I’m also guessing you’ve seen the original Breakin’ movie from 1984. (If not, please go watch it IMMEDIATELY. It’s great.)

If you haven’t seen the original, it wasn’t a masterpiece but along with a movie called Beat Street, it set a precedent for future breakdancing/dance movies and also had a profound impact on the breakdancing community. The story was halfway-decent…a sort of Romeo and Juliet tale between a rich, white girl who does ballet/professional dance and a poor, hispanic breakdancer from the streets, and their struggle to be accepted in each other’s circles of friends and family and careers. It was executed pretty well, and had amazing dance sequences and some funny scenes. Aside from a couple of random weird scenes (There is a scene where for SOME reason they’re all eating at some crazy redneck country bar/restaurant and there is a huge fight) it was pretty damned good.

Fast forward to Breakin’ 2: Electric Boogaloo.

It should be even BETTER, right? RIGHT?

Unfortunately, it’s not.

We have some problems right off the bat. First of all, this movie is no longer set in reality. (Not that the world of breakdance is set firmly in reality, but you’ll see what I mean if you watch it, especially as compared with the first one). What I mean by this is that, in the film’s opening sequence, the entire town starts breakdancing. I’m not exaggerating. The ENTIRE town. Cops, gardeners, telephone line workers, bakers, old ladies and my personal favorite; the mailman. Yes, they were all dropping mad moves, and poppin’ and lockin’ like nobody’s business. The first movie was at least partly grounded in reality. People worked normal jobs, and acted as such. It wasn’t a musical, per se, and the film worked because of that.

Second, we have the introduction of Kelly’s WASP parents. They are the whitest people I have ever seen on the screen (I’ll get back to the white thing later…) aside from an even WHITER guy who shows up later that Kelly’s dad wants her to marry. WTF…in a movie of stereotypes, they were the most stereotypical characters I’ve ever had the displeasure to watch. When describing Kelly’s friends, the breakdancers, Kelly’s fiance-in-the-making refers to them as “rif-raf”. Wow. I don’t think people have spoken that way since medieval times. Also, WHAT is with the “classical” music playing every time they show rich people? I doubt that’s what they listened to, even back then. I bet they were listening to Prince or Bruce Springsteen.

Next, we have the recycled opposing dance team from the first film (think the Sharks and Jets from Westside Story…in Breakin’ it’s Electro Rock – The Bad Guys and TKO – The Good Guys) who are SOMEHOW even more lame in the second movie. There is a really awkward dance/fight with Electro Rock and TKO where they use NUNCHAKUS and TRASH CAN LIDS as pseudo-weapons in which they never actually hit with, and then there is some weird kung-fu-looking moves. In the first film it seemed a lot more organic. I dunno WHAT the hell was happening with the dance choreography in the second film.

THEN, we have Kelly’s character. It’s like she’s forgotten everything that happened in the first film. She’s back to being stuck-up white girl.

THEN, we also have a really gorgeous girl they introduced as Turbo’s potential love interest…but they introduce her and she plays a bit part, and they sort of end up together for the hell of it. Because they’re both good dancers? We dunno…it was never really explained.

Now, onto the whole white thing. Almost all white folks were bad ,and they lived in white houses, had white furniture, wore white clothes, had white hair. The developers all had white hardhats. There were even white balloons (which went higher into the air than the colored balloons). We get it. White is evil and oppressive.

Even the music in this movie didn’t pack the same punch. There was a lot of Ollie and Jerrie, but there wasn’t enough variety. In the first one, they played so many songs by different artists. The second was almost exclusively Ollie and Jerrie.

Now, don’t get me wrong…there were some good things about Breakin’ 2. The opening scene with the whole town dancing was great, even though it was sorta cheesy. However, it showcased lots of really nice dance moves and it DID set the tone for the remainder of the film early on. Ice-T was another welcome sight. He was great in the second movie, just as he was in the first. The girl they got to play Turbo’s love interest was really cute. It was fun, and lighthearted and not too heavy, and the scene where Turbo dances along the walls and ceiling is usually the only scene I really remember because it’s pretty awesome, lets face it.

So, if you’ve seen Breakin’ but not Breakin’ 2, you might as well give it a shot. It will complete your experience and after watching the second one, you will say “Yeah…that was enough for me“. Hell, maybe you’ll even like it better. If you haven’t seen either of them, PLEASE see the first one.

Just watch out in Breakin’ 2 for the really creepy and weird scene involving a life-size doll. That part gives me the willies.

Ah, Halloween. The one night of the year when it’s perfectly normal for your children to go around the neighborhood, knocking on doors and begging for candy. It’s my favorite holiday. Candy Corn (the scariest part of this particular holiday), pumpkin carving, rubber bats and fake cobwebs. Not to mention that for the entire month of October, you’re hard pressed to find a cable channel that is not airing horror movies or some sort of spooky programming. It truly is the most wonderful time of the year.

It’s during this time that we all have our own little Halloween traditions. Whether it’s gathering around the TV for the annual viewing of It’s The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown! or the always entertaining Treehouse Of Horror episode of The Simpsons, or just a list of scary movies that you watch with friends and family every October, we all have them. My list of annually viewed horror movies is a long one, which I won’t bore you with, but I will share one of the films on that list. The 1978 John Carpenter classic entitled, simply, Halloween. It’s one of my favorite horror films and quite possibly my favorite John Carpenter film (though I keep flip-flopping between Halloween and The Thing). But seeing as this is BadSequels.Com and The Thing doesn’t have a shitty sequel (shitty remake/prequel, yes), you can probably guess where I’m going with this.

Halloween III holds the distinction of being the only horror movie sequel that I can think of that is not actually a sequel to anything at all. Seriously. None of the same characters, none of the same plot lines, nothing. The only links this movie has to the previous two Halloween films are that it takes place around Halloween, involves kids in masks, and has the title Halloween III. There are some who believe that, if only this movie had never been linked to the Halloween franchise, if only it had simply been called Season of the Witch and was never marketed as the third piece of the Halloween puzzle, it would be reflected upon with more fondness. Those people are wrong. Even as a stand-alone film, this movie is no cinematic gem. Turd, maybe. Gem, not so much.

The film opens on Saturday October 23rd in Northern California. I know this because of the handy subtitles that appear to tell you that.

This is exactly how I remember Northern California.

While we’re trying to decipher the vagueness of “Northern California” (Northern California is pretty big, where exactly is this? Sacramento? Davis? Napa Valley?), a terrified man runs into frame, a car giving awkwardly slow chase behind him. He ducks into a junk yard and, after knocking on all of the locked doors, attempts to hide. The car drives by the junk yard in slow motion and the man comes out, thinking he’s safe. But wait! The car backs up (also very slowly, are his pursuers trying to save gas here? or is he being hunted by a senior citizen?) and he’s forced back into hiding. He tries to make his way around the corner, but is stopped by an abnormally strong man in a business suit. The suited man knocks him to the ground and tries to strangle him, but luckily he’s able to grab a nearby chain.

“Oh, he’ll use the chain as a weapon!” you might exclaim while watching this scene. The chain is attached to a cinder block that is holding a very large car in place. The cinder block moves, the car rolls forward and crushes the Kryptonian businessman. Our hero squirms out from under the car and gets away safely. The slow moving car pulls up and another strongman in a suit exits and gives chase on foot.

