I Watch Films: Ginger Snaps 2: Unleashed

 

Ginger Snaps 2: Unleashed

Following the events of Ginger Snaps, Brigitte is taking regular doses of Monkshood to stave off turning into a werewolf. She shaves off body hair and cuts herself to measure the healing time, as well as researching. She has visions of Ginger, her sister, who she killed at the climax of Ginger Snaps, who tells her that the Monkshood is wearing off. She ups the dosage, overdosing; the librarian where she’s researching discovers her in difficulty and tries to help, but then they are attacked by a male werewolf trying to mate with Brigitte (this is clear almost from the start and Brigitte eventually says it out loud). Brigitte collapses.

She wakes in a residential drug rehabilitation unit in a hospital (the two combined for budgetary reasons in a much larger building with abandoned sections). Alice, the director, won’t let her out. Tyler, one of the orderlies offers Monkshood for sexual favours, and Brigitte refuses. She meets other inmates, hair appears on her, she uses a shard of glass to measure her healing and considers suicide. Also in the hospital is Ghost, a young, comic-obsessed girl who is staying there as her grandmother is a burn victim covered in bandages. Ghost becomes fascinated with Brigitte, eventually figures out she’s a werewolf like in her horror comics.

It becomes clear the male werewolf has tracked Brigitte there when the hospital dog is killed. Desperate, Brigitte lets Tyler inject her, allowing him to see more of her body that she wants (which is none). Then she and Ghost plot an escape through the abandoned section, only to run into BethAnn, another drug addict who has been having sex with Tyler for drugs. The male werewolf attacks, killing BethAnn. Brigitte and Ghost escape, taking the clinic car to Ghost’s grandmother’s house.

They try to set up the house to protect themselves from the werewolf but Brigitte starts eating from a dead deer and realises she needs Monkshood. They call Tyler offering the car for the Monkshood, making the exchange at a gas station where they discover the werewolf has attacked the attendant. Brigitte has a bad reaction to the Monkshood, causing Tyler to call Alice, only for Ghost to fake Tyler abusing her so Brigitte locks him out with the werewolf and the final confrontation to commence.

Throughout this Ginger keeps returning to taunt, haunt and warn Brigitte, the two clashing in similar ways to when they were alive, but also differently. If the first film was about bullying and girls becoming women, this wants to talk about drug addiction and self harm, about being a target of male attention against your will, and also about lies, fantasies and hallucinations.

Watch This: Superior werewolf film with something to say about abuse
Don’t Watch This: Sexual assault, body horror, gore and horrid tricks