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[ellen_datlow]

Last night we watched Ginger Snaps, a terrific little horror movie about two adolescent sisters going through the nightmare of high school. They're both a bit suicidal until the older sister, Ginger starts menstruating--and boy do her hormones start working--the parental interaction is nicely done, with Mimi Rogers excellent as the (possibly not so) clueless mom. K&G says there's a sequel that K likes even better but I'm not sure I want to see what's next....I'm satisfied with the ending of the first film.

Also Hellboy (1) is pretty good, although there were two unnecessary plotholes you could drive a truck through that could have been fixed with a few additions to the script.

Comments

[readingthedark.livejournal.com]

It's a trilogy. Sometimes, despite the problems, I think it's my favorite film trilogy, but I have wretched taste in film. Argento's Three Mothers is also in the running for my favorite trilogy.

[hani.livejournal.com]

"Ginger Snaps" was pretty cool. I have yet to watch the two other movies. It's one of the few werewolf films I've seen that I liked.

[yendi]

The sequel was a little less impressive (mainly because it was more predictable), but still fun.

The third movie is more of a historical prequel -- the same two actresses, playing slightly different characters, set on the historical Canadian frontier. Alas, it was the least enjoyable of the bunch, and didn't bring much new to the genre (although it's certainly watchable).

[ellen-datlow.livejournal.com]

Yeah. Kelly says the prequel sucks...
The thing is, I I have a hard time watching gory horror movies alone--so it's good I'm here visiting with someone who likes them (Gavin doesn't. Kelly does). So no Ginger Snaps might be something I'll watch eventually.

[jplangan.livejournal.com]

I'd agree: the second movie has a lot of cool things in it, including a creepy girl who may be the mother of all creepy girls. I lost interest in the third film about twenty minutes in, but it was late and I was tired; I'd still give it another try.

[voidmonster.livejournal.com]

Ginger Snaps was, indeed, excellent. A great little film doing good stuff with its material.

I think I have the sequel around, somewhere. Maybe? But I haven't watched it yet.

I thought the first Hellboy movie was charming and fun and worth seeing and I can't remember a damn thing about the plot. It's a candy-movie, all shell with no appreciable nutrition in it.

I liked the second one a good deal more as a movie, and it's still plenty of eye candy. With assloads of Barlowe-designed monsters to boot!

If you're watching gory horror movies... Have you or Kelly seen The Descent? I liked it a lot.

[ellen-datlow.livejournal.com]

Oh wow! I'd not realized Wayne did the monsters in Hellboy 2--no wonder they're so good.

We tried to rent The Descent but it was checked out.

[voidmonster.livejournal.com]

I kept thinking, "man, those monsters look familiar", then the credits made it clear why. I hadn't realized he did monster designs for a couple of movies. Constantine and another one that's not sticking in my head. Lots of things from his Hell series, but not just. The Old One design he did back in the Guide to Extraterrestrials was lurking in the background of Hellboy 2, getting operated on.

Too bad about The Descent.

[voidmonster.livejournal.com]

Duuur. No, I just looked it up and Barlowe wasn't involved in Constantine. It was a couple of the Harry Potter movies.

[doortoriver.livejournal.com]

*laughs* What were the two plotholes?

[ellen-datlow.livejournal.com]

The "hellhound" was said to duplicate each time it was killed and resurrected but at the end, with no explanation they're all killed.

Liz's soul is stolen by Rasputin but never gets it back (and there's no difference in her or mention of this fact).

[heathencorp.livejournal.com]

i always assumed the hellhounds had to all be killed at once because if anything remained they'd resurrect, so she took out the eggs and the adults and voila, really cool cgi.

and that hb scared whatever was holding her soul in the afterlife for rasputin and it gave it back.

maybe i'm falling prey to my habit of filling in gaps. i'm most fond of movies that have space for me in them.

~:)

[ellen-datlow.livejournal.com]

I think you're filling very large gaps :-)

[heathencorp.livejournal.com]

but it's so much fun to make up stories!

~;)

[akavertigo.livejournal.com]

The prequel is hardly worth the cheese dip consumed during the unending hour-and-something-something of forts and fangs and lost little girls.

The sequel, however, is surprisingly watchable. It doesn't have the trapping and, um, "coming of age" whatnot of the original but it's fun. Plus, heck, I find the little sis oddly personable.

[ecmyers.livejournal.com]

I liked the first one a lot, but the sequel wasn't so good. Never did see the prequel...

[ellen-datlow.livejournal.com]

We were going to watch the sequel but couldn't find it.

[kylecassidy.livejournal.com]

Ah, Ginger Snaps is ... transcendent ... it is the first of it's generation. The second and third I don't think are as good, but they're still better than most werewolf films (discounting Brotherhood of the Wolf).

[ellen-datlow.livejournal.com]

Afraid I really hated Brotherhood of the Wolf and I really wanted to like it.

[kylecassidy.livejournal.com]

If you liked Ginger Snaps and you live in New York you may really like The Curse (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0167099/) which is clever, witty, and un-special effects driven. It's sad to think that if one likes sports, or love stories, or comedy's the trees are ripe for the picking, but when one is talking of werewolf movies, all of the good ones will fit in a manilla envelope....

[ellen-datlow.livejournal.com]

Hmm. Not familiar with that one.
I liked The Wolfen. Saw it years ago, when it came out. There are some very good werewolf novels that were never made into movies: Dennis Danvers' Wilderness and Michael Cadnum's St. Peter's Wolf.

[kylecassidy.livejournal.com]

Dog Soldiers is better than most, moviewise. But, sadly, like Sasquatch, I think there have been so few really good werewolf films, which is sad, because people keep making them. "The Beast of Bray Road" should have been good -- it had a cool title after all ... but alas ... it was not.

Bookwise, being from Pennsylvania I felt obligated to buy Kornwolf (http://www.amazon.com/Kornwolf-Novel-Tristan-Egolf/dp/0802170161) about the Amish werewolf, but I must admit, I have not cracked the cover. It mocks me from the shelf.