**Some SPOILERS contained in this text** After reading some of the commentary made on this film I think that many people missed the point completely. This is an extraordinary and unusual horror film. In my opinion, this film has a great deal in it's favor: horror, humor, insight, and intelligence. How many films these days even have a message in addition to being entertainment? Horror in particular is notorious for being a genre that is stereotyped as pure entertainment. Horror is very often born out of the particular space of a film. Some horror is born from the mysteries and dangers of nature, others seem to be born from the high-tech alienation of the city, some is born from the junctions of the two where technology and industry mutate nature. This film is the perfect horror child of the Suburbs. It is a film about normalcy, social conventions, expectations, deviance, generation gaps, and growing up to be a woman in the midst of all the confusions wrought by these other things.
Even if it isn't completely "original" in all of it's substance and form, what movie is completely original? It's been done before for a film to change a supernatural horror to a natural one. Science is the silver bullet of our age. However, this film changes a supernatural horror into a natural one BUT it also has the added twist that "science" relies on cures that come from traditional lore, thus giving back some credit to the wisdom of ancient healers that has been stolen from them by modern medicine. In one brilliant piece of dialogue in the film, Bridgette and Sam discuss the possibility that myths may hold some valid truths. Bridgette snidely remarks of the wisdom of ancient healers, "Yeah, they also thought that leeches cured people." "They do." Sam succinctly states to win the argument. Often there are moments like this in this film which seem to be unoriginal but are original in sly ways. And, who's to say that the moments of unoriginality in the film are not there for the express purpose of connecting to and commenting on other works from similar genres or that have made similar statements? For instance, the two main characters' obsession with death is not unlike that of Harold from "Harold and Maude" which, when the parent generation in this film were teenagers, was a film that expressed many formative ideas for that generation. I think that this film, though it doesn't have the optimism of Harold and Maude, does fairly accurately comment on society. Besides, this IS a highly original film. I don't believe that another film exists which connects the cycles of the moon to both werewolfism and through menstruation to the experience of becoming a woman. That is a HIGHLY original idea. Not to mention that the "She's All That" like transformation of Ginger is not all really that usual. Her transformation from the outsider to the popular girl also includes an interesting reversal of traditional gender roles which provides interesting commentary on sexuality and gender relations during the transitional time period of puberty. Instead of entering the traditional role of the submissive and weepily emotionally female, Ginger becomes a truly powerful, sexually aggressive, and, yes, bitchy (aka angry and forceful threat to masculine domination among other things) person. I wouldn't just normally state the factor of bitch being a label given to women who seem to threaten male dominance, because I'm not some uber-feminist who sees men as the enemy, but the film actually comments on it directly. Females who are strong and sexually aggressive are a threat to some men and some women in our society, particularly during that age when people are just testing out sexual gender roles and this film is aware of it. In one great moment, Ginger's lover tells her to slow things down and be less sexually aggressive, asking, "Who's the man here?" and she just takes what she wants as men in film and real life have done for years. Another ironic twist to this, the consequence to this action is that the boy experiences something like the female curse of menstruation. I say: "Hooray for bitchy women who admit to having sexual hunger and go for what they want!" It's just too bad that typically this kind of strong woman can only appear or have real power within the deviance-accepting confines of the horror genre.
The central emotional action of the movie skillfully touches on perhaps one of the least filmicly explored consequences of growing up which is growing apart from someone or something that you have been so close to that it is nearly an extension of yourself. Even if you do not have a person, place, or activity that fits this role, metaphorically as you grow up you are always leaving behind a piece of yourself that you can no longer completely connect with and thus you can relate to this occurance. The real horror and sadness of this film comes from the changes in Bridgette and Ginger's relationship. They go from being so close that they share everything with each other, to exclusion, and are prepared to die together and, over the month long space of the film's duration, they experience for the first time unsurmountable distances between them and find that it is impossible for them to share everything with each other. Most notably unshared is the experience of death that they once promised to share with one another. I'm not here to say that you are wrong if you didn't like this film. There are many ways to appreciate a film and in making a film, you can't please everyone. But I think that in many instances it seems like people who saw it didn't pay very close attention to this film. Some of these people liked it, some didn't. Maybe it's easier to like this film if you can identify with the characters or in some way connect to them. But even if you can't, even if you are experiencing a generation gap like Ginger and Bridgette's mother, or you have never experienced what it's like to be an outsider, or you don't know what it's like to grow up as a female in this time and culture, this is still a smart film that makes insightful commentary on society and does so in an interesting and unexpected way.
