Ginger Snaps: Unleashed

I want to like this so much more than I do. This has so many great elements to it. After sharing the first movie, Emily Perkins is fantastic as the lead here. She brings a wonderful sadness and desperation to the movie, trying to fight to the last against the coming change of her lycanthropy, which is the opposite of how Katherine Isabelle embraced her change in the first movie. I love the change in setting, first to the rehab clinic, then the remote cabin. It made the movie feel like this universe takes place in a bigger world. And where this movie could've easily, and lazily, just done another coming of age satire, this movie eschews the black comedy and clever commentary and goes straight for horror. The score is unique, edgy, with a techno/electronic vibe, that fit the feel of the movie without feeling dated. The practical special effects are fantastic and used with precision and strategy; the kill in the bowels of the clinic involving a plastic sheet is such a striking way to give you the gore without showing it. When you do see the effects up close, it's always well done, especially the slow transition of Bridget. And the way they use the Jaws strategy of hint-don't-show about the werewolf until they have to is perfect. But those elements do not a whole movie make. There's one big element that drags this movie down, and that's the script. My wife and I both came away thinking this movie was 15 minutes too short, or we had to do extra-curricular readings, because WOW, this movie has holes galore. Who is the other, fully transformed werewolf? How did he find Bridget? Why does he attack her if he wants to mate? What was the importance of the books Bridget was checking out in the library? Why did Bridget need to escape from a rehab clinic if she wasn't sentenced to be imprisoned there? Where are Bridget's parents in all this? Why does the movie introduce Ghost and right away make the viewer suspicious of her, then stop and present her as a normal girl, then in the last act, do a 180 and show that not only is she weird, she's a dangerous lunatic? And WHY did she burn her grandmother alive? And what is her end-goal with keeping Bridget in the basement? That right there may be the worst part of this movie. I don't mind a bummer ending, but the key is, it has to fit, and it has to be earned. You look at a movie like Chasing Amy (I know, not a horror movie, but the comparison is still apt); in the end, the lead character's selfishness and insecurities result in losing the girl of his dreams, and destroying his relationship with his best friend. But it all feels earned, because that's where the breadcrumbs lead. With this movie, Bridget dying and being reunited with her sister -- just like how they fantasized about dying together in the first movie -- is the only logical ending, and moreover, it's the only ending that frees her from the lycanthropic curse. Instead, the movie steals that away and has a psychotic, murderous thirteen year old girl keep Bridget, fully transformed, locked in a basement. Even looking at the logistics of it -- the werewolves in this universe are hella strong and should be able to break a cellar door made of wood and locked with a simple bolt latch -- you go "huh?". But emotionally, you feel cheated. Bridget suffered and came all this way, and she's a prisoner of someone she could tear limb from limb, because ... the movie wants it that way. Even if Ghost (who, I should say, is played to chilling perfection by a very young Tatianna Maslany) were to have killed Bridget instead of Bridget finding a way to end herself, that would've been satisfactory. No, we get the basement scene from Pulp Fiction, starring iCarly and a werewolf. If they'd re-written this script to strip all connections to Ginger Snaps 1, and make these characters brand new but existing in the Ginger Snaps universe, the story and the ending would've been fine. But the baggage of being the direct follow-up to Ginger Snaps really hampers this movie, because it sets up something that doesn't get paid off. If they'd just had Ghost kill Bridget, it would've all been fine, even with the unanswered questions, because the ending would've been just. But as is, it's the right pieces put together the wrong way. It's like someone took a Lego set meant to be a race car, and built a clown car instead. Sure, you accomplished A goal, but it wasn't the DESIGNED goal. Hooptober 2021 movie #16/24.