The Werewolf Horror Movie That Created A Franchise, Stream Without Netflix

Aside from the fact that it has one of horror’s best titles, what do you need to know about Ginger Snaps? We follow the adventures of the titular Ginger, a high schooler who has much more than final exams to worry about after she is bitten by a frightening creature.

You guessed it: she’s now transforming into a werewolf, and if her friends can’t reverse this curse, she may fully lose her humanity in more ways than one.

The cast of Ginger Snaps is modest, but it’s filled with some very familiar faces for horror fans. For example, Ginger is played by Katharine Isabelle, a scream queen who is the face of this franchise and has starred in scary staples like Freddy vs. Jason and American Mary.

Her sister is played by Emily Perkins, best known to genre nerds for her appearances in Supernatural and the 1990 It film. Rounding out the cast is Mimi Rogers, whose own spooky experience includes memorable appearances in Tales From the Crypt and The X-Files.

When Ginger Snaps first came out in 2000, it was a box office bomb, earning only $572,781 against a much higher budget of $4.5 million. However, this is a movie that has steadily built a cult following since then, most of whom appreciate how much this film follows in the footsteps of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

While this film is much darker than Buffy, it similarly serves as a great satire that uses the fantastically monstrous as a lens to re-examine the mundane bleakness of teenage angst.

That approach has won over many critics, including the film critics of the GenreVision podcast. These boys praised how Ginger Snaps didn’t treat the subject of teen angst with kid gloves, allowing it to be the rare horror film that appeals to young and old alike.

As with Buffy, younger audiences will appreciate a movie that seems to understand their struggles on a molecular level while older audiences will appreciate the sharp edges of a film that is often hilariously blunt in its messaging.

For the most part, critics agree that Ginger Snaps is one of horror’s best films. On Rotten Tomatoes, the movie currently has a critical rating of 90 percent, with critics praising the strong cast and the wicked satire. This is a movie that manages to be more than the sum of its parts and is ultimately “more memorable than your average werewolf movie–or teen flick.”

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I have to agree, and I’m as happy as a werewolf moonbathing to recommend Ginger Snaps. This is a film I watched shortly after it first came out, and as a teenage Buffy nerd, I really enjoyed both the dark humor and the bloody kills of this off-kilter high school world.

Watching it again when Joe Bob Briggs hosted the film on Shudder, I was impressed all over again at its overall polish: this is a film with an unapologetic feminist message that manages to win even the most strident culture warriors over with its tight script and killer cast charisma.

Will you think Ginger Snaps hung the moon, or is this a film you’re going to tear apart in pure, bestial rage? You won’t know until you stream it on Tubi. Maybe put some coffee on—after this first film wins you over, you won’t want to turn the TV off until you watch the sequel and prequel, each film more grittily gonzo than the one before.