An hour later, we find a gas station attendant watching a news item about the mysterious theft of a piece of Stonehenge (Foreshadowing!), which is followed by a creepy-ass commercial for Halloween masks produced by a company called Silver Shamrock Novelties (More foreshadowing!). Before he can enjoy the ending of said creepy-ass commercial, the nearly-strangulated man from the previous scene leaps into the room and shouts “They’re coming! They’re coming!” before falling to the ground, clutching one of the Halloween masks from the commercial (Even more foreshadowing!). The attendant decides that perhaps this lost soul needs some medical/psychological help and drives him to the hospital in his tow truck.

Meanwhile, a divorced man (Played by horror genre character actor Tom Atkins) brings his children the gift of Halloween masks, only to find that their mother has already bought them Halloween masks from Silver Shamrock Novelties (Wow, there’s a lot of foreshadowing going on in this movie). The kids put on their masks and turn on the TV just in time for the Silver Shamrock commercial to air. Before he and their mother can get into a fight over Halloween masks, his pager goes off. It turns out that he’s a doctor and he’s needed at the hospital right away (Something about a crazy guy clutching a Halloween mask?).

Doctor Tom Atkins arrives at the hospital to find crazy mask guy sleeping quietly on a gurney while the gas station attendant/tow truck ambulance driver explains that he just came out of the rain, ranting and raving. It’s while Dr. Atkins (Yes, I know that’s not his character’s name. no, I don’t care) is thanking the attendant for being a good samaritan, that the same damn Silver Shamrock commercial comes on a nearby television. Mask guy’s eyes shoot open, he grabs Dr. Atkins by the arm and starts chanting “They’re going to kill us! All of us!” until Dr. Atkins gives him some happy time medicine and sends him off to dream land. The gas station attendant, maybe having seen too many horror movies in which someone says “They’re going to kill all of us”, gets the hell out of there.

Crazy mask guy is sleeping comfortably, Halloween mask still held tightly in his hands, when Dr. Atkins and his nurse decide to leave him be. A little light hearted sexual harassment while they’re walking down the hall prevents either of them from noticing the man in the business suit walking into his room and killing him by shoving his hand into the man’s face. The nurse walks in, too late to stop him, and asks “What are you doing here?” before seeing the guy with the smashed face laying in the hospital bed. She screams at the top of her lungs, while the man in the business suit walks by her and out of the hospital, like he’s late for a dinner reservation at Chili’s.

Dr. Atkins follows the man outside, where he gets into his car. “Hey!” shouts Dr. Atkins, but it’s too late. The man in the business suit pours gasoline over his face and body and lights himself on fire because fuck dinner reservations at Chili’s. This causes the car to explode and leaves poor Dr. Atkins to stare at the wreckage with a baffled look on his face.

The same look on my face while I watched this scene.

If you have read this far and have uttered “What the fuck?” no less than three times, then you are no different than most after watching this film for the first time. However, if the above description of the first sixteen minutes of Halloween III: Season of the Witch seemed perfectly normal to you, then please stay the hell away from me and my family. The rest of the film is one long “what the fuck?”, as it includes murderous androids, a plot to kill a shit-ton of children on Halloween, even some good old fashioned Celtic witchcraft. You know, just like the first two Halloween movies.

This movie is not without merit, as it does feature a few unsung heroes from the world of cheesy horror movies. Tom Atkins alone might be worth checking it out, if you’re a huge fan of Maniac Cop (and who isn’t?).

Perhaps I’m wrong. Maybe if this film had been released as simply Season of the Witch, then maybe we would look back on it as a decent 1980s horror movie instead of a terrible entry to a beloved horror film franchise, during which every single person watching it found themselves asking “Where the hell is Michael Myers? What does this have to do with Laurie Strode? Am I high right now?”

But I’m probably not wrong, you guys.

Buy Halloween II and III on DVD
Buy Halloween III on Blu-Ray

Sequel to: The Howling, The Howling II: Your Sister is a Werewolf
Starring: Barry Otto, Imogen Annesley

When I said The Howling III was the worst werewolf sequel I’d ever seen, I meant it. The film opens with a scene so weird that, rather than try to describe it with words, I’m going to show you a screengrab from it:

See that? I mean, look at that for a second. Really stop and look at it, take it all in. This is literally the first few seconds of this movie, a silent shot of a bunch of half-naked tribesmen around a guy in a werewolf suit. I’m sure it’s supposed to be a werewolf, but look at it. Jesus, they don’t even cover the guy’s legs. Is this supposed to be a guy wearing half of a werewolf Halloween costume? Because that’s what it looks like. Unfortunately, we never find that out, because this is pretty much the last we see of this shot for the rest of the god damn movie. All we know is it happened in Cape York, Australia, 1905. So, we see these super happy tribe guys, all of whom have wonderful headdresses, huddled around a dude in a werewolf suit with a spear sticking out of him, while “creepy” music plays in the background. They all poke the guy, laugh a bit, then walk out of frame. Flash cut to outside a house in Leovich, Siberia. A guy who looks suspiciously like an Eskimo approaches a dead body out in the snow, he tries to open the front door but can’t, so he runs toward the camera, which is apparently a werewolf because he looks straight at it and screams. Another flash cut and we’re in a room filled with giant computers (you know, the kind of giant computers they had in the 70s and 80s), and green words flash across a black monitor:

“Werewolf Was Sighted Near Village of Leovich
Three Villagers Killed
Special Army Are Tracking Monster”

It’s revealed, by way of conveniently timed subtitles, that this room is actually in the headquarters of the National Intelligence Agency of the United States. This is a scene what has one of the best lines of dialogue in the entire film, which goes like this:

Agent #1: “Werewolves loose in the Soviet Union.”
Agent #2: “Do we tell the powers that be?”
Agent #1: “Well, I’m not tellin’ ‘em!”

But even that stellar line of dialogue doesn’t outweigh the rest of this movie, which is just awful. Let’s take a minute to look at the title of the film again: The Howling III: The Marsupials. Spoiler alert, the werewolves have pouches. Like kangaroos. (Werearoos? Kangawolves? I don’t know) The rest of the film revolves around an Australian weremarsupial named Jerboa, who is on the run from other weremarsupials who want to make her marry another weremarsupial that she doesn’t want to marry (how many more times can I type weremarsupial?). She falls asleep in a park and is chased, then confronted, by a man who tells her she’d be perfect for a horror movie he’s shooting with some friends nearby (who hasn’t used that line?), entitled “Shapeshifters”. It’s a werewolf movie within a werewolf movie! Anyway, she inexplicably agrees to be in his werewolf movie, the two hit it off (read: they bone) while shooting and everything goes smoothly. Until the wrap party for the movie, where there’s bright flashing lights, which of course causes people to turn into werewolves. I mean, come on, who doesn’t know that? Jeroba freaks out at the thought of wolfing out near her boyfriend, so she runs away from everyone and directly into the path of a moving car. She’s hit and taken to the hospital, where the doctors test her blood and exclaim “Holy shit, this woman is a werewolf!” and proceed to do even more tests. Unfortunately for the doctors and everyone involved, three werewolf nuns, who are actually Jeroba’s sisters, kill a bunch of people at the hospital and rescue Jeroba.

