GINGER SNAPS 2: UNLEASHED

Brigitte, fleeing after killing her sister, is searching for a definitive antidote to cure the lycanthropy that afflicts her, as aconite, a kind of poison extracted from a flower, only slows down its effects but does not stop the mutation. After a severe crisis, the girl is confined in a drug rehabilitation center where she is treated like a common drug addict. The forced stay and the lack of aconite administration make the transformation occur increasingly quickly. The only person who understands what is happening to her is Ghost, an orphan child staying at the care home. While together they search for a remedy to the difficult situation, another werewolf lurks outside the clinic, wanting something from Brigitte. Stupidly retitled in Italy as "Licantropia Apocalypse" (since there is no apocalypse in sight), the second film of the "Ginger Snaps" trilogy continues where the first chapter left off. The location shifts to the middle of the snow, and Brigitte, once again played by the ever-more-skilled Emily Perkins, is fleeing the events that upended her life in the first chapter of the saga. She is alone, scared, and fighting against the guilt that destroys her internally. But not only that: she is also infected with the lycanthropy plague and seeks a remedy for her complicated condition. It is clear from the very first images that this is a completely different film from the previous one. There are no more dark fairy tale tones; here, everything is darker, starting with the story that shifts the setting from school to a clinic for drug addicts, a place already anguishing made even more claustrophobic by the dark corridors, abundant in the film. The staging is also completely different, darker, more visionary, and accompanied by a pounding soundtrack practically present in every scene, often becoming intrusive. The film is also characterized by a more frantic editing that makes the tension scenes more anxiety-inducing and at the same time covers the limitations of the makeup that were highlighted as flaws in "Licantropia Evolution." The wolves, victims of the film's low budget, are glimpsed in quick and dark scenes, and fortunately, this makes them more believable than their counterparts in the previous film. If in the first chapter, lycanthropy was used as a metaphor for a woman developing sexually and the infection seen as adolescent impulses that surface and cannot be kept in check, in the second, the focus shifts to another type of uncontrollable impulse, namely that of drug addiction. Brigitte, to tame her animal instincts, must take aconite, which, in case of non-administration, would cause her complete transformation, but in the eyes of the other patients in the clinic, she is just a drug addict fighting withdrawal. Even though sex is not the main subject of the story, the film is permeated with it, starting with the nurse who demands sexual favors in exchange for the drug to the surreal scene of group masturbation used as therapy. There are many weak points, such as the prolixity of some tension scenes that are redundant to the point of being boring, or the dilapidated corridors of the clinic, a typical horror cliché present in low-quality films, aimed at creating a gloomy atmosphere and making the figure of the wolf hidden in the shadow even more unsettling, making the viewer wonder why such poorly maintained places are present in a clinic open to patients. Despite these imperfections, "Licantropia Apocalypse" remains an enjoyable sequel to a good film, as well as an honest conclusion to the story since the third chapter of the saga is a prequel, set a hundred years earlier. Not to be underestimated is the character of Ghost, an irritating child passionate about comics who has always lived the adventures of her heroes by reading them in secret, like a mute and envious spectator of stories that do not belong to her until she finally manages to become the protagonist of her own adventure, in the final plot twist.