Review of Ginger Snaps Back: The Beginning (2004) by Dylan C — 25 Nov 2009

I gotta give these filmmakers credit. They realize they're working with an infinitesimal budget, and they do what all good low-budget horror movies do: they figure out a way to use as few sets as possible, in an isolated setting, to tell the story of a group of people who are trapped and terrorized and have little hope for escape. Brilliant stuff.

"Ginger Snaps Back" isn't a great movie, but it's efficient, and it manages to create a suffocating atmosphere, even though the characters are all living in the wide-open wilderness. And there is a freshness of concept in this film: a 19th-century outpost in the freezing cold of Hudson Bay is attacked by werewolves.

When it comes to monster movies, freshness of concept means a great deal. "Ginger Snaps Back" doesn't redefine the werewolf genre, but it does offer something new, and that's important.