Infected by the blood of her werewolf sister Ginger, runaway teenager Brigitte (Emily Perkins) attempts to fight off her own inevitable transformation into a slavering, hairy monster through the repeated injection of wolf's bane (also known as monkshood). After suffering a bad reaction to the serum, she collapses in the street, and wakes to find herself a patient in the Happier Times Care Centre, a home for recovering drug addicts. Now, unable to access her wolf's bane, Brigitte gradually begins to exhibit signs of wolfishness. Cursed with increasingly pointed ears, haunted by ghostly memories of her sister Ginger (Katharine Isabelle), and hunted by a male werewolf that intends to mate with her, Brigitte puts her trust in weird blonde girl Ghost (Tatiana Maslany), who is fascinated by her condition.
The original Ginger Snaps used lycanthropy as a metaphor for puberty, and this follow up continues the theme, Brigitte's gradual transformation into an uncontrollable beast a metaphor for unbridled teenage lust. It's not a particularly insightful or compelling subtext, nor is it all that original—The Company Of Wolves did the same kind of thing twenty years earlier— but it does allow for one of the most unexpected scenes in the history of werewolf cinema, in which Brigitte dreams that she is taking part in an all-girl group masturbation class. Other off-kilter elements that ensure Unleashed is still worth a watch include Ginger's occasional hallucinatory appearances, the film's creepy rehab setting, Ghost's eccentric behaviour, and a bizarre industrial soundtrack.
6.5/10, rounded up to 7 for IMDb.
The original Ginger Snaps used lycanthropy as a metaphor for puberty, and this follow up continues the theme, Brigitte's gradual transformation into an uncontrollable beast a metaphor for unbridled teenage lust. It's not a particularly insightful or compelling subtext, nor is it all that original—The Company Of Wolves did the same kind of thing twenty years earlier— but it does allow for one of the most unexpected scenes in the history of werewolf cinema, in which Brigitte dreams that she is taking part in an all-girl group masturbation class. Other off-kilter elements that ensure Unleashed is still worth a watch include Ginger's occasional hallucinatory appearances, the film's creepy rehab setting, Ghost's eccentric behaviour, and a bizarre industrial soundtrack.
6.5/10, rounded up to 7 for IMDb.