Ginger Snaps

Plenty of films equate the bloody lusts of vampires with sexual desire, usually without much subtlety or imagination; but John Fawcett's film 'Ginger Snaps' makes a rather more explicit link: one between lycanthropy and puberty. In fact, so lovingly does the film recreate the world of two Gothic sisters (including their hopeless mother, who wants them to be normal and happy in a way that doesn't help anyone) that becoming a werewolf seems like nothing more than a natural extension to the growing pains of a disturbed teenager. It's the believable psychology that makes this film genuinely scary, even though it's almost completely devoid of special effects until the very end; and even in the final showdown, one can still half-believe in the kinship of girl and beast. Overall, it's proof you can make a high class horror film set not in some fantastic landscape, but in the bland anonymity of suburban Canada.