Ginger Snaps 2: Unleashed (2004)

The late Ginger's sister Brigitte, now a werewolf herself, must try to find a cure for her blood lust before the next full moon while hiding out in a rehab clinic from a relentless werewolf. The screenplay is intelligent and clever. I enjoyed this film, mostly because of the convincing characters. I am aware of the criticism around this movie, claiming it is bad and not worth it. To all those who have said these things, I have to ask: What film were you watching? With charm and humor to spare, this film was among the top echelon of movies from 2004. At the end of the day, it's an entertaining film. Wonderful movie, and I should know.

This follow up to the cult werewolf original is about on par with the first film. With her werewolf sister dead and herself infected by the curse, teen Brigitte is checked into a mental asylum where her fellow inmates turn out to be just as odd as she herself is. With group masturbation sessions on the schedule and another werewolf roaming the grounds, she soon realises that her stay at the asylum is going to be anything but uneventful.The film's tone is weird throughout. The scriptwriters take a delight in presenting kooky characters, and there's a certain Lynchian atmosphere to the proceedings. Emily Perkins is once again an unusual, slightly ethereal lead, but Katharine Isabelle's scenes as a ghost don't really work. The film's more interesting when it focuses on the supporting cast, from the young blonde girl Ghost caring for her badly burned relative to the sleazy staff members.GINGER SNAPS: UNLEASHED incorporates a number of different genres into its story. It's full of teen angst to begin with, and then becomes an asylum flick with all the oddness you'd expect. The addiction thread remains strong and then, finally, it reveals itself as a monster movie at the climax, although that's where it's weakest; it works better earlier on, dealing with stuff that isn't by now way too familiar from dozens of other similar films.

This movie was not as bad as I thought it was going to be. I didn't know there was a first one so I just watched this one and completely loved it. I will totally watch the first one now. The movie was non stop action and insane moments. I was literally on the edge of my seat the whole time. There were definitely a lot of cringe moments like when she slit her arm at the beginning, when she was injecting herself and when she got her leg stuck in the door and the when BethAnn gets killed at the end. I was extremely impressed at the storyline and the acting. One of the greatest movies I have seen on this chanel by far. Definitely will recommend this movie to friends and family, loves it!!!!

I am a die hard fan of the original Ginger Snaps, and this sequel is like having to use Windows 3.1 my whole life. I tried to allow for the curse of high expectations. What I did not expect was that this movie would raise them by starting with an excellent, original story concept, good music, an edgy atmosphere and a solid gold performance by Emily Perkins. Those are the only things I can recommend about this film, however, and half of those are thrown out midway through the story.The film's downfall is the screenplay, which was written by Megan Martin, who apparently had no previous screen writing experience. True, Karen Walton, who wrote the original (with director John Fawcett) also had no experience, but she also worked on that script for four years. It is harder to write for somebody else's character creations. For a sequel to a successful movie with a fan base, only chintziness could explain hiring a first-time writer for the sequel.So, with practically no help from the dialog, Perkins carries the entire first half of the film as the lonely, doomed Brigitte, bereft of Ginger, and bitterly fighting her own animalistic changes. The difference in Brigitte's character after the traumas she suffered in the first movie are both believably sad and shocking, showing that Perkins is an actress of the highest caliber. When Brigitte is found unconscious on a street with needle and cut marks on her arms, authorities assume she is a junkie and put her into a teen rehab center. It turned out that monkshood did not cure the curse, it simply delays it. So, she is trapped and can't prevent her transformation in a place where she endangers many people, and, of course, the staff doesn't believe her.From this mind-blowing story-concept we go to tedium, as the movie puts 75 minutes of material into 90 minutes. Midway through, it comes to life briefly, and then changes directions giving up everything it had going for it. Martin had written Brigitte into a corner, and so changed subject. I must admit here that I did not like the approach of dooming Brigitte from the beginning, and the twist at the end made me want to shoot the DVD as a traitor.Martin has made Brigitte far too restrained, including with people who would turn a Quaker homicidal. She only partially loses her temper once, and as a character noted, it was measured. Brundel's law as it applies to werewolves is, there are no such thing as pacifist werewolves, or rather, any werewolf movie depicting them is a bomb. While Perkins does her best, in the many pauses in the dialog, depicting Brigitte as holding back her fury, it simply does not work in a werewolf movie, or in a horror movie. If the audience is asked to believe that a werewolf could be that restrained, they begin to doubt it is even a problem. Katharine Isabelle continues her role as Ginger, who is dead of course, and who only Brigitte can see. Isabelle only has about fifteen lines, though. These are the sorts of lines that can only be delivered in the sleepiest way possible, and it can't be called dialog because usually Brigitte doesn't answer. Isabelle's part is almost all commentary and adds nothing to the plot. Her role seems half contractual obligation, half trailer-bait material. Mostly she just taunts Brigitte's about her futile efforts to fight the curse. Of all people, Brigitte and Ginger should still have a lot to say to each other. This is a huge waste of an actress who showed her mettle in the original.No, instead, the movie is wrecked by Martin's new character. Tatiana Maslani as "Ghost" does a good job as a mentally ill young girl, obsessed with comics. It's a good character concept, really, and Maslani does do an excellent job. Even so, putting Ghost in and making her a major character respectively required an unbelievable explanation and an idiot plot. I felt like she belonged in her own movie and was just an intruder here. Worse, she crowded out a larger part for Katharine Isabelle, and the movie is called "Ginger Snaps: Unleashed," right?About the idiot plot: almost every character is shown to be an idiot at the end, with the possible exception of Ginger, who likely isn't real. Idiot Ghost is lucky everyone else is an idiot. Even Brigitte becomes an idiot at the end, I lost respect for her when she was previously heroic. I can't believe she trusted Ghost, a character who gets introduced by taunting her!Finally, I have to point out the werewolf makeup is BAD in this film. I never knew werewolves had sow's ears and third-degree burns on their lips. At one point, they make Perkins look like Keith Richards, and by the end, she looks like an orc with an immobile mask so embarrassing that would have looked cheesy in the '60s. Except for the mask at the end, this is probably not the make-up artist's fault. The makeup actually looks better on the DVD extras and in the publicity photos than it does in the movie. This suggests the problem was with the Lighting, the Director of Photography, or the Director. Nevertheless, the movie does get the special effects right for the fully animalized werewolf. Other fans of the original seem to like this movie, but I can't help but see it as a major disappointment, though not a disaster. There was a much better story to be told here. Unlike the original, this did not have Karen Walton and four years of work on the screenplay. It falls short of its own promise, and not that of the original.(Upgraded two stars from my original review. Perkin's performance was that good, & liked seeing her and Isabelle together.)