Red Riding Hood

Plot synopsis:
Set during a cold winter in a snow-covered forest during an undeterminate year of the Medivel times, Valerie (Amanda Seyfried) is a young woman living in the small village of Daggerhorn. She is in love with the woodcutter Peter (Shiloh Fernandez), but her parents Cesaire (Billy Burke) and Suzette (Virginia Madsen) have promised wealthy blacksmith Adrian Lazar (Michael Shanks) that Valerie will marry his son Henry (Max Irons) hoping Valerie will marry into wealth so she and they can live off Lazar's money.Valerie plans to run away with Peter, but their plans are put on hold when the town sirens erupt, telling the couple that the werewolf who terrorizes their village has struck again. On closer inspection of the victim (found among a field of haystacks), it is found to be Lucy, Valerie's older sister. The townspeople offer a monthly sacrifice to the beast and stay away from the woods but Lucy ventured there after discovering that Valerie had been promised in engagement to Henry, whom Lucy loved.Adrian, Henry, Peter, Cesaire, and the other men venture out into the woods to a mountain cave hunt the Wolf. Against Henry's protest, the group splits into two groups and Henry and his father are attacked. The others manage to behead the wolf, but it kills Adrian in the process. The men bring back the head of a common gray wolf, thinking it is the one that has been terrorizing the village.Valerie sees Suzette crying over Adrian's body and confronts her. Suzette admits that she and Adrian once had an affair and that Lucy is actually his daughter as well as Henry's half-sister. This is the reason why she could not be offered to him. Valerie also learns that Cesaire is seemingly unaware of this.The townspeople decide to celebrate the death of the wolf, but their preparations are interrupted by the arrival of famous witch hunter Father Solomon (Gary Oldman), who reveals that the townspeople did not slaughter the real Wolf because it would have changed back into its human form if they did. Solomon knows this because he killed a Wolf and cut off its paw, which changed into the hand of his wife. Solomon also informs them that during a "blood moon" (when the red planet aligns with the moon), anyone who is bitten by the Wolf will become one.Still, the townspeople decide to celebrate. But the festivities are interrupted by the arrival of the real Wolf, who in a rampage kills several people. Valerie and her friend Roxanne (Shauna Kain) are cornered by the Wolf while attempting to get to the safety of the church's hallowed ground. The Wolf then begins growling at Valerie and Roxanne; much to her surprise, Valerie is able to understand the Wolf, and gazing into its deep brown human eyes, is able to communicate with it, as her friend looks on in terror. The Wolf says that they are the same, both killers, and tells Valerie they should run away from the village together.When the two arrive back at the village it is shown that one of Father Solomon's guard is still alive, though he has been bitten by the Wolf. Father Solomon kills the guard in an attempt to save the town from yet another werewolf.Peter comes to Valerie at night and says that they must run away immediately, but she refuses. Valerie's mother has been scratched by the Wolf and is being tended over by her grandmother (Julie Christie). Valerie tells her grandmother that the Wolf spoke to her and chose not to kill her.The following day, Henry tells Valerie that he saw her together with Peter. He is going to break off their engagement because he does not want to force her to marry him.Father Solomon arrests Roxanne's autistic brother, believing him to be an accomplice of the Wolf because of his behaviour during and after the attack. Father Solomon has him tortured for refusing to name the beast. Roxanne attempts to negotiate for her brother's release by offering money and sex. When that fails, she tells the priest that Valerie can communicate with the Wolf. When confronted, Valerie admits that the Wolf spoke to her. When Valerie can not tell them who the Wolf is, Solomon arrests her to use her as bait to lure the Wolf from hiding. Peter and Henry agree to work together to track down the Wolf and save Valerie.When Roxanne is brought to her brother, she finds him already dead.Valerie's grandmother brings Valerie bread and a knife in prison. Valerie tells her that when Lucy found out about her engagement to Henry, she gave herself to the Wolf but her grandmother denies this.Valerie's grandmother brings Henry some biscuits to thank him for speaking up in Valerie's defence. Then she accuses Henry of being Wolf, and says that Lucy followed him into the woods where he killed her. Henry then recognizes her smell from the night that his father was killed by the Wolf and accused her of being the Wolf.Cesaire is imprisoned to prevent him from interfering with the plan to lure the Wolf to Valerie. A mask is put on Valerie as she is marched through the village and tied up wearing the red cloak given to her by her grandmother. Peter and Henry launch their rescue. While Henry frees Valerie's arms from some chains, Peter sets afire the tower from which Father Solomon is overseeing the action. Peter is caught and imprisoned in the torture device which killed Roxanne's brother. Father Solomon's men chase the fleeing Valerie and Henry and Henry is shot with a crossbow. The Wolf appears and attacks Solomon and his men. He bites off Father Solomon's hand. Valerie