The doctors who thought they were going to be famous for being the first to dissect a werewolf become super bummed that their werewolf has escaped, so they decide to go watch a ballet troupe practice to forget their troubles. This ends up being a good call, since one of the dancers changes into a werewolf while they are watching! Boom, problem solved! I know, I know, that makes no sense. I’m going to let you in on a little secret, here: Nothing in this movie makes any sense. Not a damn thing.

The Howling III has some of the worst practical monster makeup/costume designs I’ve ever seen (and I’ve seen a lot, trust me), the acting is even worse than that in the previous film (which I didn’t think was possible), and like I said before, none of it even makes any sense. The one thing that most of these movies have going for them is at least there is a story that makes some modicum of sense. I mean, most werewolf movies are fairly straightforward. Guy or girl gets bitten by werewolf, guy or girl turns into werewolf, someone comes along and kills guy or girl while they are werewolf. Something along those lines. This movie is all over the god damn place. In fact, it turns out the monsters aren’t even really werewolves at all, they’re a hybrid werewolf that has the same genetic makeup of a Thylacine, an Australian animal most commonly referred to as a “Tasmanian Wolf” that was hunted to the point of extinction by humans in the early 1900s. So, werethylacines? Jesus.

I know I say this pretty often in these reviews, but it is no less true, especially with this movie: There is a lot wrong with this film. So much. It’s honestly hard to watch and barely even enjoyable from a “wow, it’s so bad!” standpoint that a lot of horror sequels have going for them. The second Howling film is more enjoyable than this one, and I hate almost everything about that movie. If this movie had Christopher Lee, as the second one did, would it edge it’s way into the “enjoyably bad” category? No. I can say that with a clear conscience. I would absolutely not enjoy this film even a tiny bit more than I do now if Christopher Lee had something to do with it. In fact, I would probably hate it even more because it would be another tarnishing blemish on Mr. Lee’s already sometimes confusing career trajectory (I could barely forgive him for the second Howling movie).

Do I recommend this movie? No. I can’t condone telling anyone to watch this movie for any reason other than maybe I secretly hate them. A lot. If you’ve ever wondered what a weremarsupial would look like, then knock yourself out. If you hate yourself (a lot) and want to waste an hour and a half of your life, go right ahead. But when you find yourself screaming at the television screen, not out of terror, but out of confusion and frustration, and when you vow to never visit Australia merely because it plays such a huge role in this film, don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Buy The Howling: I through III on DVD!
Buy The Howling IV on DVD!
Buy The Howling V and VI on DVD!

Sequel To: The Howling
Starring: Christopher Lee, Sybil Danning, Reb Brown

So, werewolf movies are kind of my thing. Knitting, jogging, paying homeless people to choke you while you masturbate, everyone has a thing. Watching werewolf movies, both good and bad, is mine. I’ve already talked about some of my favorite werewolf movies, so I won’t go into that again. But I will say this. The Howling, though many aspects of it are dated (the hair, my god, the hair), is one of the good ones.

This can not be said for any of it’s sequels. None of them. That’s not to say some of them are not entertaining in some ways, because one or two of them are, but not The Howling II: Your Sister is a Werewolf.

Quick! What is Transylvania famous for? Did you say Dracula? If so, you are an idiot. It’s famous for werewolves, apparently. That’s where most of this movie takes place, though it starts with Christopher Lee floating through space while reading an excerpt from the bible. No, I’m serious. We are then shown a shot of L.A. with the subtitle “Los Angeles, California, U.S.A” (followed by “City of the angels”, in case you didn’t know Spanish) and then we’re off to a funeral. The funeral for Karen White, the reporter-turned-werewolf from the first film, is attended by none other than Christopher Lee himself (I have no idea how or when he came back from space). His purpose at this funeral? To tell the Ben White (played by Captain America himself, Reb Brown) that his deceased sister is a werewolf. This explains the subtitle to the film, and while we’re on the subject of subtitles, this film actually has two. The Howling 2: Your Sister is a Werewolf and The Howling 2: Stirba– Werewolf Bitch. I honestly don’t know which one of these I love more. I mean, Your Sister is a Werewolf is so straightforward. It’s literally a line in the film. “Your sister is a werewolf.” But Stirba– Werewolf Bitch is great because a female werewolf technically would be a bitch, because the terminology would be correct there. However, since you have no idea who Stirba is until halfway through the movie, I tend to use Your Sister is a Werewolf when talking about this film to friends (which I do, at great length, all the time).

Ben takes the news that his freshly buried sister was a werewolf as well as pretty much anyone would (exact quote: “BULLSHIT!”), but Jenny Templeton, who claims to have been a colleague of Karen’s, even though she was not in the original film at all, believes Count Dooku and ends up dragging Ben into the whole mess. Having successfully telling Ben and his newfound sidekick Jenny that Karen was a werewolf, Stefan (Christopher Lee) he gives them a business card then walks away without giving any sort of context or explanation of his intent. While walking away from the graveyard, he passes an attractive woman dressed in black and a creepy bearded guy, both of whom are giving off the “Yeah, we’re totally fucking werewolves” vibe.

Later, we see Stefan at a night club where a typical 1980s band is performing a song about howling at the pale light of the moon (because of course they are). He sees the attractive woman from the funeral at the bar, as she is approached by a bunch of 1980s street hoods (honestly the only description that does them justice) and they ask her if she would like to have spontaneous sexual intercourse with them. She agrees and says she wants to take them to her favorite place for such activities. She leads them to an abandoned warehouse (why, where do you guys have spontaneous sexual intercourse with total strangers you meet in shitty night clubs?), where the street hoods are certain they are going to have their worlds rocked. SURPRISE! Werewolf ambush. The attractive woman howls and a bunch of werewolves come out of nowhere and eat the criminals. Good times. Keep in mind, Stefan never shows up to stop them. He’s clearly seen at the night club when the attractive woman leads these guys to their grisly deaths, but he doesn’t follow them to the warehouse or bust a silver cap in anyone’s ass or anything.

The next day, Jenny Templeton: Kid Reporter and Ben show up at Stefan’s house. He shows them a pair of silver bullets and tells them that bullets like these were responsible for the death of Karen White. He then shows them a video of Karen turning into a werewolf during a television news segment (the end of the first film), during which time she is shot and killed. Ben tells him the tape must be faked, but Jenny says it must be real because she recognizes the other people seen in the video as past co-workers. Stefan holds up a series of stalker photos depicting the attractive woman at the funeral (named Mariana) and informs them that she, too, is a werewolf. But not just any werewolf. She is one of the most dangerous kind of werewolf, the kind that is immune to silver bullets! What’s the way around such a hindrance, you may ask. Well, titanium bullets, dummy. I mean, obviously. Since the silver bullets were removed from Karen’s body during her autopsy, she’s doomed to rise from the grave and continue being a werewolf. Stefan intends to put a stop to that, by going back to the graveyard at night and shoving a silver stake through her heart. Stefan also says that the werewolves have a leader, a queen (Head Bitch In Charge, if you prefer) named Stirba (NOW that subtitle makes sense) and the next full moon will mark the tenth millennium since Stirba’s first transformation. It’s at this time that all of the werewolves in the world will reveal themselves and start wreaking havoc. Stefan says she must be killed before that transformation takes place, and he’s the one who will do it.

