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From A Tempting 'Hood,' A Colorfully Overheated Tale
Ella Taylor
Babe In The Woods: Amanda Seyfried's young Red — her name turns out to be Valerie, who knew? — is a sloe-eyed young vixen with appetites every bit as carnal as that notorious wolf's. Kimberly French/Warner Bros. Pictures hide caption
Red Riding Hood
- Director: Catherine Hardwicke
- Genre: Fantasy, Horror
- Running Time: 100 of the longest minutes in cinema history
Rated PG-13 for violence and creature terror, and some sensuality
With: Amanda Seyfried, Gary Oldman, Billy Burke, Shiloh Fernandez, Max Irons, Virginia Madsen, Lukas Haas, Julie Christie
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'The Wolf Lives Here'
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Credit: Warner Bros.
Credit: Warner Bros. Pictures
'Don't Come Near Me'
Depending on who's talking, director Catherine Hardwicke was either fired from the sequel to her moneymaking launch of the Twilight franchise, or she chose to walk away. Either way Hardwicke, a talented, brassy filmmaker not known for her chick-flick sensibility, remained determined to make her own bloody movie — in every sense of the word. The result is the transcendently awful Red Riding Hood . This is Hardwicke's Twilight Part Deux , and to hell with the Brothers Grimm — it's all about the gore.
Not that the world's most analyzed folk tale isn't fair game for multiple readings, and as it happens, one widely accepted interpretation is that Red Riding Hood is a rite-of-passage parable about menstruation, with a wolverine rape fantasy tucked in for good measure. That's not Hardwicke's racket, though either conceit would be a perfect fit for a movie that oozes red, from the crimson cloak of the titular medieval maid played by Amanda Seyfried — Kristen Stewart being busy, I'm not kidding, doing Snow White — to the blood-hued moon that keeps gliding out from the clouds. And then of course there's the scarlet stuff flowing from the dead bodies of sundry villagers, each selected for a fatal bite from our lupine friend, a scrofulous beastie with red-rimmed eyes and what appears to be a severe case of the mange.
Lest he miss the supernatural bandwagon, Wolf comes fashionably retooled here as were- Wolf. Far from confining himself to stalking caped virgins in the forest, the beast lopes boldly into town (a row of scenic little Swiss chalets borrowed from the set of Heidi ) and sinks his molars into innocent bystanders, most of them with suspicious connections to Little Red. (And what was that girl doing anyway, menacing a cute white bunny with a knife in the opening scenes?)
Grim hints of family dysfunction abound: There's a troublesome edge to Grandmother, played with eyebrows appropriately raised by Julie Christie. Papa ( Twilight 's Billy Burke) is an unhelpful role model; Mother (Virginia Madsen) is a bit of a social climber who warns her daughter's low-born suitor — in the marvelous mashup of faux-feudal and Hollywood modern that passes for dialogue in this movie — that "I know what a woodcutter earns. If you love her you'll let her go."
Lest you suspect Hardwicke of being anti-girl, she glues on a Feminist Moment, in which the village women band together to protect their community, followed by an Existential Moment, in which we are invited to consider that there might be a touch of wolf in us all.
Beef, Meet Cake: Max Irons and Shiloh Fernandez are Henry and Peter — now stop that eye-rolling — one of whom may be a wolf. Kimberly French/Warner Bros. Pictures hide caption
Beef, Meet Cake: Max Irons and Shiloh Fernandez are Henry and Peter — now stop that eye-rolling — one of whom may be a wolf.
Not that there's anything wrong with that, as the two teenage girls in whose custody I saw the film explained, when I asked them what they thought all the blather was about. Red Riding Hood , they told me kindly but firmly, is a Twilight romance by any other name, and all attempts at plot, theme or character merest ballast. (Come to think of it, what brings Gary Oldman into the picture in that terribly purple cassock, waving his arms and gassing on about family duty?)
The girls had it right. RRH is all about Red being fought over by two hotties — Max Irons and Shiloh Fernandez, leading with their muscled chests and their hair gel. One of them will turn out to have the blood of a wild beast coursing through his veins, thus creating a dilemma for Red about whether to share bodily fluids.
Sound familiar? In sync with Stephenie Meyer and the Motion Picture Association of America, Hardwicke is far more jazzed by violence than she is by sex. Blood flows freely, cutting a fine contrast against pure white snow. Severed limbs lie demurely on the ground like outtakes from Monty Python and the Holy Grail . And there's some mild torture porn involving a metal elephant and, for poor Red, an iron mask of shame with donkey ears.
Expect no rolls in the hay, though; the female flesh is willing, but the manly spirit is prim. "I'll wait for you," sighs Red to her heroically abstaining lupine lover, wistful renunciation shining from her moistening eyes.
Oh please, I beg you, no sequel.
- Cast & crew
- User reviews
Red Riding Hood
Set in a medieval village that is haunted by a werewolf, a young girl falls for an orphaned woodcutter, much to her family's displeasure. Set in a medieval village that is haunted by a werewolf, a young girl falls for an orphaned woodcutter, much to her family's displeasure. Set in a medieval village that is haunted by a werewolf, a young girl falls for an orphaned woodcutter, much to her family's displeasure.
- Catherine Hardwicke
- David Leslie Johnson-McGoldrick
- Amanda Seyfried
- Gary Oldman
- 356 User reviews
- 299 Critic reviews
- 29 Metascore
- 5 nominations
Top cast 44
- Father Auguste
- Grandmother
- Madame Lazar
- Adrien Lazar
- Tavern Owner
- Captain's Brother
- All cast & crew
- Production, box office & more at IMDbPro
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- Trivia Amanda Seyfried had a bad experience with Shiloh Fernandez at a dinner party, so Catherine Hardwicke had to persuade the actress to give him a chance.
- Goofs As this village is small and poor, there is no way all of the villagers would be able to afford to put glass in every window. In the middle ages glass windows were expensive and usually only the rich could afford them. Poor villagers would have normally used dried animal skins scraped very thin to block a window and allow some light into a house.
Valerie : I'll do anything to be with you.
Peter : I thought you'd say that.
- Crazy credits After the credits a werewolf suddenly appears and lunges at the camera
- Alternate versions There is an alternate cut of the film that is twenty six seconds longer.
- Connections Featured in Conan: Seven Salads for Seven Brothers Who Are Sexually Attracted to Salads (2011)
- Soundtracks Towers Of The Void Written and Produced by Anthony Gonzalez and Brian Reitzell
User reviews 356
Tries to be too many things all at once.
- TheLittleSongbird
- Apr 15, 2011
- How long is Red Riding Hood? Powered by Alexa
- What is 'Red Riding Hood' about?
- Is 'Red Riding Hood' based on a book?
- Is the script available online?
- March 11, 2011 (United States)
- United States
- Warner Bros. (Spain)
- Warner Bros. (Japan)
- La chica de la capa roja
- Canadian Motion Picture Park Studios - 8085 Glenwood Drive, Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada
- Warner Bros.
- See more company credits at IMDbPro
- $42,000,000 (estimated)
- $37,662,162
- $14,005,335
- Mar 13, 2011
- $90,260,376
- Runtime 1 hour 40 minutes
- Dolby Digital
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