agrees to go away with the Wolf if he promises to leave the village alone. Roxanne and the other women shield Valerie from the Wolf until the sun rises and he must run away. As it is the blood moon, Father Solomon is wolfbitten and cursed, and he is executed by his vengeful chief guard (who is the brother of the guard who was bitten and killed by Solomon).Meanwhile, Valerie has a dream that her grandmother who lives in a cabin in the woods near the village and also has very brown eyes, is the Wolf. Valerie sets off for her grandmother's house, stopping at the chapel on her way out of the village, and putting Father Solomon's severed hand in her basket. Henry tells her that he is going after the wolf while its tracks are still fresh and informs her that Peter is missing. In the woods, Valerie meets Peter, who is wearing a glove. He says he escaped from the torture device, but believing him to be the Wolf attempting to hide his burned paw, Valerie slashes him with a knife. She flees to her grandmother's house.When Valerie arrives, it seems as though her grandmother is acting strangely, hiding in her curtained bedchamber while she talks to her granddaughter. It is then revealed that the Wolf was neither Peter nor Valerie's grandmother, but her father Cesaire: he pulls back the curtains and strides into the main room. He has killed her grandmother. Cesaire explains to Valerie that he wanted to leave the village and go to the city. He wanted to bring someone to whom he can pass on his gift. He originally intended for it to be Lucy, however once she saw him, she remained frightened; revealing that she could not understand him. Any offspring of a Wolf would have been able to understand its language. Therefore Cesaire realized that his wife had an affair and Lucy was not his daughter. Acting out of rage, Cesaire killed Lucy. Cesaire now wants Valerie to come with him and carry on the Wolf lineage.As Cesaire is about to bite Valerie, Peter arrives to save her. Cesaire bites Peter in the ensuing struggle, but is killed by Valerie who stabs him with the nails of Solomon's hand which are made of silver. Valerie and Peter dispose of Cesaire's body by filling him with rocks and dumping him into a nearby lake. Peter, fully aware that he is cursed, retreats to the wilderness in order to learn how to control his power. Valerie tells him she will wait for him.Valerie chooses to remain living in her grandmother's house. A couple of years later, as Valerie picks some plants, she hears a sound. Looking up, she sees the Wolf, Peter now. She smiles as they reunite. The final shots are of Valerie in the red cloak walking on a snow-capped mountain with Peter.

Tags: mystery, fantasy, gothic, murder, cult, romantic

Review:
You'd be hard pressed to find a better example of a film ruined by trying to be too many things to too many people than Red Riding Hood, which opens Friday and, by all rights, should close Saturday.The most obvious audience Hood hopes to attract is fans of the Twilight film series, snagging the director of the first film, Catherine Hardwicke, and refashioning the Little Red Riding Hood folk tale into, in a remarkably halfhearted way, a love triangle between three extraordinarily uninteresting characters.
The Big Bad Wolf is indeed a werewolf, and our sweet little Red (named Valerie, played by Amanda Seyfried) has to figure out which of her fellow villagers turns into a beast when the moon is full.
Seyfried's pristine, alabaster skin and enormous eyes give Red just the right look, but every time she opens her mouth you're begging for that werewolf to put her out of our misery.To be fair, no actor could be expected to excel given the cheesy dialogue and Hardwicke's uninspired direction; solid veterans such as Virginia Madsen, Julie Christie and Lukas Haas struggle to make an impression, with Christie holding up the best.
He's acting in an entirely different movie, a Sam Raimi romp like Army of Darkness or Drag Me to Hell, and Red Riding Hood briefly becomes almost fun during Oldman's most animated scenes.The film doesn't even look that great in a technical sense: The exteriors look fake, all clearly shot on soundstages, and not fake in an intentional "this is a dreamy heightened reality, because this is a folk tale" way.
They look fake in a "we really suck at our jobs" way.Red Riding Hood is pretending to be a darker, more adult take on the folk tale, but it's hardly the first: Neil Jordan mined the territory in 1984 with the R-rated The Company of Wolves, focusing more on sexual metaphors and heavy werewolf action.
I guess I'm as bored summarizing the plot of the movie as I was watching the actual movie.First of all, Amanda Seyfried makes an attractive fit for the role of Valerie, and the production design of the film is interesting, but that's as close to complimentary as I'm going with this movie.Director Catherine Hardwicke really has trouble keeping an even sense of rhythm, and the cast is a serious disappointment.
And Virginia Madsen just awful here as well, and is over-acting Billy Burke In short Red Riding Hood is a film that has plenty of promise, but sadly doesn't live up to it.
This is a very flabby-footed, self-delusional mess of a movie that succeeds in making even the great Gary Oldman look as unnatural in his performance as Steven Seagal."Red Riding Hood" suffers from a poorly-constructed screenplay, one that seems was written within a handful of days and not given a single second of revision.
