Ginger Snaps 2: Unleashed (2004)

Purely Joyful Movie!

Excellent, a Must See

An Exercise In Nonsense

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

Perkins and Isabelle continue to astonish us with their respective talent as they recreate their roles from the first Gingersnaps film. Simply put, their artistry is breathtaking. That two young women can carry an entire film and even a continuing saga is inspiring. That they do it with such overwhelming gravitas and presence is tremendous. They are perfect in their parts and capture teenage angst and awakening sexuality with skill and sensitivity. For these stunning performances alone, Gingersnaps II deserves the attention of appreciative audiences. It is no wonder that these modest films have gained such recognition, praise, and acclaim worldwide.

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.

While on the run from a werewolf that has designs on her, Ginger's sister, Bridgette, must shoot up monkshood regularly to prevent herself from becoming a werewolf herself. One evening, sensing her pursuer was gaining on her, she hurriedly packs her things to escape. At the same time, some guy that works at the library that she visited earlier in the day, shows up with some books she wanted; he sees her distressed condition, a hypodermic needle on the floor, and thinks she's a druggy. So he decides to get her help. She winds up later in some kind of rehab/halfway house kind of place deprived of her precious Anti-werewolf injections. She soon learns that the main characters in this place is a dull little chatterbox who could be 12 to 18, who knows. And some staff guy who's leveraging the female inmates for sexual favors.This Ginger Snap is not as snappy (ha,ha) as the previous. It started out promising (like most movies) until the main character got to the rehab place or whatever it was. Not a damn thing interesting happened there ---except, I guess, for the "masturbation class" conducted by the resident therapist to free the girls of their troubles, or something, whatever. It was not explicit but it was very suggestive and I concede I did perk up a bit there (I'm not made of stone, folks). Most of the action is at the very end of the movie and by that time you might be too numb to care. The werewolf in the movie looked like a big stuffed animal, which I'm sure it was, and so not scary at all.Finally, the actress playing Bridgette did a good job I thought. Her intensity and near anorexic appearance (she couldn't be more than a hundred pounds, if that) played well to the role of someone with a huge unusual problem she must bear all by herself. It has made her tough, feisty, eccentric, and maybe even somewhat resentful. She is someone who has no time to eat that much, have friends, or have any fun so consumed she is by the fear of the werewolf in pursuit of her and the werewolf she might herself become. This is only my impression folks and bear in mind that: I KNOW NOTHING, ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. NOTHING at all, I tells ya! Absolutely NOTHING. Love, Boloxxxi.

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.)