Warning! If you have not seen the original Ginger Snaps, this review may contain some plot elements from the original that can be seen as spoilers. Proceed at your own risk!

While it may seem a bit odd to say, the original Ginger Snaps was a great horror film, but not because of the success of the films' actual horror elements. It goes without saying, horror films can be perceived on many levels, and enjoyed for a number of reasons. Maybe it's because they have great mood or style, or maybe they're filler at heart, but they still scare the living shit out of us - or offer us great gore. Ginger Snaps was a great horror film, but not for any of the reasons I've listed above. Ginger Snaps worked because of its clever characterization and on spot social commentary. It was about relationships and how changes can affect those we hold close. It was about acceptance and denial and the family unit. Best of all, it managed to blend in with all of this the mythos of the werewolf tale with near seamless brilliance, and best of all; it was one hell of an entertaining independent flick. Well, that was 2000; welcome to 2004 and the arrival of Ginger Snaps 2: Unleashed.

Ginger Snaps 2 opens with lone sister Brigitte (Emily Perkins) or 'B' as she's commonly referred to, hiding out and dealing with her infection. She's slowly transforming, so she's constantly injecting herself with 'monkshood' to ward off the curse. In the mean time, she's also dealing with ghostly visions of her sister, Ginger - and she's also being stalked by yet another Werewolf with a taste for her blood. Through a series of events that appear to stand only as a set up, B winds up in Happier Times rehab center. For you see, they believe that B is an addict, hence her love for that monkshood - makes sense so far.

Once in the center, B has to deal with a whole host of crazies. These filler characters include a sexed up male orderly who takes advantage of all of the young girls at the center in exchange for goods that satisfy their addiction, and a young girl named Ghost, who may not be exactly who she seems. B and Ghost manage an escape, and before you know it, we're in Thelma and Louise territory with a lycanthropic spin - fun, huh? No, not really.

It's all quite pedestrian, in case you couldn't tell, and in the end quite uneventful. The bottom line here is that as a sequel to the original Ginger Snaps, the film fails - although held on it's own merits, it's moderately entertaining. What I missed most from the first film, was the relationship between Ginger and B, now while Ginger makes periodic appearances to taunt or guide B hroughout the film, something was still missing. The relationship between Ghost and B has potential, but it isn't until a few choice moments well into the flick, that we are given a glimpse of the kind of relationship these two could have had, and I really wish these options had been explored more thoroughly.

The scenes of B in the hospital, do not mesh well with the aftermath either, it all comes across as forced, and the film has a huge gap between the first and second act. The fight for survival that B has to endure in the hospital (between the sleazy orderly and other patients, etc.) overshadows the true nature of the beast, which should be B's impending transformation. There's even a ridiculous scene in the hospital in which a group therapy session, turns into a hallucinatory group masturbatory session. It's so crazy; I think this one deserves another screen grab. Now, don't get me wrong. I love watching a room full of sexy young girls masturbating in harmonic unison as much as the next staright guy, it's fucking HOT! But it's still out of place here, and thrust down the viewer's throat like a fucking silver spoon. The bottom line is that the metaphors in the original film were not this obvious, they didn't need to be.

Lions Gate does get high marks for the quality of this DVD release, considering that there is still no decent stateside release of the original Ginger Snaps on home video. Picture quality is spotless, with not a mark to be found. Colors and black levels are nice and solid. Audio is presented in a Dolby Digital 5.1 mix, and while it's subtle, it still remains fairly effective. Audio/Video presentation is top notch here.

I wish I could say the same for the extras. We get about 12-minutes of deleted scenes ::yawn:: you know what they say; if they're deleted, it has to have been deleted for a reason. Next up is storyboard slideshow that runs for a few minutes ::yawn:: followed by Brigette's journal (which is a few pages taken out of her journal) and Ghost's Comic Book Art (once again, a few pages taken out of Ghost's comic book). Then we have the production commentary, which is fine if you want to hear the director and producers pat each other on the back for 90-minutes, I sure as hell didn't. They even make a reference to a scene being Scream-like exactly what the first film didn't have, and one of the reasons it was so great!

As a huge fan of the original, I had high hopes for the sequel, and I'm not trying to be mean here, just for the sake of being mean. The truth of the matter is that on it's own, Ginger Snaps 2 is a moderately entertaining time waster, but as a sequel to the original, it doesn't cut the mustard.