I am not a fan of the Twilight movies(the first of which Catherine Hardwicke also directed) and it didn't look like my kind of film.
Amanda Seyfried is pretty but bland in the title role and shows little or no chemistry with her co-stars, while Max Irons(son of Jeremy), Lukas Haas and Shiloh Fernandez show good looks but awkward line delivery.
I let my friends talk me into seeing this film with them because I think Amanda Seyfried is adorable and I had high hopes that this supposedly adult re-imagining of a children's folk tale would be entertaining in the same aspect of Tim Burton's Sleepy Hollow...how disappointed I was.The acting was so corny and so ridiculous although I can't help but feel that it's not entirely the fault of the actors, but the director.
Amanda Seyfried, Shiloh Fernandez, Max Irons and the excellent Gary Oldman acted brilliantly in the film, and the effects for the Werewolf were pretty fantastic as well.
I really cannot understand why this movie received such awful ratings.As soon as I found out Leonardo DiCaprio was the producer of this movie I knew I had to watch it, because he never signs his name to an inferior film.The movie was thrilling and truly kept you guessing to the very end, with just the right amount of action, suspense, and romance, making it appealing to all types of movie watchers.However,the romantic elements of the film didn't overshadow the suspense, which made for a very well rounded movie.Red Riding Hood was an intriguing movie that I would recommend to all who are thinking about watching it.Don't let the negative reviews convince you otherwise!You really would be missing out on a good movie..
It is a really good spin to the classic "Red Riding Hood" tale, and I love how the writers incorporate a lot of the details from the story into the movie.
Many people know that the most common children's' tales, especially those from the likes of the brothers Grimm, started out as scary, violent, and unpleasant, but have evolved over time, being toned down with each generation, until they are just a shadow of what they used to be, no teeth, no claws, just innocent & sugary sweet stories with little heart and too much nostalgia.Considering this, you'd have thought writing a good script for any movie based on a fairytale would be a piece of cake.
For a start, they stripped the story down to the raw ingredients: (Pretty girl with a red cloak, a wolf, a grandmother, a forest), stuck in a whole load of other characters that serve little purpose to the storyline, added a love triangle and a baddie, then suddenly remembered that this was supposed to be a horror film, so they made the wolf into a WEREwolf.OK, so it's difficult to spin the tale out to a 100 minute long storyline, but it would have been more entertaining to have just seen Valerie walk in the woods for 80 minutes, and the remaining 20 minutes to be filled with the encounter etc.
It was very stylishly shot, and Gary Oldman's presence made the movie slightly more entertaining, but not enough to rescue this movie.Unfortunately, it is one for the Twilight generation - a bunch of very pretty boy & girl actors who affect unfocused glassy-eyed expressions to try to convey 'Wisdom beyond their years', and a storyline that was borrowed from a Mills & Boon novella & forced into a mould that didn't quite fit..
Why all this topic most of the phrases given are old cliché's that apparently never get old, I could almost recite what the actors were going to say before they said it half the time.Now to be fair the premise for this is actually rather pleasant, it takes the Red Riding Hood story and kind of twists it around a bit.
Let's put it this way when you're out acted by a computer generated wolf there is something wrong.Catherine Hardwicke started strong with her great teenage drama "Thirteen" and then steadily declined after that ending with her directing the first of the inane "Twilight" movies.
Instead the eye candy for this movie is Amanda Seyfried (Valerie aka Red Riding Hood), Max Irons (Peter), and Shiloh Fernandez (Henry).
Since the cast up to this point doesn't have much acting the studio tried to balance things with Virginia Madsen (Suzette aka the Mother) and Gary Oldman (Solomon aka the werewolf hunter).With all of the effort to putting together a cast that would meet the masses; the movie fails on every level.
The male eye candy wasn't much better.I certainly hope that they never attempt to make the Russian tale of Peter and the Wolf because that is pretty clear the direction the studio is trying to go with this movie in the end.
If a village idiot with a severe head injury tried to write something Twilight-esque they might come up with something similar to this awful piece of anti-art.Amanda Seyfried is the only bright light in this festering film - terrible script, ridiculous set (thorn-trees, really?), abysmal over-the-top over-acting, lack of any attempt to establish a sense of realism, overly long duration, nearly everything that could suck in a movie sucked in this one.I was looking at my watch from 20 minutes in and would have walked out and gotten my money back if I wasn't there for my gf birthday.
And he's rich.After the latest fatalities an outside expert is brought in to rid the town of the furry evil, a man who chose to kill his own wife when he found she turned into a snarling, vicious monster every month or so (I'll leave the obvious and unsavoury joke alone).The new wolf-hunter is Solomon (Gary Oldman), he is brash, loud and confident, perhaps because he is backed by several heavily armed men, perhaps because he swiftly realises that everyone else in this crappy film is too busy brooding and looking mysterious to show a pulse.Solomon summons the entire village to inform one and all that not only do they have a werewolf, but he is a resident of this very village *GASP*and soon a 'blood moon' will come, meaning the wolf can infect others and make more werewolves.So we're left with two questions: 1/ Will Valerie break with formality and choose beefcake over rich-boy?
