Ginger Snaps 2: Unleashed (2004) | 31 Days of Horror: Oct 7

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I’m moving through some changes, I’ll never be the same.

Ginger Snaps 2: Unleashed is an interesting take on the werewolf genre that involves much more than werewolves in terms of terror. It’s not quite as cutting-edge as the original film but still features some fun moments and disturbing scares.

Before Viewing

After a few scenes from the original film, and the narrator chastising audiences for believing that the nightmare was over, all hell breaks loose. A series of rapid cuts show Brigitte, the sister from the original film, new characters, werewolf transformations, blood, and action. It’s difficult to gauge what is happening, but it looks as if Brigitte may be infected in this film, transforming into a monster just as her sister did. It’s time to unleash the beast with Ginger Snaps 2.

Presented below is the trailer for the film.

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After Viewing

The film opens with scenes of Brigitte (Emily Perkins) cutting her arms and injecting herself with something in a syringe. She journals how quickly her cuts heal, worried that she is changing. The ghost of her dead sister, Ginger (Katharine Isabelle), appears to counsel her about her impending transformation. After leaving the library, unable to check out books due to her outstanding balance, she returns to a dirty motel certain that she is being followed. It’s the librarian, Jeremy (Brendan Fletcher), who brings her the books she wanted, but is soon savagely attacked by a werewolf. Brigitte tries to run but passes out due to an overdose of the monkshood extract she took.

Brigitte awakens in a rehabilitation center that cares for both patients with severe injuries, as well as treats young women with drug dependencies. Alice (Janet Kidder), the director, gives Brigitte a tour while asking questions about what she’s been taking. Blood tests come back that show it’s an extract of wolfsbane, a poison. Tyler (Eric Johnson), an orderly, shows up in Brigitte’s room offering her a vial of her “medicine” in exchange for sexual favors. She declines.

A young teenager, Ghost (Tatiana Maslany), who is in the facility tending to her burned grandmother Barbara (Susan Adam), overhears a number of things about Brigitte and suspects she might be a werewolf. During a group relaxation session, Brigitte fantasizes that the whole class is masturbating, as the instructor’s words turn erotic and violent. She finds her palm becoming hairy and the tips of her ears growing pointy. She attempts to take her life but can’t.

Brigitte fears that a male werewolf is stalking her to mate, and may now be in the facility. Ghost tells Brigitte she can help her escape through the vents. In the old crematorium, they discover Beth-Ann (Pascale Hutton), a patient, having sex with Tyler. After Tyler leaves Beth-Ann is attacked and killed by the wolf. Brigitte and Ghost manage to escape in a stolen car. They drive to Ghost’s grandmother’s house which is still in disarray from the fire that burned Barbara. She was smoking in bed, claims Ghost.

The two girls prepare for the coming of the werewolf. Ghost sets an explosive trap outside, which manages to bring down a deer that Brigitte eats part of–becoming more feral each hour. Brigitte calls Tyler at the hospital desperate for more monkshood. He meets them at a local gas station where Brigitte finds a partially devoured mechanic. At the house, Tyler injects Brigitte but her body rejects the shot, turning more and more wolflike. Shortly, Brigitte finds Ghost bruised in her attic workspace, where she implies that Tyler did this to her. Brigitte locks Tyler outside where he is dragged off by the werewolf.

Brigitte and Ghost prepare a trap of sharp spikes on an old box spring in the basement. Alice arrives, having been informed by Tyler of the girls’ whereabouts. She takes a shotgun from Ghost and locks the two of them in the attic when the wolf comes, intent on protecting the girl. Brigitte sees a “no smoking” sign on the wall and realizes that Ghost was responsible for burning her grandmother. The male werewolf busts in and Brigitte bludgeons it, throwing it onto the spikes. Alice can’t believe what she’s seeing and turns toward Ghost–who bashes her in the face with a hammer causing her to fall on the spikes as well. Ghost locks Brigitte in the basement. Sometime later, the house is cleaned and a sign welcomes Barbara home from the hospital, while an angry werewolf tries to get out of the locked basement.

“Full moons have nothing to do with it. It’s like an infection. It works from the inside out.” – Ginger

As with the original Ginger Snaps, Ginger Snaps 2: Unleashed is an interesting and unexpected type of horror film. Celebrating its 20th birthday, it is tonight’s entry in a week of anniversary films, which started with the 100th Anniversary of The Hands of Orlac and continued with the 50th Anniversary of Phantom of the Paradise, the 40th Anniversary of C.H.U.D., and the 30th Anniversary of Brainscan. First, a quick recap of the 2000 film. Sixteen-year-old twin sisters Ginger and Brigitte have yet to get their period. When Ginger’s finally comes, she is attacked by a werewolf and begins a slow transformation into a creature. Brigitte and her friend Sam devise a way to stop her, but Sam is killed forcing Brigitte to destroy her sister on her own. Part two appears to pick up shortly after the previous film, with Brigitte becoming something of a scientist as she attempts to prevent the beast within from getting out.

