There should be a rule that direct-to-video horror movie sequels will suck and should never be made. But even though the bargain bin at your local Wal-Mart is filled with cast-off sequels to “Wishmaster” and “The Lost Boys,” it may be a good thing such a rule is not in effect.

If the rule was in place, we would have never had gotten “Ginger Snaps II: Unleashed,” the sequel to 2000′s Canadian werewolf thriller.

The original “Ginger Snaps” was made on a meager budget but was a tongue-in-cheek horror movie equipped with bloody effects and a dark sense of humor. The sequel is a flashy, high-octane follow-up that even comes close to surpassing the original in some ways.

The ending of “Ginger Snaps” found Brigitte (Emily Perkins) on the killing end of a knife plunged into her sister’s heart. Ginger (Katharine Isabelle), Brigitte’s sister, had been bitten by a werewolf and was promptly transformed into a full-fledged beast of the night. With no alternative left, Brigitte was forced to end her sister’s curse the only way she knew — by killing her.

“Ginger Snaps II” picks up with Brigitte on the run from her past. Now infected with the curse herself, Brigitte must counteract every night’s gradual change with a dose of monk’s hood, a plant with the power to halt her transformation when taken intravenously.

The problem is, another werewolf is on her trail, hoping to mate.

After being attacked by the werewolf, Brigitte is picked up by the local authorities and mistakenly put into a drug rehabilitation center thanks to the empty syringes found near her. Trapped without her tonic, Brigitte finds herself feeling the pull of the curse stronger with each passing day.

From the first scene, fans of the “Ginger Snaps” will realize they have a whole new creature on their hands. The original films’s intimate directing style, which utilized a decidable lack of complicated camera tricks, has been replaced with a flash-and-awe editing style witch long, sweeping camera arcs.

All the camera tricks in the world can’t protect a film from bad acting, though. It’s a good thing “Ginger Snaps II” features an adequate array of actors and actresses. Perkins easily carries the film’s weight on her shoulders.

Unfortunately, the film’s producers felt the need to replace the character’s original moody attire (think MTV’s “Daria”) with sexier clothing, complete with midriff-baring tops. While this is not necessarily a bad thing, it is completely out of character for this particular werewolf on the loose. Fortunately, Perkins compenstates for the wardrobe choice smoothly by adding depth and maturity to her character unforeseen in the previous movie.

What sets “Ginger Snaps II” apart from the previous installment is the complete lack of innocence in the movie. While the original movie took place in a suburb that reeked of normalcy, the majority of the action in the sequel takes place in a clinic where everybody has a secret.

From the orderly who trades fixes of other patients’ addictions in exchange for his own sexual pleasure to the unusual and eerie quirks of the patients themselves, everybody has a hidden agenda. The film is a bleak and uncompromising horror flick that rises above the mediocrity of its predecessor.

It easily improves upon the original’s clumsy effects. The transformation prosthetics are subdued and more realistic. The final werewolf is wisely hidden in the shadows for most of the movie. Instead of presenting blood and guts eye candy, the director utilizes lighting and mood to convey growing terror. Plus, the wolf actually looks like a wolf in this movie as compared to the original’s hairless rat.

“Ginger Snaps II” meets every expectation set by the original film and even manages to improve on the original in some ways. With its dismal tone and unhappy ending, “Ginger Snaps II” is not for everybody. Fans of intelligent horror, though, should not pass up the opportunity to watch this surprisingly good sequel.

Metacritic Score: 48 out of 100

Rotten Tomatoes Score: 47 out of 100

IMDB Score: 6.1 out of 10

Before there was “The OC” or “Laguna Beach,” there was “Orange County.”

Whatever happened to Colin Hanks. I thought he showed a lot of promise.

A film in the highly lucrative “rich white kids with problems” genre, “Orange County” starred Tom Hanks’ son, Colin Hanks, as a rich white kid with problems.

When he is not admitted into Stanford due to a clerical error caused by his school’s guidance counselor, high school senior Shaun Brumder (Hanks) sets out to correct the mistake by undertaking a madcap-filled road trip with his girlfriend (played by Schuyler Fisk, the daughter of Sissy Spacek) and his older brother (played by Jack Black).

Like most Hollywood movies about young people facing turmoil, “Orange County” treads in easily-solved issues centered around social identity, detached parents and the greatest teen movie plot device since unrequited love for a cheerleader: academics.

But instead of getting assistance from Edward James Olmos, the educational hero of young inner city movie characters everywhere, Hanks has to rely on Jack Black as his sidekick.

Because this is an MTV movie, there’s a great alt-rock soundtrack, tons of pretty people and lots of drug references. Unfortunately, neither the yet-untapped majesty of Jack Black nor the combined might of two Hollywood spawn were able to completely save “Orange County” from the weight of teen movie clichés.

“Orange County” is not a bad film by any stretch of the imagination. All of the main actors are enjoyable in their roles and the lengthy list of cameos from comedy legends help support the film’s laugh-ratio.

Unfortunately, the film does not play as well for me now as it did when I first watched it as a high school junior.

It’s not the film’s fault, though. It’s me.

Back in high school, with the world’s possibilities laid out at my feet, “Orange County” spoke to the part of me who was still convinced that I could do anything if I set my heart to it. I identified with Hank’s character, a wannabe writer. I even learned a valuable lesson from the film — it doesn’t matter where you do what you do, as long as you keep doing it.

This movie-inspired lesson was a major factor in deciding where to go to school and what to study.

Now, looking back at the film seven years of disappointment later, I see the movie with a cynic’s eyes. While the movie’s lesson is no less valid, I grew angry with myself for having not actually learned the lesson I thought I did.