After storming out in absolute disbelief at what Stefan was saying, Ben realizes that one of the things he said was that he was going to shove a silver stake into his sister’s heart. He doesn’t take kindly to this and decides he’s going to meet him in the graveyard and stop him. Jenny tags along, of course, and while the two are traversing through the spooky graveyard in the middle of the night, they hear all sorts of animal noises and howling coming from the shadows. “What was that?” Jenny asks. “I don’t know.” Ben replies. “Are you shitting me?” Rob says from his couch.

A showdown in the cemetary forces Ben to finally believe all of this werewolf shit, then it’s off to Transylvania for some wacky madcap adventures in killing the werewolf queen!

A lot of crazy shit happens in this movie. Werewolf threesomes in old Romanian castles, a werewolf cult that look like an S&M convention, too many amazingly crazy things to mention in one review.

This is not the worst werewolf sequel I’ve seen (that’s The Howling 3, actually, so STAY TUNED!), but good lord is it bad. The acting, most of the makeup effects, everything. The only person in this movie who can act is Christopher God Damn Lee. Of all The Howling films (there have been eight, guys, think about that), this is the only one to have a writing credit given to the author of the original novels, Gary Brandner, as he helped co-write the screenplay. So, you might think the movie would turn out as a good adaptation, since the original author helped write it. But you would be very, very wrong. I know I say this a lot, but this movie is truly awful. Yet, again, not as bad as some of the subsequent sequels. I would recommend this movie for Christopher Lee alone, but the music and horrible dialogue are also things that one might find entertaining. Watch at your own risk.

Buy The Howling: I through III on DVD!
Buy The Howling IV on DVD!
Buy The Howling V and VI on DVD!

Sequel To: Alvin & The Chipmunks
Starring: Jason Lee, David Cross, Zachary Levi, a bunch of CGI rodents.

Family films are often terrible. I mean, let’s just get that out in the open. It’s not exactly a secret, but it’s still something that we all tend to ignore or use as a way to explain away a lot of really awful movies. The thought “Of course it’s no Academy Award winner, it’s just a family movie!” is a crutch that a lot of us lean on all the time. Those of us with kids know all too well that we sometimes need to wade through hours and hours of truly horrible movies just to keep our little ones entertained, and why not? If it keeps your child happy and quiet for a few hours, then mission accomplished. The only problem with that logic is that we often find ourselves shackled to the couch to watch these movies WITH our children, in an effort to spend more “quality time” with them. So, while our children laugh hysterically at the four hundredth consecutive fart joke, we adults sit in stunned silence while screaming internally.

Let me assure you, the Alvin & The Chipmunks series of films is no different. Now don’t get me wrong, I like Alvin & The Chipmunks. The cartoon was good, the animated movie was fun, and who hasn’t drunkenly shouted “ME, I WANT A HULA HOOP” while The Chipmunk Song (Christmas Don’t Be Late) played at an office Christmas party? No. My beef is not with the vocally talented chipmunks themselves. These movies, however, are enough to make you want to punch a woodland animal in it’s tiny fuzzy face, whether it can sing or not.

This entry into the Chipmunk Trilogy (that’s three. three of these movies exist) begins with the chipmunks as bona fide rock stars. They perform at a charity event (benefiting what, they never explain) in Paris, everything goes smoothly and absolutely nothing wacky happens at all. JUST KIDDING. Alvin showboats, even though Dave tells him not to, and he ends up knocking down a giant cutout of himself, which strikes Dave in the head and sends him flying across the stage and into a huge pile of electrical equipment (Before you ask, yes, Dave shouted “AAAAAAAALLLVIIIIIIINN!” while he flew through the air). Dave ends up in the hospital, because Alvin is a furry little asshole, and he tells the chipmunks that they’ll be living with his Aunt Jackie (bonus points if that name made you think of Roseanne, too) until he recovers. He also tells them that, while he’s laid up in a French hospital for a few weeks, he wants them to have a normal childhood (ignoring the fact that they’re rodents and not children). Why, he’s even arranged for them to attend high school!

Chipmunks attending a high school? What could possibly go wrong?!

The chipmunks return to America and meet up with Aunt Jackie (who, in a disappointing turn of events, is not portrayed by character actress Laurie Metcalf), Dave’s wheelchair-ridden aunt, who in turn introduces them to her grand son Toby (portrayed by Chuck Bartowski himself, Zachary Levi). Things go off without a hitch and the boys live a life of normalcy until Dave fully recovers and comes home. GOTCHA AGAIN. No, Toby ends up accidentally sending his grandmother (who is in a wheelchair, remember) down a flight of stairs, after which she gets run over by a baggage cart (family fun!). So, with both Dave and Aunt Jackie laid up with serious injuries, it’s up to the accident-prone, video game addicted loser Toby to save the day!

Meanwhile, Ian Hawke (David Cross reprising his role from the first movie, and one of the only good points of this whole mess, because he is David Cross), the once prominent record company executive who first signed the Chipmunks to JETT Records has lost his job, his home, and his dignity, as he is reduced to living in the basement of the JETT Records building. He’s brushing his teeth in the company fountain outside when a Fed-Ex envelope falls from the sky and tumbles around making muffled high pitched noises. The envelope bursts open and out pop the Chipettes! Sure, when a handful of chipmunks mail themselves in an airtight envelope, it’s a mode of travel. But when I do it, it’s animal cruelty and a restraining order from the envelope’s recipient (you will love me someday, Jon Bon Jovi, I swear it).

Hawke brings the girls up to his “penthouse office” (a desk on the roof) and they sing for him. He immediately shits his pants with joy, thinking that this is his chance to make back the fortune he lost by lying to the Chipmunks. He begins by lying to the Chipettes, saying he can’t get the girls a chance to meet the Chipmunks because they abandoned him once they gained fame, rather than telling them that they abandoned him when he tried to separate them from the only family they knew in an attempt to make as much money off of them as possible.

Back at the Seville household, the Chipmunks start their first day of school. This goes about as well as you’d expect it to. When they finally make it to class, they take the attention of all the girls away from the star football player, who doesn’t much care for them.

From this point on, it’s very much a high school comedy but with rodents as the leads, as the big dumb jock football players all try to make the Chipmunks pay for stealing their girls (guys, if your girl can be “stolen” by a four-inch tall talking rat, she wasn’t really your girl to begin with). The boys learn the value of living a normal life away from the glitz and glamor of showbiz, the Chipettes have a musical showdown with the boys at a talent competition, Toby learns the value of family over video games (a lesson I’ve yet to learn, myself), and not once does anyone question a group of forest creatures attending a human high school.

Look, for what it is, this movie is not all bad. There are a lot of great names attached to it, which you could see as a bad thing, I suppose. Like “Oh man, that person is in this movie? How sad for them.” Zachary Levi, David Cross, Amy Poehler, Jason Lee. You could look at it as this being a blatant cash grab for them, or you could look at it from the non cynical point of view (is that a thing that exists?) of maybe they just wanted to make a fun family movie for their kids. Whatever the reason for the existence of these films, the truth is, they do exist. The sooner we all get used to that, the sooner we can move on and live our lives. Do I recommend seeing these movies? No, I don’t, because I don’t hate you. But the fact of the matter is this: Your children will probably go apeshit for these movies, and you probably love them more than you love your own sanity, which means you’ll more than likely end up seeing them anyway. Yay parenthood!

