★★★
“Another packet of Ginger Snaps”
Lisa (Vaganos) is a young woman who runs a second-hand bookstore, but has fallen into the bad books – hohoho! – of local bad girl Jessica Huckins (Anello) for some reason, who makes poor Lisa’s life a misery. There’s little Lisa can do, because Jessica’s mother (Halliburton) is the local sheriff and is fiercely protective of her daughter. The feud between Lisa and Jessica escalates, until it topples over into extremely violent unpleasantness. Sheriff Huckins orders Lisa’s near-dead body to be dumped in the nearby forest, as food for the local wolves. However, after only slight nibbling, she is rescued by a mysterious woman, and nursed back to health. Returning to town, she opts to lie low with best friend Sam (Seward), only for Lisa to notice she’s not the same person she used to be. For example, this former vegetarian now has a fondness for raw meat, and is considerably less passive, deciding to take the fight to Jessica, her pals and, eventually, to Sheriff Huckins.
I’ve seen werewoman movies before. Indeed, I’ve reviewed a few here before – most obviously Werewolf Woman, but also When Animals Dream, Blood Redd and The Big Bad. I’ve also seen plenty of revenge films, to the extent there is a dedicated tag for those on the site. But this is probably the first movie which is both. Such innovation is almost enough on its own to get through the running time, even if it’s inevitably going to be compared to the wonderful Ginger Snaps, and be found wanting. Bonus points here for skewing so thoroughly female, with the five lead characters all women, and it’s also clear there’s a lot more going on, of which Lisa is unaware. The opening scene proves this before we see the heroine, with the sheriff gunning down another werewolf and proclaiming “I guess we gotta find another.” Given this, it is a bit difficult to grasp why Jessica’s cronies are so surprised by subsequent events.
The script is rather undeveloped in some of the other directions it seeks to explore. For instance, it opens with two quotes, one pro-revenge, the other anti. Yet there’s never much sense that Lisa’s vengeance is other than justified, and it appears to have a relatively minor impact on her psyche. Well, compared to turning into a werewolf, anyway. It also took me a while to get into the head of the main character; Lisa as savage predator is considerably more interesting and engaging than Lisa as vegetarian bookshop owner. Obviously for budgetary reasons, the actual transformation is very restrained – not much more than claws and contact lenses. I guess it’s good enough to get the concept over, if you don’t look too closely. The restraint elsewhere is a bit disappointing, and harder to explain: I never got the sense Lisa was overtaken by, or surrendered to, her newly-found feral nature. However, it still makes for an interesting watch, even if the central character is more werepekinese than -wolf.
Dir: Patrick Rea
Star: Kristen Vaganos, Jennifer Seward, Manon Halliburton, Carmen Anello