Viewing this movie again over Halloween.
I celebrated Halloween by watching Ginger Snaps and Ginger Snaps: Unleashed.
I didn't like Unleashed that much when I first saw it, but it's strange what I didn't remember, or what I remembered completely wrong. Here are the things I liked about the movie:
1) Music
2) Directing
3) Atmosphere
4) Werewolf animatronic
5) Emily Perkin's virtuoso performance
6) Tatiana Maslany's performance
7) Katharine Isabelle, it was so good to see Ginger and Brigitte together.
8) Splendid beginning
What I didn't hate as much as when I saw it the first time: the masturbation scene. I realized the actresses weren't nearly as bad in it as I thought. The scene still didn't work, until Emily Perkin's reacted to it, then it was saved.
What I didn't like about it:
1) Ghost. This character did not fit. To get her to fit, they had turn it into an idiot plot and the only reason Ghost came out on top at the end is because everyone else, including Brigitte, were bigger idiots. They should've done what they did in the first movie. That is, they had real girls with real problems at the rehab center. And they needed to stay there through the movie.
2) The writing. So, how many good lines were there in this movie compared to GS? Few. ". . . reign of moral terror," and "Must be great to be a role model," and "Your fly's open" are the only ones I remember. It wasn't well plotted, the story completely changed directions for the worst at the midpoint. And with so many pauses, I got the feeling they had to stretch their material just to get it up to feature length, which brings us to . . .
3) The pacing. It moves slow. The original ran laps around it, but Unleashed was not even at normal speed. I waited so long for something to happen, that when the scant action is over I wanted more.
4) Brigitte was too well restrained as a werewolf. There was none of the cockiness and manic violence shown with Ginger. I know, unlike Ginger she's supposed to be a good girl, but if she could restrain herself from ripping out Tyler's sternum or beating Alice's stupid face, I wondered what the problem was with werewolfism? Those characters were far more aggravating and harmful than Trina. And then how did she stop herself from killing Ghost? She paid for that one. Definitely a time she needed to get in touch with her inner beast.
5) I didn't like how, instead of making the characters in rehab real, it immediately played them for laughs during the therapy scene (Winnie and her writing). The horror needed to attach itself to reality more. Those characters needed to be more than comedy relief.
6) Just for the least amount of attachment to reality: nobody passes out on a street and wakes up in rehab center. (If that happens, then things aren't quite what they seem, and that might have been a good plot twist if writer could have figured it out.) They don't put you in rehab until they've talked to you. They also don't deprive you of a substance before they know what it is. If it would have been heroin, for example, they might have killed Brigitte.
7) Not enough Ginger in this recipe, and what's there is artificial. She could have been cut from the plot without losing a thing. I realize they were cornered here due to, like, Ginger dying in the previous one, but they needed to come up with a better solution. Why couldn't Ginger's ghost have haunted Brigitte?
8) The makeup. When it was subtle, was pretty good, but beyond subtle, it was awful. And why did they make Ginger look so attractive in the last stages, while they made Brigitte into an orc?
9) Finally, and most importantly, Brigitte being doomed from the beginning-- and never getting better-- really sucked the air out of movie. GS ended with Brigitte broken on the rocks, and so they made Unleashed all about watching her sink. What was the point of her costly passage into adulthood, then? It really undercut the first film. They wouldn't have had to throw in Ghost if they had better grasp of what to do with the theme they were left with from GS.