It was a productive holiday weekend, with the rough draft of The New Horror Handbook’s chapter on Ginger Snaps being completed (with the exception of a capsule review for Ginger Snaps: Unleashed, which will be written after I rewatch that sequel later this week).
Part of the fun involved in writing that chapter was having the excuse to revisit the original film — I keep forgetting how entertaining it is. Afterward, I was happy to find the above video clip of Emily Perkins and Katharine Isabelle auditioning for their roles in that movie. Enjoy.
Just starting the next New Horror Handbook chapter, this one about the Canadian film franchise Ginger Snaps. Some great quotes in this chapter.
“But what are your first, embarrassingly unedited words for this new chapter,” I hear you ask. Well, so far they are the following:
If horror films have had one glaringly obvious weakness over the years, it’s been a chronic inability to tickle the emotions. So often the characters are nothing more than over-used archetypes that, like today’s hitchhikers, fall disturbingly into two camps: victim or psychotic. The best one can hope for is a particularly inventive death.
Certainly the last place we would ever hope to find three-dimensional characters and complex relationships is in a movie about werewolves…
Enough goofing off for your’s truly. Back to work…
Working on The New Horror Handbook chapter about the Ginger Snaps movies and really love this quote from my talk with the writer of the first film, Karen Walton.
I couldn’t picture myself [writing a horror film] because I had what all uninformed horror attitudes had at the time, which was ‘Don’t they just run around and stab people till there’s no people left?’
Had the pleasure to speak with Uber-talented writer Karen Walton on May 2 — the scribe behind Ginger Snaps — about suburban hell, virgin suicides and the creation of that groundbreaking werewolf film. You’re definitely going to want to check out the Ginger Snaps section of The New Horror Handbook when it comes out October 31st.
In the meantime, thought you’d like to know she also participated in a Canadian documentary called Women of Darkness, directed by Donna Davies, who recently completed a documentary on zombies in culture called Zombiemania. We’ll keep you posted on this. In the meantime, check out Davies’ site at http://www.sorceryfilms.com
For decades, the horror film has been at once vilified for its often-violent content and exploited by large film studios as a near-certain moneymaker. In recent years, however, a small number of international auteurs have emerged to infuse the genre with a new kind of meaning and intelligence, even as they reinvigorate flagging box office returns.
But these individuals are only the most visible figures in a much larger “New Horror” movement. All over the world, writers, filmmakers and other artists are using the unique “everyone’s welcome” attitude of the genre to create new and startling works of the imagination, all on their own terms. In the process, they also are exploring what it is to be human in the 21st century.
The New Horror Handbook goes behind the scenes to speak with modern horror luminaries including:
Eli Roth (director, Hostel, Cabin Fever)
Greg McLean (director, Wolf Creek, Rogue)
Alex Bustillo, Julien Maury (writer, director, Inside)
John Fawcett (director, Ginger Snaps, The Dark)
Karen Walton (writer, Ginger Snaps)
Emily Perkins (co-star, Ginger Snaps)
Vincenzo Natali(director, Cube, Splice)
Steve Niles (creator, 30 Days of Night)
and many others.
Along the way, The New Horror Handbook explores the twists and turns that have led these individuals down the darker avenues of entertainment, and what keeps their fans coming back for more.
A former writer and editor for USA Today, A.S. Berman writes for a number of national magazines and is the author of 30 Years of British Television.
