Ginger Snaps 2: Unleashed

Notice: No real spoilers here, just expository information.

This is the greatest series of werewolf films. The original Ginger Snaps is a modern classic, and Ginger Snaps 2 is a genuinely superior film, believe it or not. The original Ginger Snaps is thick with stylish, brooding goth flair, and I love it for that. But Ginger Snaps 2 takes a turn for the darker, and it's better for it: with decrepit asylum corridors, the spectres of mental illness, and recurring flashes of gore. The other avenue number 2 takes to improve on the first is in its basic story premise. The original told an iconic werewolf story, but as such it was more basic. Brigitte's struggle in Unleashed is a more unqiue and unpredictable adventure.

As always, the subtext is exquisite. Unsurprisingly unconvinced that the condition which forced her to kill her sister is a positive transformation, Brigitte continues her tooth and nail battle against the onset of puberty. The titular Ginger appears only as an incorporeal hallucination to calmly harbinge doom for her kid sister. The hallucinations are quite possibly brought on by Brigitte's vascular injection of the powerful poison monkshood, the only way to postpone her transformation into the beast. But when a well-wishing suitor confuses the epeleptic seizure, a side-effect of the monkshood, with a narcotic overdose, Brigitte becomes held against her will in a drug addiction clinic. Now she's stuck in an asylum, with no way to stave off lycanthropy, and to make matters worse there is another werewolf stalking her, drawing ever nearer.

I found the relationship between Brigitte and Ginger very nuanced and touching in this film. Ginger appears to mock Brigitte, but it feels less like residual derision than like anxiety (on Brigitte's part) over the unstoppable transformation she is going through. All the while, Brigitte carries pictures of her and her sister with her always, never losing the love and mercy which unfortunately forced her hand in the murder of Ginger. Does Ginger appear as a result of Brigitte's fear towards lycanthropy, or does she appear as a haunting guilt over dealing Ginger's final blow? Perhaps both, and more.

I enjoy the misandristic overtones. The only two significant male characters are monsters who are obsessed with sex. One is a monster for killing and presumably eating humans. The other is an even more deplorable monster, who manipulates mentally disturbed drug addicts in order to sexually abuse them. And, to prove how great of a guy he is, he's found a way to keep them addicted to drugs while he does it! But, hey, the three minor characters who are male seem to be decent blokes. And not all of the women are very humane, it's not like it's black & white. But it's always nice to see a horror film with female heroes who don't conform to the hysterical, can't run, victim archetype.

The first Ginger Snaps was largely about the love and devotion between the two sisters, and the dark side of puberty & sexual awakening. Ginger Snaps 2 carries on these themes but takes the latter in a somewhat different direction. For Ginger, the transformation represented both evil, and an awakening of powerful new abilities and experiences. For Brigitte, it means only becoming a horrible monster. In that sense this a twisted, grim reiteration of the classic "innocence forever" theme from Peter Pan, Toy Story, The Santa Claus, et. al. The ultimate theme of the Ginger Snaps series is that you can't fight the coming of age. No matter how hard you try, you're doomed to grow that hair, feel those pheromones, crave human flesh... But I like that Brigitte tries. I like that she's willing to give up everything and anything to keep from becoming that monster.

The DVD also has some excellent deleted scenes (Ghost telling Brigitte that they're going to harvest her organs is priceless). I always wish scenes like this would be included in an "extended version" instead of just tacked on as an extra. I could do with an extra ten minutes of runtime on such a good film. I could just eat that up.