Note: Spoilers ahead.
Brett Sullivan’s Ginger Snaps 2: Unleashed is the second installment in the Ginger Snaps trilogy. Unlike the first movie, Ginger Snaps 2: Unleashed is a monster movie through and through. The film follows Brigitte and her ongoing battle with lycanthropy.
The movie begins with Brigitte (Emily Perkins) injecting herself with monkshood extract, believing it to be a cure to lycanthropy. Shadowed by a male werewolf, haunted by the image of her sister, and becoming more animalistic by the day, Brigitte repeatedly moves to different locations and studies possible cures. After a violent encounter with the wolf man, Brigitte is knocked unconscious and left for dead in the snow. She then reawakens in the Happier Times Rehabilitation Clinic, where she meets the young and wildly imaginative Ghost (Tatiana Maslany). From thereon, the film utilizes elements from the prison genre, such as the unraveling of scandals within the institution, as well as the inevitable escape.
Ginger Snaps 2: Unleashed is a sequel that employs little to no enjoyable elements from its predecessor. The ironic humor, the witty dialogue, the sisterly bond between Ginger (Katharine Isabelle) and Brigitte, and the sense of relatability for young viewers, and the warm, tranquil atmosphere of Bailey Downs—the elements that made the original Ginger Snaps fun to watch, have all disappeared. What remained then is but a dark film set during the cold winter, in the narrow halls of a rundown clinic. The characters are automatons, lacking any uniqueness or personality, and the familial bond between two “sisters” was naught but a lie. The film’s sense of dread is joyless which, personally, evokes an adoration that is different and is effective in its own right. Lycanthropy, once a dysphemism for the beginning of a post-pubescent girl’s menstrual cycles, is now likened to drug addiction. The bittersweet ending of Ginger Snaps, where an empathic Brigitte cradles her dying lycanthrope sister, is juxtaposed to the grim aftermath in Ginger Snaps 2, where a new sister-figure, Ghost, exploits the lost and feral Brigitte—here, the protagonist we’ve come to know and love is turned into nothing more than a pet whose sole purpose is to initiate her mistress Ghost’s reign of moral terror.
The first film explored the misogynistic fear of the monstrous feminine in the guise of lycanthropy no less, whereas the second film sheds light upon another trope of the horror genre—the societal fear of the evil child.
While the fear of women and the usage of women as either horror antagonists, damsels in distress, or cannon fodder for the male monster is a social construct created by the patriarchy, both grown men and women are similar to the young child—they are both equally caretakers and figures of authority. In history and in most cultures, children represent a voiceless populace. In the rare times the youth are given a voice, elder generations always hear it with some sort of generational bias, saying the voice of the next generation is distorted by the inexperience that comes with their youth. Part of the horrific reality of children is that they are not governed by societal norms, as they have yet to understand the inner workings of the world. We, the elders of this generation, are who we are thanks to the unwritten rules of life, and we see safety as something authorities can promise us so long as we live by those rules. A child’s ignorance and unpredictability often creates anxiety within the society, rendering the elders scared of the young people. Therefore, gifted children either transcend the stigma and generate respect from their elders, or in the case of Ghost, exploit it for their own benefit.
The innocence of children is one of the many positive aspects of humanity to fall to the horror genre’s corruption. Much like the unconditional love a mother and the protective love a father has for their child, a child’s innocence is beautiful and pure. Sullivan, like many other horror directors, warps this guiltless reality into a source of horror. It is, again, run-of-the-mill, yet widely satisfying, because by subverting our expectations of children as non-threatening and protected individuals, horror is able to force doubt into our natural assumptions, which is a staple of effective horror films.
Usually, the corruption of a child’s innocence is brought upon by the intrusion of an external force. Esther from The Orphan is in truth the psychotic Leena Klammer, whose hypopituitarism has cursed her to forever look like an innocent little girl; Eli from Let the Right One In, like Esther, is actually an immortal vampire; Regan MacNeil from The Exorcist is originally friendly and curious, but was turned aggressive and vulgar after her possession by the demon Pazuzu; and Damien Thorn from The Omen, the ultimate trope codifier himself, is truly, ultimately evil due to his status as the Antichrist, the son of Satan. Ghost, however, is somewhat transcendent due to her being completely human. Like J.T., her evil nature and tendency to commit immoral, inhuman acts is made possible thanks to her humanity and her own freewill, which is more frightening than the corruption and influence of any spirit.
Film Theorist Mary Jackson identifies our fear of these evil children as the representation of our societal fear of failing the younger, emergent generations. She asserts that the susceptibility of a child to be corrupted is not due to the spirit’s strength or power. Rather, the ineffectiveness of the family, the church, the state, or whatever institution, allows the corruption of character to take place. Karen J. Renner, author of the book “The ‘Evil Child’ in Literature, Film and Popular Culture,” argues that there are two types of evil children—the possessed child and the feral child.
The possessed child makes visible the failure of a family via blaming and verbally assaulting them, as well as behaving in ways a child should not, such as expressing cruelty, disobeying their elders, cussing, and dressing provocatively, mainly to extract attention or repair the existent fractures of a broken family. The feral child, however, embodies the evils of a whole society deep within. While the possessed child behaves detestably in order to attain something, even if he or she does not want to (hence the presence of an external force and evil spirits), feral children do so simply because they have been reared in an environment where good and helpful humanitarian values have been thrown away in favor of self-centered motives and pleasures. In other words, possessed children are evil because something evil quite literally possesses them, while feral children are evil because all they have ever known is evil. Ghost, therefore, is a feral child.
Throughout the film, Ghost has shown some form of insanity. The genius lies in the portrayal of this. Initially, Ghost’s monologues are quirky, comical, and cute, which is bolstered by the fact that she is an avid reader of comic books. She remains cheery and appears ignorant to whomever she pesters with her verbose mode of speaking. Her true nature is then shown to be ruthless, calculative, deceitful, and egomaniacal. Ghost straight up burns her grandmother; she bruises herself and condemns Tyler (Eric Johnson) to his death by acting like he had raped her; she murders Alice Severson (Janet Kidder) in cold blood due to fear that she would take her pet away; and manipulates Brigitte from the get-go and emotionlessly locks the lycanthrope in her basement. She desires to rid the world of her enemies, and perhaps, even rule the world with the fully lycanthropic Brigitte chained by the neck.
Maslany’s dichotomous performance as the innocent, manic child turned psychopath with a God-complex, coupled with her mischievous turned malignant tone as she spouts monologue after monologue of the ingeniously written script is very much on point, and the little Ghost cast a shadow upon even Brigitte herself.
I give it a 3/5.
COM115.9 (2016) Course Blog 