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Sequel to: The NeverEnding Story, The NeverEnding Story
Starring: Jason James Richter, Melody Kay, Jack Black, Freddie Jones, Julie Cox, Tony Robinson

Let your mind wander to your past. Think of your most beloved childhood pet. Thinking about it yet? Good memories, right? Remember all the FUN you had? How you looked to it for comfort and joy?

Now…imagine someone HOLDING YOU DOWN and RAPING that pet in front of you for what seems like FOREVER. Until it dies. You think it’s over, right? Nope…the pet rapist just defecated ALL OVER the pet’s cooling corpse.

This analogy is much like watching The NeverEnding Story III: Escape From Fantasia…in this case, the beloved pet being the original NeverEnding Story movie and the rapist being whoever came up with this terrible, terrible film. You will wince, you will probably (as happened to a good friend of mine whom I showed a clip to of Rockbiter singing ‘Born To Be Wild’…yes, that is an entire SCENE in the movie) feel heart-attack-related symptoms. You will grow angry. Then, you will just grow sad.

This “installment” of the franchise makes a huge departure from the previous two films in that the story is not derived from Michael Ende’s novel; The NeverEnding Story. Rather, the scriptwriters and director decided it would be a good idea to take our beloved characters and twist them into somewhat-familiar, inbred duplicates who are nothing like their original counterparts. Here is a rundown of the changes:

1. Atreyu is NOWHERE to be found, although in the first two films Bastian forms a friendship with him. I guess he was probably laying low since Bastian, y’know, murdered him in the second movie before wishing him back to life. So, no Atreyu or Artax. Lame.
2. Engywook and Urgl are back (the two gnomes from the first film) and for the MOST part (Somehow they picked up Irish accents), they were kept intact although they were greatly diminished in size. In the first film, they were a bit smaller than Atreyu but not by a whole lot. In THIS movie, both Engywook and Urgl could ride on Bastian’s shoulder if they wanted. I don’t understand the writers’ or director’s reasoning behind including those characters in the movie. They essentially served no purpose, aside from answering a couple of Bastian’s questions.
3. Remember mighty and noble Falcor, the Luckdragon? Well, in THIS movie…imagine a heavy-drinking Falcor who can’t do anything right…is easily-scared and whines about EVERYTHING…and talks like he has Down Syndrome. Yep, they totally screwed Falcor, the flagship character.
4. Remember Rockbiter? Sure, his voice changed and he ended up having a random child, Junior, in the second movie…but in THIS movie he has greatly changed appearance and has picked up a weird voice and a crazy Russian accent. Junior is scarier than ever, to boot. Also, you get to meet Mrs. Rockbiter, who also sports a Russian accent and wears curlers in her “hair”. Yep, a rock monster wearing curlers. Did I mention that they watch TV, and that during their intro sequence, there is a rock person (Who I assumed was Rockbiter) singing about getting high (or that’s what it seemed like to me)?
5. The Childlike Empress in this movie is looking less child-like (and more like someone Chris Hansen would use in his show to bring in the pervs) and is a LOT more bitchy than her previous two counterparts.
6. There is a NEW character introduced…a Bark Troll. He seems to have a Brooklyn accent, and an extensive knowledge of all things Earth. (Yep…he mentions wanting to ‘Go To Vegas’ at one point). In the previous two films, residents of Fantasia showed a lack of knowledge of Earth’s customs and even figures of speech.
7. Bastian’s father apparently picked up amnesia because HE DOESN’T REMEMBER ANYTHING HE EXPERIENCED IN THE SECOND FILM! Their relationship is still flawed as ever, and he doesn’t seem to remember anything about the book or reading about the characters in Fantasia. (He is also a different actor, for the third time in a row)

With all that out of the way, let’s move on to the set-up:

In this movie, Bastian and his father move after his dad marries a divorced woman who has a daughter. They move into the new mom’s house and Bastian is immediately disliked by his new sister. He goes to school and meets up with Jack Black and his gang, who are called The Nasties. They are the villains in the film. Great name and great movie villain, right? (LOL!) Fleeing from the gang, Bastian ends up in the library where he runs into MR. KOREANDER from the first two films, but played by a different actor. (Wow, even that guy jumped ship after the second movie, right?) The bullies are looking for Bastian so he decides to use the book to get into Fantasia once again.

At this point, our hero hiding like a HUGE WUSS (Did I mention he is played by Jason James Richter, the kid from Free Willy?!) the Nasties burst into the library and find The NeverEnding story and SOMEHOW, EVEN THOUGH IT IS NEVER REALLY SHOWN HOW OR WHY, gain control over Fantasia THROUGH the book. In order to save Fantasia, Bastian must go back to the real world and get the book back from The Nasties. However, the teleportation gets botched when Junior shows up and Falcor, Bastian, Junior, Engywook, Urgl and the Bark Troll end up split up in the real world. Falcor is just flying around like an idiot, Junior ends up on Mount Rushmore, Bastian ends up at home (lucky, eh?), Engywook and Urgl end up in NOME, ALASKA….and the Bark Troll ends up near a logging operation. They all find their way back to Bastian.

Bastian’s new sister, Nicole (played by Melody Kay, whose most recent work is as a bridesmaid in one episode of the show ‘Yes, Dear” in 2004), steals Aurin from Bastian’s room after Bastian just leaves it out where anyone can get it and then the Nasties get their hands on it. The “heroes” of the film must work together to get it back and save both the real world AND Fantasia…with a karate scene. With the Free Willy kid. Yep. Wow.

Despite the NUMEROUS plot holes, bad set-up, terrible special effects and acting, lousy character interpretations, continuity problems and the absence of the NeverEnding Story theme by Limahl…Jack Black turns in a pretty decent performance on his part. Someone compiled a list of ONLY Jack Black scenes on the interwebs, and it is a lot more satisfying than the actual movie. Still, NeverEnding Story III is worth seeing just so you can say that you saw it. In fact, others will know you’ve seen it because they will see that look in your eye. You’ll get a knowing nod, a slight shake of the head. “You’ve seen it, too. You know the pain.”

Let us know what you think of the movie in the comment section below! Until next time….

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I stumbled upon this last night by accident, it had already been on for ten minutes. Carrie and Mr Big were both wearing tuxedos to this WAY over the top wedding  for Anthony and Stanford.  I think it was the tuxedos that drew me in so I figured what the heck. And when Liza Minelli showed up singing Beyonce’s Single Ladies, AND dancing like Beyonce, I figured I HAD to watch this.

I enjoy Sex and The City 1, I really did. It was funny and heartbreaking and just a good time to watch. Carrie and Mr Big finally got it together. Charlotte had her little family, Samantha was sort of tied down but watching her sexy neighbor have sex and Miranda was trying to patch up her marriage.

What could they possibly do in Sex and The City 2? I wondered.