While the first film had allusions to An American Werewolf in London, Unleashed goes even further with the comparisons. In that film backpackers, David and Jack, fail to heed the warnings of some locals and trek into the moors, where they are attacked by a werewolf. Jack is killed and David is mauled, becoming a wolf during the full moon. In Ginger Snaps 2, Ginger’s spirit shows up throughout the film to comment and cajole Brigitte on her actions, much like Jack appeared to David in that film. And while Brigitte struggles to slow her transformation (or reverse it) she also contemplates suicide, something that David did as well. The horror and tension of Unleashed comes from several angles. Primarily there are the fears emphasized by Brigitte of her turning into a monster. Now that she’s trapped in the hospital, everyone else is at risk if she does happen to change. There is also a secondary creature roaming around outside the facility. It wants to get to Brigitte, and too bad for anyone that gets in the way. They just need to kill the beast with whatever means necessary. At least the mythos here is that werewolves don’t have to be killed with any fancy tools, or silver. Finally, there’s Ghost, who seems a bit off throughout the film, creating the idea that there’s something more sinister going on with that character.

From her introduction as a character named Ghost, something seems off. That’s an awfully strange name for a teenage girl. While she sits and reads with her tragically burned grandmother, the woman’s eyes often dart around. Several times she also tries to reach out for the nurse’s call button. Could it be she’s really annoyed with her granddaughter, or is something else amiss? The first real clue for me was Ghost’s creation of “Poly Esther,” the strange humanoid form full of explosives in front of the house. It was laced with many bottles of gas or some other accelerant. My mind shot back to the story she told of her grandmother smoking in bed and setting herself on fire. Ghost also seemed completely comfortable with siphoning gasoline out of the car for the house generator. Her character is definitely created as odd with her constant use of quotes in the third person, almost as if she’s a narrator of her own life. A couple of quick throwaway lines later include Tyler mentioning that Ghost took care of her grandmother for 43 days after the accident. Wow, that’s a long time to not call for help. Ghost also lets it slip that her grandmother burned for 27 minutes when asked how long the gasoline burns. Right there, that’s a red flag that something was seriously wrong with this young woman.

Her name, Ghost, was apparently a mean nickname placed on her by her grandmother. As in she should be neither seen nor heard. Barbara had been trying to use “behavioral modification” on the girl since the age of 7 in order to get her to change her ways. Those ways were that she made lots of sudden noises. The poor girl was either outright tormented by Barbara–who might have been a mean and evil sort of grandmother or became crazy after a decade of Barbara’s attempts at changing her psychologically. The fact that Ghost thinks that she can control the werewolf she has locked in her basement would make for an interesting sequel. It almost becomes a reverse version of the tale of “Little Red Riding Hood,” where Red traps the wolf to use on the grandmother coming home, rather than the wolf eating the grandmother and pretending to be her to catch Red. Unfortunately, the third installment of the Ginger Snaps series is a prequel that apparently looks upon the origins of the sister’ family in the New World.

Ginger Snaps 2 was Tatiana Maslany’s first film, and what a powerful role this young actress played. She overshadows Emily Perkins as the main character in the film. She provides the right amount of innocence and psychopathic motivation that changes her character from a potential victim to an outright villain in a smooth way. It’s not completely clear if her character is a visitor or a patient at the care facility. Perhaps she was under observation, as it seems like Alice might have thought something was up with her. This film continues the interesting take on the werewolf myth and the fears of transformation. It adds a little more to the tale by setting it in a care facility where women are attempting to kick their drug habits. Brigitte doesn’t necessarily have an addiction, but her cutting herself and IV shooting leads professionals to be concerned for her safety. Ginger Snaps 2 may not be as engaging as the first film, but there are still a lot of interesting moments that shift the audience’s expectations. Stay tuned tomorrow night for the conclusion of the 31 Days of Horror anniversary week with a film from 2014 celebrating its 10th Anniversary.

Assorted Musings

• Tatiana Maslany might be better known for her multiple roles in the sci-fi-inspired series Orphan Black, but has also appeared in another TV show about a character that changes into a giant monster: She-Hulk: Attorney At Law.
• Brigitte finding hair on her palm after her delusion that she and the other girls are masturbating is probably an allusion to the myth that touching oneself leads to hairy palms.