Ginger Snaps II: Unleashed and Ginger Snaps Back: The Beginning



It's a rare horror movie franchise that doesn't degrade in quality as it goes along. I was pleasantly surprised that the two sequels to the Canadian teenage werewolf flick Ginger Snaps (2000) were still pretty good.

Ginger Snaps II: Unleashed (2004) picks up where Ginger Snaps left off, with Ginger (Katherine Isabelle) dead and Brigitte (Emily Perkins) infected with lycanthropy. After a completely random werewolf attacks renders her unconscious on the street, Brigitte wakes to find herself incarcerated in a rehab clinic, a move prompted by the evidence of self-mutilation and drug use apparent on Brigitte's body. In fact Brigitte has been injuring herself to track how fast her werewolf healing powers are developing and injecting wolfsbane to try to hold off the transformation. Cut off from her drugs she's afraid she's going to kill someone. In the second half of the film Brigitte escapes the facility with an unbalanced girl named Ghost (Tatiana Maslany) and the film goes in a very unexpected direction. It's an odd film, and perhaps not very logical, but it does continue Brigitte's story in a compelling fashion. There is surprisingly little closure, though.


"Why couldn't we be in Pirates of the Caribbean 2 instead?"

Ginger Snaps Back: The Beginning (2004) is set in the early 1800's on the Canadian frontier. Ginger and Brigitte are orphaned in the wilderness and find refuge at a remote trading post. The post is under near constant attack by a band of werewolves, and Ginger is bitten. The movie is basically Assault on Precinct 13 (1976) with hairier attackers, but it's nicely produced and it does work well as a prequel to the first movie. it also has what has to be by far the the most clever test for lycanthropy ever committed to film.


"Bad dog! You mustn't maim entire towns! Bad dog!"

I don't know if another movie in the franchise is in the planning stages, but if experience of horror movies has taught me anything it's that the fourth film is always set in space. So look forward to Ginger Snaps 4: Moondog, coming next year.

Posted: Thu - October 21, 2004 at      

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