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.
“Ginger Snaps 2 – Unleashed” picks up after the first one. Brigitte has infected herself with Ginger’s blood and has turned into a werewolf, only Brigitte has found a way to carry on without killing people. In order to keep herself from becoming like her sister, she must inject herself daily with monkshood.
Whilst in it’s predecessor the main focus was on Ginger, this time the film focuses on Brigitte and it’s interesting to see how each sister deals with their life changes. Dealing with the death of her sister, being a werewolf herself and a-lot more emotional and psychological trauma makes for a very interesting character driven film.
The plot is familiar ground that was covered in the first film, especially with the coming of age metaphor, but I always thought that Emily Perkins did such a great job of playing ‘Brigitte’ that she deserved a lead role and she proves me right. She puts in a fantastic performance and makes her characters characteristics stand out so well that you truly feel for her and what she’s going through.
Once again the script is amazing and writer Megan Martin deserves a huge kudos for keeping up the high standard set by Karen Walton. I loved the scenes where Gingers ‘ghost’ visited her, they were so well done and added so much to the films depth. The production of the film is once again low budgetish but watching the film you wouldn’t think so at all.
Another person who had to follow the films high standards was director Brett Sullivan, after John Fawcetts great work on the original I personally feel that Sullivan took it to another level. The film is a-lot darker and I thought it worked so much better for the films story and Sullivan gave us that by the bucket load.
“Ginger Snaps 2 – Unleashed” is an excellent sequel and is definitely worth your time.
Miscellaneous facts about the film:
The movie that Brigitte watches at Care Facility is Nothing directed by Vincenzo Natali, who was storyboard artist for the Ginger Snaps.
In the scene where we see the nurse doing a crossword, she circles the word “INNOCENT” (which is back to front). Innocence is a major element in Ginger Snaps: Unleashed. For example; Tyler was innocent when Brigitte put him out with the wolf. Brigitte was innocent when she was put into the rehab clinic; and also when she was confronted after Ghost’s dog was decapitated. It has not been confirmed whether this was intentional or not.
The dilapidated area of the hospital in the film was actually a real life abandoned mental hospital, and it’s state (the paint peeling of the walls and everything falling to pieces) is exactly as the filmmakers had found it.
The scene where Tyler goes in to take back Brigitte’s monkshood in the ladies bathroom is actually a ladies bathroom, which caused problems while filming (especially in the scenes of the stall).
A lot of the film was shot on location (apart from Ghost’s house and the vents), and was the highest budget Ginger Snaps movie at 4.8 million Canadian dollars (still a relatively small budget).
In the scene where Brigitte is crawling through the vents to try and escape, the vents are made to look twice as long as they are by using mirrors at 45 degree angles. In the final shot as she jumps out at the end of the vent was done in the actual vents of the hospital.
In one scene, Brigitte’s leg gets snapped sideways and she has to snap it back into place. Reportedly, Emily Perkins used her own leg in the shot (as opposed to a prop leg.)
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