Ginger Snaps won the Special Jury Citation award at the Toronto International Film Festival.

The film was "seemingly left for dead" upon its 2000 premier at the Toronto Film Festival but is now considered a cult film. The film was well received by critics, boasting an 87% freshness rating on Tomatometer. Critics' praise was centred on the quality of acting by the two leads, the horrific transformation reminiscent of Cronenberg, the use of lycanthropy as a metaphor for puberty, and the dark humour.

Critics who panned the film thought the puberty metaphor too obvious, the characters too over the top (especially the mother), and the dark humour and horror elements unbalanced. However, they did credit it as a worthy attempt and often gave it half marks on their star scales.

The film grossed C$425,753 domestically, making it the fifth highest-grossing Canadian film between December 2000 and November 2001. Owing to a cult following, it has managed to post significant video and DVD sales. These earnings combined with moderate theatrical success abroad led to the creation of a trilogy.

Because the film links lycanthropy to menstruation and features two sisters, Ginger Snaps lends itself to a feminist critique. "By simultaneously depicting female bonds as important and fraught with difficulties, Ginger Snaps portrays the double-binds teenage girls face." and "Ginger is an embodiment of these impossible binaries: she is at once sexually attractive and monstrous, 'natural' and 'supernatural,' human and animal, 'feminine' and transgressive, a sister and a rival."