25 Cult Movies You Must See Before You Die
21. Ginger Snaps
The werewolf myth is one that has never had quite as simple an allegorical comparison as the other classic monsters. Vampires, as per the original Dracula, were a symbol for creeping sexual awakenings in Britain's women and the spread of STDs (the worst!), Frankenstein's monster represented the growing sciences and potential dangers therein.
Werewolves never got a proper symbolic meaning until the 2000 Canadian horror film Ginger Snaps, where a teenage girl gets attacked at night and then starts going through weird changes. She starts getting hair in weird places, bleeding a lot from even weirder places, and becomes ravenous with lust for tasty-looking boys.
It's werewolves-as-puberty (and menstruation, in particular), and it works brilliantly. Ginger Snaps is aware of its ridiculousness, revels in it, has some surprisingly decent special effects for its budget – and considering the amount of crap werewolf suits out there – and it comes from the makers of current cult sci-fi show Orphan Black to boot.