11 Werewolf Movies That Broke All The Rules
10. Ginger Snaps (2000)
In nearly every representation of werewolves in film and literature, the beast is a man. That's due to the way werewolves are commonly used to represent the primal rage of men, not women. Ginger Snaps kicks this idea to the curb by making the werewolf a young woman instead of a man.
Ginger Snaps is a genre-bending coming-of-age tale told through lycanthropy, which is used as a plot device that explores the intimacies of sisterhood. The pair are slowly torn apart when the older sister is bitten by a werewolf.
Due to their age and the nature of the film, the transformation into a werewolf is a metaphor for female pubescence, making the entire movie a commentary on female maturation. It's a high school werewolf story on the surface, but in reality, it's so much more than that, and the mold was certainly broken in making it.
The movie pays homage to a more Cronenberg-style of body horror with a specific focus on An American Werewolf in London. The mix of drama and dark comedy serves to elevate Ginger Snaps' commentary that mixes lycanthropy with a loss of adolescence into the realm of movies like Heathers and Carrie.