Ginger Snaps 2: Unleashed

Two horror movies in one weekend, thanks the kind and generous E who suffered through them both. =)



--Reviewed by Lindy Loo

Plotline: Ginger is now dead at the hands of Brigitte, but Brigitte is still living and staving off werewolfdom by giving herself daily injections of wolfsbane. However, as she is able to fend off werewolfdom less and less, another werewolf that is trying to mate with her gets closer and closer. Ginger collapses in the snow one day while trying to escape him and wakes up in a drug rehab center. The movie focuses on her attempts to escape both the center and the pursuing wolf, all with the help of a comic book-obsessed little girl named Ghost.

Scariness factor: It wasn't really scary so much as creepy. But it did definitely succeed in the creepiness arena.

Originality: Again, it's a sequel--how original can it be really?

Complaints: The ending was fairly lame and abrupt and so clearly intended to leave an opening for the third Ginger Snaps.

High Points: The whole first half of the movie was actually really good for a sequel. The filming was gritty, the intro montage was creepy, the character of Brigitte was good just like in the original. The film showed a bit too much cutting and drug-usage (which makes me a bit squeamish), but it left the werewolf scenes a bit more to the imagination like in the original. The introduction of the character of Ghost (a young girl who is obsessed with comic books and in the rehab center with her aunt who was severely burned) was an interesting addition to the series. But the unravelling of her character got more silly than creepy towards the end.

Overall: The movie was no Ginger Snaps (the original). The original played with themes of womanhood, puberty, teenage angst, and fairy tales in a way that was actually quite smart and witty. The more I watched this second one, the more I was reminded of how good the first one was (so much so that it took a solid place on my list of Top 5 Horror Movies). The second one continued on with the creepiness of the first, but it lost its themes and more interesting and intelligent moments to the whole nature of the sequel. But as sequels go, this was by far a better horror movie sequel than most.

Grade: B