Teen Horror Cast

This week we tackle a classic theme in the horror genre: WEREWOLVES. However rather than start with what might be thought of as the typical classic werewolf movies we decided to watch Gingersnaps, a canadian release from 2000 which explores the werewolf narrative through the eyes of teen girls.

A heads up that this film and our discussion of it touches on subjects like animal death, gore, discussion of sex, drugs, and suicide. Additionally we will be fully spoiling the movie and we feel your experience will be a lot better if you watch this movie in particular before listening to the podcast. The plot is fairly complicated, there are some cool twists, and we don’t want any of those to be dampened by spoilers ahead of time, so if you haven’t seen it and wish to, pause now and come back when you’re ready! We’ll be waiting.

Summary

Ginger Snaps is a 2000 Canadian horror film directed by John Fawcett who would later go on to co-create the popular tv show Orphan Black. The film was written by Karen Walton, scored by Mike Shields, with cinematography by Thom Best and editing by Brett Sullivan.

The film opens in the community of Bailey Downs. In a shot reminiscent of Poltergeist, the camera pans across grotesquely similar houses that have metastasized on the natural landscape in a relatively new housing development. The opening shots linger on the edge of the development where the cookie-cutter houses give way to the wilds of nature.

We witness the early and horrific discovery of a family dog’s remains, victim of an apparent animal attack and, we find out soon, only one in a series of such incidents. As the woman who discovers the dog screams in the background, we see her neighbor and central character, Brigitte Fitzgerald (played by Emily Perkins) walking cautiously out of the garage armed with a variety of dangerous looking tools including a blowtorch.

Hunching her shoulders, glaring angrily at the world, pale faced and gothic, Brigitte enters the house to tell her sister, Ginger Fitzgerald (played by Katharine Isabelle) about the neighbors dog, interrupting what at first appears to be a suicide attempt. It is clear in a moment that Ginger is just showing off or playing at the theme of suicide, adopting a bored-of-life attitude that reeks of teen angst. After some angry banter we realize the girls have adopted identities as gothy town outcasts and have promised each other to escape their dreary town by 16 or else die in a suicide pact.

We transition to a typical high school. After a classroom scene where the girls cause a stir with their suicide themed class project, we cut to gym class outside with boys ogling girls playing field hockey. Ginger and Brigitte fight with Trina Sinclair, a popular girl and apparent bully. Coming out on the short end of that exchange, Ginger cajoles Brigitte into kidnapping Trina’s dog. That night, in the middle of executing that plan Ginger finds she is bleeding and realizes with horror that she is the first of the sisters to get her period.

Drawn by the scent of blood, a beast in the night viciously attacks and bites Ginger, dragging her into the forest. In a panic Brigitte runs after her and tries to scare off the beast with the flash from her instant camera. The beast is startled and runs off, immediately killed after being hit by a van driven by Sam Miller (played by Kris Lemche), a local pot dealer and, we find out later, botany nerd.

Ginger recovers from her attack, horrible wounds healing rapidly, and a series of physical and behavioral transformations begin. Her latent anger and aggression boil over, bristly hair grows in her scars from the attack, a tail buds at the base of her spine, and her period intensifies. Previously hidden under layers of clothes she strides into school in a tight outfit and with new self assurance.

To celebrate Teen Horror Cast's first Halloween, we watched... Halloween! A 1978 genre classic that set the tone for slasher films for decades to come and established a raft of horror tropes, John Carpenter's 1978 film Halloween launched Jamie Lee Curtis' career as the "Scream Queen."

We talk about our favorite parts of the movie, what Michael Myers and Socrates have in common, finding your inner Laurie Strode, and much more!

Content warning: gore, violence, substance use, and death!

Teen Horror Cast Episode 4: The Blair Witch Project

This movie and our discussion of it feature a bit of body horror and gore. As always, if that feels like it might be too much for you, you should head for the escape hatch and skip this episode. Additionally we will be hard core spoiling this movie! This film in particular is one that you should watch before we discuss it.

Released in 1999 and produced for around sixty thousand dollars, The Blair Witch project grossed over two hundred and fifty million dollars and was one of the first so-called found-footage horror films. Directed by Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sánchez, the fictional documentary stars Heather Donahue, Michael C. Williams, and Joshua Leonard each playing characters that share their actual names. It is presented as film and video that was discovered in the woods of Maryland while searching for the missing film makers who, it is stated early on, remain missing.

We talk about:

• what the film reveals regarding human empathy
• unstable friend groups and why three is a tricky group number
• how the mona lisa is like the blair witch
• broken bones, civilization, and packing well for camping
• and much more!

This episode will examine both the 1998 Japanese original and the 2002 American remake. We love them both. The original is a true horror masterwork and the 2002 version is that rarity among remakes: a great iteration on the original with some things it even improves on. We tend to think of these as two versions of the same film and because of the unique adherence of the remake to the shots, mood, and story of the original, we will be discussing both simultaneously. Where there are differences, we’ll discuss them.

Content in this show includes descriptions of body horror and gore!

In this episode we review John Carpenter's 1982 sci-fi horror classic "The Thing," including:

• Overall impressions
• Is it right for teens
• Was it "turn the lights on scary?"
• Favorite scenes
• How do we feel about it being all men?
• Which of the characters would you choose to be stuck with in Antarctica?
• What do we think happens at the end?
• What would we change?

As a bonus, we've watched the original 1951 "The Thing from Another World" and the 2011 movie "The Thing," which could be called a "premake" of Carpenter's film as it is both a prequel and remake of his movie. We'll comment and contrast these with the '82 film during our discussion but will also answer the following specific questions:

• What did we think about the 1951 version?
• What did we think about the cinematography of 2011 vs 1982?
• What about the special effects of 2011? How does 1982 hold up?
• Where does 2011 go right and where does it go wrong?

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• Twitter: @teenhorrorcast
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In this episode we introduce ourselves and the podcast, as well as discuss one of our favorite horror movies/books, The Shining!

• Find us on Instagram and Twitter at @teenhorrorcast!

Show Notes:

• The Shining: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0081505/
• Making ‘The Shining’ - A film by Vivian Kubrick https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mbNqMsK9xZs
• “Three American Mothers, on The Brink” By Jessica Bennett Photographs by Brenda Ann Kenneally https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/02/04/parenting/covid-pandemic-mothers-primal-scream.html (if you are a parent at home during covid, particularly a dad, this is a must read)
• Correction: The making of doc was by Vivian Kubrick, Stanley Kubrick's daughter.
• Correction: The ice-cream scene was shot 148, not 104 times. Still a ridiculous number both ways.