Here in a nutshell:

Carrie and Mr Big are settling into married life, he buys a flat screen instead of a ring for Carrie and their whole word comes to a screeching halt.

Charlotte’s knee deep in a screaming baby and a nanny who doesn’t wear a bra, and she is afraid her hubby will wander.

Miranda is working at a law firm with a boss who is threatened by her.

Samantha drags everyone off to Abu Dhabi for a girls vacation, all paid for by a Shiehk she knows.  I missed  that part. Sorry

And off they go!

I guess someone thought that maybe a storyline of the differences between American women and Middle Eastern women would be a good idea.  The ignorance about how these women eat with scarves over their faces was pretty unbearable to watch. While the four girls are sitting out with most of their bits to see.  Cultural lesson check! Thank you ladies.

Ex boyfriends turn up, kissing happens, Mr Big gets mad, camels are ridden, a mysterious man from Denmark sweeps Samantha off her feet and they get arrested trying to have sex on a beach and they get kicked out of their  hotel for it. Passports get lost at the market, Samantha’s purse filled with condoms and it explodes in front of everyone, enraging the men, so she flips them all off. SIGH They meet some women who shed their protective wear only to be wearing New York fashion underneath…it goes on and on.

Ends with Carrie getting her ring and Samantha and Mr Denmark doing it FREELY on an American beach. Whatever.

This movie had some good points which is why I kept watching, but I was left with a bad taste in my mouth when it was done.  Maybe I was a bit embarrassed by the way they were portraying Americans as sex starved scantily clad beasts and the whole air of “well I am an AMERICAN and my way is the right way”.

Or maybe it was the story book ending of fantasy that turned me off.

I am thinking it probably was Samantha on the hood of the car getting railed…sorry I can’t describe it in any other words.

I guess if you are a fan of everything Sex and The City then you would enjoy this.

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Sequel to: The NeverEnding Story
Followed By: The NeverEnding Story III
Starring: Jonathan Brandis, Kenny Morrison, Clarissa Burt, John Wesley Shipp

Do you remember the final scene in The NeverEnding Story when Bastian screams his mother’s name out the window to save the Childlike Empress? Do you remember how right after he screams what sounds like “MOOOOOAAAAAAAHHHHHYYYYEEEEEAAAAHHHAHAHAHA” (but was actually ‘Moon Child”) everything goes quiet and you can’t see anything? At that point, Bastian asks “Why’s it so dark?” to which the Childlike Empress responds “In the beginning, it is always dark.” Then she gives him a glowing grain of sand and says that it’s all that remains of her vast empire and that he can rebuild Fantasia with his wishes. She tells him he can have ANY wish he wants, as MANY times as he wants. So, of course, he wishes for a ride on the Luck Dragon, Falcor. It’s a great ending to a great movie from the year 1984.

One thing that was never made clear to my young mind was that I always thought he needed to have the grain of sand the Childlike Empress gave him in order to make the wishes. During my later years, I disregarded that (I mean, who can hold onto a grain of sand, glowing or not?) and realized that the giving of the grain of sand was a symbolic gesture, as Bastian was now responsible for making Fantasia into what it once was with the power of his wishes. He didn’t need anything to make the wishes…just his willpower and imagination.

This brings us, unfortunately, to 1990…seven years later…when Warner Brothers released The NeverEnding Story II: The Next Chapter.

If you’re anything like me, the thought of watching the adventures of Bastian and Atreyu (who I still thought was a hot girl at that point) and their friends continue with updated special effects gave you the first nerd-boner ever. I was super-excited to see the VHS case (Google it) where FALCOR was right on the cover, along with ROCKBITER and…wait, what? OH, GOD, WHAT is that miniature rock person in Rockbiter’s hands?! WHO is that tool riding Falcor, because it’s certainly not Bastian! WHY does the Childlike Empress have the same haircut as Luke Cage/Powerman from Marvel Comics?! WHERE are Teeny Weeny (Unfortunate name for a dude who rides racing snails, by the way) and Night Hob? WHEN did Atreyu become a darker-complexioned DUDE, and what does that mean about my sexuality? (Ignore that last part…)

In any case, the movie was put into the VCR and the watching commenced.

Say what you will about Jonathan Brandis, but he was not Bastian Bux. Not even close. Barret Oliver > Jonathan Brandis, at least in this movie franchise. In fact, every recurring character from the original NeverEnding Story was played by completely different actors…almost none of them good. The ONLY actor returning was Thomas Hill, who played the grumpy bookstore owner; Mr. Koreander.

The story, while it was borrowed from Michael Ende’s novel The NeverEnding Story, completely failed to live up to the first film. There are many glaring problems with the entire structure of the movie and its plot from the get-go.

The movie opens with Bastian making a mess of the kitchen when he hears his dad come home, who is presumably an architect. Is it just me, or does Bastian seem unreasonably terrified that his father is home? The entire time this awkward opening scene is going on there is a weird sitcom-esque song playing in the background. Skipping forward, the film next brings us to Bastian’s school where he is trying out for the swim team. He gets cold feet when he has to jump from a high-rise diving board and not only doesn’t make the team, but gets called a wimp by the coach and then has to come home and tell his disappointed father in person.

Remember when we were talking about how Bastian’s first wish from the first movie was to ride Falcor? You know, the LUCK DRAGON? Who can FLY? Bastian LOVED that in the movie. So now our hero Bastian has discovered, somehow, a fear of heights? HEIGHTS?!?! HEIGHTS?!?! This didn’t exactly sit well with me as a viewer and as a fan of the original movie. So, trying to ignore that major flub, we watch as Bastian steals the book from Mr. Koreander AGAIN after he hears the Childlike Empress calling out from the book for help, and runs home to read it. He enters Fantasia once more where we meet the villains of the film.

Xayide is the head villain and she looks like a cross between Lady Gaga and Jareth the Goblin King from The Labyrinth. Her goal is to stop Bastian from helping the Childlike Empress by causing him to lose one of his memories every time he uses a wish. Really? That’s your plan? Okay…so she sends the most inept of her lackeys to do it. His name is Nimbly, and he is an anthropomorphic bird-person who is the film’s Jar Jar Binks. He is constantly annoying and grating, and fails at his job. In fact, one of the biggest opportunities for him to end Bastian’s intervention is when Bastian first arrives in Fantasia and the two of them are on a boat in a LAKE OF ACID. Nimbly easily could have pushed him overboard, but instead insists that Bastian turn the lake purple, or wish for sugar in it, or wish it to be made of crystal clear spring water, or raise the temperature…or wish that ATREYU WAS A CHICK SO THE SHAME COULD GO AWAY. (Again, ignore that last part) The only other villains are Tri-Face, who is sort of an intel-gathering individual for Xayide…and of course her army of “giants” which look like retarded robots.

So while Nimbly is explaining to Bastian (who apparently has somehow forgotten he can uses wishes in Fantasia) that he can use the medallion called Aurin to make wishes, we suddenly remember that in the previous film, Bastian didn’t need any of that to make wishes. He only needed his will and imagination. This is problem number two.