I wanted to be a filmmaker when I was in high school. When I realized I was not going to convince my parents to support me through film school, I told myself that I would continue to hone my craft while I went through business school. Just because I didn’t get a formal education in film didn’t mean I couldn’t pursue my dreams.

After high school, though, I only picked up a camera one more time. With school, a job and new friends tugging at my time, I made a conscious choice to leave my dreams of being a film director behind along with my high school locker combination and my letterman jacket, all trappings of a life I no longer led.

I betrayed my dreams of being a filmmaker and “Orange County” just served to remind me of this fact. Thanks a bunch, jerks.

My complaints mostly come out at night. Mostly.

Wolf Man and Frankenstein. King Kong and Godzilla. Jason and Freddy. There are some people that, if put in a room together, just can’t seem to hold hands and get along.

Case in point: Alien and Predator, the Tom and Jerry of the extraterrestrial set, continue their fight on Earth in Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem. For those looking for a little Alien on Predator action to spice up their Saturday night, I would very much like to recommend the sequel to 2004’s Alien vs. Predator. In fact, I would love nothing more than to recommend the film, but I just can’t bring myself to do it. I would feel too dirty.

Like a fool, I had high expectations to the second film that would attempt to combine two of my favorite franchises. After Peanut Butter and Jelly: The Motion Picture, there have never been two icons better suited for a crossover movie then Xenomorphs (Aliens for those not in the know) and Predators. Even though the first film was a failure, the idea behind it was still solid. Surely, I thought, Requiem couldn’t be as disappointing a film as Paul W.S. Anderson’s initial offering.

Anderson’s film had been like going on a date with a really hot girl from school, discovering that inside her pretty little head was nothing more then cotton candy and asbestos, excusing yourself in the middle of the date to go the restroom with the intent of ditching her only to be captured by pirates and sold as a slave to space monkeys.

Requiem, on the other hand, is like escaping from space monkey slavery only to find yourself performing a non-paid internship as a flight attendant on Space Lord Xenu’s galactic Douglas DC-8 — a real frying pan into the thetan-fueled fire scenario.

It’s hard to put my finger on just what was so disappointing about Requiem. I really would need to use several fingers. Maybe even a thumb. Cookie-cutter characters that would fail to register sympathy from a priest bounced off of a paper-thin plot that did the Macarena over all the rules and logic that had been established by the previous films in the franchises.

A lackluster ending was just the rotten cherry on the ice cream sundae for this lactose-intolerant movie fan. The film, in the end, served as a requiem for any dream I may have had for a quality Alien vs. Predator film.

But, like a Lifetime channel original movie character, I will keep returning to the lover that continuously dishes out pain. Even though I should have learned better by now, I will be first in line for tickets to Aliens vs. Predator 3: In Space, No One Can Here You Complain.

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Will Ferrell loves him some athletics.

Fostering a filmography that looks more like a gym class lesson plan, Ferrell has already endeared himself to the ESPN crowd with films such as the NACAR-themed Talladega Nights (brief aside: can any activity where the main challenge is turning left actually be considered a sport?) and Blades of Glory.

Last year (when this column was originally published) Semi-Pro was releaseded in theaters, further cementing Will Ferrell’s monopoly on sports-themed comedies — a monopoly that can only be challenged by Air Bud. Ferrell’s films are just the tip of the iceberg that is recent sports comedies. While sports movies have always had a strong presence in Hollywood, the genre’s recent excess has driven writers to mine some pretty strange arenas in search for original ideas.

In the past few years, we’ve seen movies based on ping-pong, dodgeball, Mexican wrestling and competitive beer drinking. While it may seem as if there are no more sports left to laugh at, there is no need to fret. As long as there is dead-air to fill on ESPN, there will always be new sports to be invented. Here are a few sports just waiting to be made into a Will Ferrell movie.

Freeze Tag

Almost everybody remembers playing freeze tag on the playground. Those that don’t remember playing the game, remember crying when they were told by the popular kids that they couldn’t play because they smelled funny. Freeze tag, for those either smelly or out of the loop, is a variation of tag, a game that involves a person or persons who are “it” and must “tag” other players. In freeze tag, players who have been tagged must remain frozen until they are freed by another member of their team. While there has not been a movie that deals specifically with the competitive world of freeze tag, the game of tag can be seen as a basis for countless horror movies where instead of somebody being “it,” they are a masked killer with a machete and instead of “tagging” players, they brutally slaughter people in some ironic way.

Combat Robots

As our country gets more and more obese, we will begin to rely more on building things to do our sports for us. Robot combat, a gladiator-style death match between two or more man-operated machines, has been made famous by such late-night shows such as Battlebots and Robot Wars. In a typical match, glorified RC cars are pitted against each other in a game of “who can destroy each other’s hard work first.” These are no ordinary robots, though. They have been outfitted with blades, buzz saws, pinchers and battering rams. While some may find it entertaining to watch machines poke each other with sharp implements, this is worst possible thing for humanity to be participating in. Strapping weapons on a vacuum cleaner brings us that much closer to SkyNet’s rise to power. When battlebot designers find themselves being turned into a battery by their toaster oven, I just hope they enjoyed their little hobby.

Live-Action Role-Playing

If there is any group training to be future defenders against a machine uprising, its live-action role-players, or LARPers for short. A LARPer is a rare-breed of warrior who wages war in the battlefield of their imagination. Constructing weaponry and armor from ingredients that can be bought at Hobby Lobby, these weekend warriors adopt the make-believe persona of fantasy figures — using what Mr. Roger taught them to turn city parks into a battle for Middle-Earth. Using a fairly complex point system that I have neither the space to explain nor the inclination to pretend to understand, LARPers strike each other with fake swords, maces and other hand-crafted weapons in a cross between fencing and Cowboys and Indians. For an engrossing movie on the subject, check out Darkon, a documentary that explores two rival LARPers.

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