The film progresses for a while, Nimbly creepily suggesting constant wishes, when the “giants” attack the city Bastian just arrived in. He resists making any wishes but then uses INDIVIDUAL WISHES to create INDIVIDUAL HANDHOLDS/FOOTHOLDS in order to escape. Wow. If that wasn’t enough, the special effects turn out to be horrible and the director decides to use footage of Atreyu riding his horse stolen DIRECTLY from the first movie. To top it off: Do you remember that the force consuming everything in Fantasia was called “The Nothing” in the original movie?  That same force is now re-named “The Emptiness”. Yup, seriously.

I could go on and on about all of the individual inconsistencies and problems with character development and story problems, but you should check out the badness yourself. It’s worth watching, if only to make fun of it with a group of friends. Or to horribly scar yourself mentally and hide under your bed after you see Rockbiter’s baby, “Junior” waddling around like some insane baby from Hell. Or to watch in shock as Bastian MURDERS Atreyu after making a racist comment such as “Why don’t you go back home and play with your buffalo.” Yup. He actually does that and says that. Let us know what you think of the movie in the comments below!

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Hey, remember when I reviewed Ginger Snaps 2: Unleashed and I talked about how great the first film was? Well, since that was the first film in the series, I bet you thought that was where the story began, right? You could not be more wrong. I’m ashamed of how wrong you are.

Clearly the genesis of the Ginger Snaps saga begins with Ginger Snaps Back: The Beginning. I don’t blame you for not knowing that, though, since Ginger Snaps Back was the third part of the trilogy to be released. An honor generally reserved for the final act of a trilogy, the makers of these films decided to give logic the middle finger (in a lot of ways, but we’ll get to that later) and tell the start of the story at the end. If you were told to read the titles of these films in no particular order and then place them in the chronological order of the story, you would probably put Ginger Snaps Back: The Beginning first, since it has the words “The Beginning” right in the damn title. But for those of us who watched the movies as they became available, it got a bit confusing. But after all, in the world of bad movie sequels, confusion springs eternal.

The story of Ginger Snaps Back begins in Canada circa 1815 (seriously) and it centers around two sisters, both named Ginger and Brigitte, both portrayed by Katharine Isabelle and Emily Perkins, respectively. That’s where things start to make no sense (yes, the very start of the film). So, are the sisters from the first film immortals who have lost all memory of being alive in 1815? That would be an interesting twist, but I don’t think that’s what’s happening here. I think it’s more like that episode of The Brady Bunch where Robert Reed and Florence Henderson play dual roles as Mike Brady and Mike’s grandfather Judge Hank and Carol Brady and Carol’s grandmother Connie, respectively.

But I know what you’re thinking. “Did you really just work a Brady Bunch reference into the review of a werewolf movie set in 1815?” Yes. Yes, I did. But if you’re like me, you’re probably also thinking “Wait, if they’re not the same characters, why are their names Brigitte and Ginger? Those could not have been common names in 1815. Not even in Canada.” There’s never an explanation as to how or why the pair of Canadian sisters in the year 2000 are seemingly cloned from a pair of Canadian sisters in the year 1815, names and all, but if you’re able to overlook that bit of insanity, you should be able to focus on the story. Which is also insane.

Ginger and Brigitte find themselves (and their horse) lost in the vast and harsh Canadian wilderness with no reason given as to how they come to be in this situation. They wander the forest without so much as a “Hey, it sucks how we were traveling to far away town to visit family and we got lost and ended up in the woods, huh?” or a “Oh man, this doesn’t look anything like Cupertino. We are definitely lost” until they come across an Indian settlement that has clearly been ravaged by some sort of wild animal. Torn up tepee, blood everywhere. The girls become understandably freaked out, until they notice an elderly Indian woman in a red cape and hood. She talks about her sister being “gone” and holds out a pair of snazzy necklaces made from bird skulls. The sisters put them on and thank the kind old Indian lady, who then says “Kill the boy, or one sister will kill the other.” Ginger and Brigitte respond to this by staring at her blankly, but the horse shows the real wisdom in this scene, by going crazy and galloping off into the woods at full speed. The girls give chase, because no four legged animal alive can outrun a Canadian woman from the 1800s in a foot race, but soon lose the animal when Brigitte gets her leg caught in a bear trap.

Ginger says “Smooth move, Ex-Lax” and runs back to the torn up camp to get help from grandma Red Riding Hood, leaving her sister alone. It’s not until she reaches the camp and finds it empty, that she hears a wolf howl and decides that maybe she shouldn’t have left her sister by herself with a bloody leg. Brigitte is startled when a wolf (not a werewolf, just a wolf, GOT YA!) jumps out and growls at her. It turns out the wolf belongs to the Indian hunter who set the bear trap in the first place and who is now walking toward Brigitte with a hatchet. Brigitte pleads with him to maybe not cut her up today, before Ginger attacks the hunter with a branch. The hunter throws a rope thing at Ginger’s face, knocking her to the ground, and proceeds to remove Brigitte’s leg from his obviously successful woman trap. He rubs something that looks like oregano on her wound and brings them back with him to Fort Bailey, where he acts as a token Indian guide in a fort full of angry white dudes. The front of the fort is protected by the double whammy of a bunch of sharpened wooden spikes jutting out from the ground and a shit ton of crucifixes hanging all over the place. If that wasn’t enough of a red flag, the front door to the fort is also covered in deep claw marks and is stained with what looks like blood. So, party central basically.

Ginger and Brigitte are brought in and shown to the crazy old doctor who performs a test on Brigitte to make sure the leg wound is actually from a bear trap and not from a werewolf’s mouth. Interesting side note: Did you know that if a leech absorbs blood tainted by lycanthropy, it grows into a huge mutated version of itself? Well, now you do. Because that’s the test. If the doctor puts a leech on you and everything is normal, you’re fine. If the doctor puts a leech on you and you scream in agony while the leech grows to three times it’s size, you’re a werewolf. Remember that when you go in for your next check up. Brigitte gets the all clear and they’re invited to stay because, you know, werewolves.

From this point on, the movie is about a group of people trapped in a fort because they are simply too isolated from the rest of the world to go get help or supplies. Every so often, people leave the fort in an attempt to fetch supplies for winter, but no one ever returns. Essential supplies are dwindling, winter is getting colder, and these poor bastards are stuck in a fort in the middle of nowhere with a bunch of werewolves trying to get at them. There is already a werewolf in their midsts, however it’s not who you might think it is. Eventually Ginger gets bitten (just like the first film) and Brigitte spends the rest of the movie trying to come up with a cure (also just like the first film). A bunch of other shit happens, there’s a kid who everyone thinks is dead (but who really isn’t), there’s a prophecy about two sisters, one red, one black (get it? because of their hair? no? okay), there’s even an angry perverted preacher.

The visual effects in all three of these movies are pretty decent, though the acting in the later two leaves a bit to be desired (with the exception of both Katharine Isabelle and Emily Perkins, who do a bang-up job as Ginger and Brigitte throughout the trilogy), and I enjoyed the fact that this movie packed a bit more action (in regards to scenes of the werewolves actually attacking shit and being werewolves). I like to think that if this was a stand-alone movie with no connections to anything else, I might have enjoyed it more. The idea behind it, a secluded fort full of people with dwindling supplies being harassed by werewolves every night, is not all that bad. The execution of this idea isn’t even that bad, to be honest, but as with Ginger Snaps 2: Unleashed, it all comes down to how disappointing the film is when viewed as part of the bigger trilogy. The first Ginger Snaps needed no sequel, it certainly didn’t need a prequel set in 1815, but even so, if they had done more to tie all three movies together into a larger (read: more important) story, then it could have been a neat series of films. But as it stands, it’s one genuinely good and unique werewolf movie, then two other werewolf movies that have the same actors playing the same people but, story-wise, have very little to add, or really to do at all, with the original film.

If a person with no prior knowledge of the other films came across Ginger Snaps Back: The Beginning on the SyFy channel or something late one night, they might get a kick out of it in some ways (and they might be completely confused in other ways).

After watching both the sequel and this prequel to Ginger Snaps, all it does is prove my point: A truly good werewolf movie only comes along once in a (full) blue moon.

Let me start off by saying that I consider myself to be a bit of a werewolf movie aficionado. I can’t claim to have seen every werewolf movie ever made, but I have seen a lot of them, and I’ve found that they can be separated into three categories:

1: Exceptional These are rare. In fact, I can only think of a handful that I would consider putting into this category. The original 1941 Universal The Wolfman (Lon Chaney Jr.) and 1981′s An American Werewolf in London (still my favorite John Landis film, sorry Animal House and Blues Brothers) are definitely on this list. I’d like to put The Howling (also from 1981, it featured special effects wizard Rick Baker as a consultant. Baker, of course, won the Academy Award for his make up work in An American Werewolf in London) in this category, but I fear it might be for sentimental reasons.

2: Good A slightly wider selection of movies for a much more subjective rating. Silver Bullet, Dog Soldiers, et cetera.

3: God Awful The largest number of werewolf movies seem to fit into this category. Jesus, there’s so many truly terrible werewolf movies. So many, in fact, that I can’t even pick two to list here to show you how bad they really are. Seriously. Wait, no, I’d have to go with Big Bad Wolf as being a part of this category because it has a talking werewolf. A talking god damn werewolf.

I first saw Ginger Snaps on a seemingly worn out VHS tape that I’d rented from my local Hollywood Video (video store, kids. go ask your parents). “Oh, a werewolf movie I haven’t seen? And it has attractive Canadian women in it? HERE’S MY MEMBERSHIP CARD, TAKE MY MONEY PLEASE!” I thought. I got it home, tossed it in the player, adjusted the tracking several times (again, ask your parents) and once the picture wasn’t all over the place, I was pleasantly surprised.

Ginger Snaps is one of those unique werewolf movies that uses lycanthropy as a metaphor for something else. Don’t misunderstand me, the use of lycanthropy as a metaphor is not what makes this film unique, it’s that the film pulls it off and makes it interesting. The first Ginger Snaps film uses the transition from human to werewolf to mirror puberty and the transition from girlhood to womanhood (I’ll never forget the day I became a woman, wait, what?). The transformation takes place slowly and throughout the film, as the character of Bridget watches her sister Ginger slowly slip away from her. Bridget fights back against the wolf by trying to cure her sister before the transition is complete, but since there are not one but TWO sequels, you can probably guess that it doesn’t work out so well for her. Surprisingly good acting (Canadians!) coupled with solid writing and some pretty decent make up effects make Ginger Snaps the sort of stand-alone werewolf movie a guy like me can truly appreciate.

But again, we wouldn’t be here if Ginger Snaps was a stand-alone movie, now would we?

Enter Ginger Snaps 2: Unleashed (Subtitle: get it? Unleashed? like, a dog on a leash, but it’s off the leash because it’s not a dog it’s a WEREWOLF! get it? guys?).

In regard to werewolf movies in general, Ginger Snaps 2: Unleashed is not that bad. I mean, it is, but there are way worse movies out there (including a prequel to the first Ginger Snaps, but that’s another review entirely and yes, it’s coming soon). It’s just a really disappointing follow-up to a smart and interesting film like the first Ginger Snaps.

Brigitte failed to save Ginger at the end of the first film and not only that, but she injects the lycanthropy directly into her (science!). This means that the slow and painful transformation from human to werewolf that Brigitte witnessed her sister go through is now happening to her. Luckily, Brigitte has the research and samples of monkshood that she gathered through the course of the first film, to help her cure herself (and others, if need be). But it’s not enough and so she raids the local library (presumably to check out “Curing Lycanthropy For Dummies”), where she is hit on by Jeremy the Librarian. She ignores his advances and leaves when he tells her how much she owes in late fees.

Her search for a cure would be so much easier if A: She wasn’t on the run from an unknown male werewolf that wants to get it on with her (presumably doggy-style, am I right? I’m so sorry) and B: She wasn’t plagued by the ghost/hallucination of her dead sister who constantly mocks her attempts at curing the disease that killed her. Brigitte’s life pretty much sucks right now, guys.

She injects the monkshood (wolfsbane) into her system the same way a junkie shoots up with heroin, but she learns that it’s not enough to cure the disease, only stave off the transformation for a while. Deciding that “If a little is good, then a bunch must be better!” (again, junkie mentality) she injects herself with a lot of monkshood. What should be a deadly dose. It’s after she injects herself with a shit ton of this anti-werewolf juice that she sniffs out the presence of the male werewolf that has been pursuing her (I hate it when that happens). Still reeling from the huge dose of monkshood she just shoved into her veins, she opens the door to confront… Jeremy the Librarian! He just came to Bridget’s motel room to say hi, in a non-creepy stalker way, but instead finds Brigitte has overdosed on something in a tiny syringe. Oh no! Jeremy, being the upstanding guy he is (he’s a librarian, dammit), helps Brigitte to his car and tells her he’ll take her to the hospital. And I’m sure he would have, too, if a giant horny male werewolf didn’t smash into the car and eat him. A rather woozy Brigitte climbs out of the car and staggers a ways down the road before collapsing into the snow. The male werewolf is apparently also a gentleman werewolf, as he does not take advantage of the passed out young lady werewolf.

Brigitte wakes up in a rehabilitation clinic for young women who do things like overdose on mysterious drugs and pass out in the snow. She makes every attempt to explain to the staff that she needs to leave soon or she will turn into a monster and eat them all, but for some reason they don’t take that news well and she’s committed until further notice. While in this One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest style home for wayward crazy chicks, she meets Ghost. Ghost is a young girl who is obsessed with death and comic books (who isn’t?) and who learns of Bridget’s horrible secret.

So, we have a young woman who is slowly turning into a bloodthirsty beast, a horny werewolf on the prowl tracking her, and a mental hospital full of seemingly innocent patients who are trapped with her in their midst. Sounds like a fun time, right? The movie snowballs from here and a lot of weird things happen. People get eaten, people have sex with other people in order to illegally obtain drugs, Brigitte hallucinates that her entire crazy chick yoga class is really a big masturbation club (seriously). You know, the sort of things that happen in all werewolf movies.

I list this one as another of those sequels that, while I fully acknowledge how bad it is, I still really enjoy. I don’t know why or how, but for some reason, this disappointing sequel is still a fun viewing experience for me. As a fan of the original Ginger Snaps, I can’t say this is a satisfying follow-up, but as I said before, at least it doesn’t have a talking god damn werewolf in it.