¨ If you love her, you'll let her go.¨We've all heard the fairytale before about little red riding hood and her visit to her grandma's house, but this film takes a much darker spin on the familiar story; unfortunately it takes one for the worse.
What we get is bad acting across the board, make-up and costumes which look like they just came out of the box, pointless plotting, ineffective direction, and a ten cent computer generated wolf.In what is easily the worst performance in a career of cute mediocrity (thus far) , Amanda Seyfried if nothing else will prove useful to anyone who seeks to argue that Hollywood hires based on looks.
It's very loosely based on the old folktale of Little Red Riding Hood (which, by the way, goes back far into European history long before the now famous version by the Brothers Grimm; the first print edition of the tale dating to the late 17th century) and it also has one scene (really just one line) that for some reason chooses to pay homage to the story of The Three Little Pigs ("I'll huff and I'll puff and I'll blow your house down" cries out one young man as others fall down around him.) Although you can't avoid those connections (and are probably intended to make the connection) it's probably best that you try not to, and watch the story in its own right.It's the story of a small village that has arranged a truce of sorts with a local werewolf.
There are any number of reasons to suspect any number of people of being the beast, and the ultimate revelation of the werewolf's identity surprised me a bit - it was not my first choice.I thought director Catherine Hardwicke made pretty good use of the setting of a small, isolated town deep in the mountains, and Amanda Seyfried was excellent in the role of Valerie (the Red Riding Hood character.) The movie also provides a pretty good depiction of paranoia and the ultimate consequences that paranoia can have, even (and perhaps especially) on people who know each other as well as the residents of this town obviously did.This isn't really (in my opinion at least) a horror movie.
The wolf emerges the victor of the encounter and there is no happy ending.' Now take that old tale and replace the wolf with a werewolf (this is not the first time in world literature that this has been done!) and presto, RED RIDING HOOD appears as Valerie (Amanda Seyfried) who since childhood has been in love with the poor woodcutter Peter (Shiloh Fernandez) but Valerie's parents (Virginia Madsen and Billly Burke) have other plans: marry Valerie to the wealthy (but oh so good hearted) Henry (Max Irons),a factor that sets up a love triangle for the film.
I also felt it lacked that romantic factor in the story.I thought the real breakout in this film was 3rd counterpart (Max Irons) to the love triangle with Red Ridding Hood (Amanda Seyfried) and her childhood friend Peter (Shiloh Fernandez).
OK would you really want to see this movie?......Of coarse not, if you didn't or haven't seen the trailers for the movie it looked OK but seeing it may have been the stupidest thing to do and i regret doing it so but hey somebody's gotta say what the real deal about the movie of how it really is.We all know Amanda Seyfried-that nerdy hot chick from "Jennifer's Body" and Gary Oldman-"The Dark Knight's" and "The Book of Eli's" acting veteran.OK so unlike the legend/tale of"Little Red Riding Hood"its a dark,sneaky and cheesy story about the wolf in the village killing everybody it wants to, like the"Wolfman" Except its one of those you can't see the monster till the main Character sees it then you finally see it.is it scary?...Define what you thought or think from what you've seen is scary and explain it to me because its so f#cking cheesy that not even a little kid would find it good maybe a Women or a Girl but i doubt your Sister would sit through this movie.If you're a twilight fan.
It's kept relatively simple with the basic character set up of Red Riding Hood, her family, the grandma out in the woods, the wolf and the woodcutter saviour, but updated for the modern audience in quite intelligent, engaging terms, putting together an intriguing guess who mystery with tragic twists.Amanda Seyfield may have progressed to more adult fare in Atom Egoyan's Chloe, but here retained some girlish innocence with quite the bold, rebellious streak hidden underneath her Valerie's virginal demeanour, forming a long friendship that blossomed into a relationship with woodcutter Peter (Shiloh Fernandez).
The production sets were gorgeous and so were the many costumes, with the crimson cloak and hood making a very striking appearance in stark contrast to the colour schemes around it, leading to very aesthetically pleasing scenes thanks to its picturesque environments and cinematography.Much has been said about Shiloh Fernandez who is better known as the Edward Reject, but I suppose stardom came late for this star whose good looks here will probably earn him a lot of fans given his alpha-male role.
Additional supporting roles from Virginia Madsen, Billy Burke, Julie Christie, Lukas Haas and others all add to the fun in allowing the audience to partake in the deduction of the mystery in the film, which turned out, to me at least, quite the surprise thanks to the many inherent red herrings and suggestions which are more than likely to throw you off track.Like the reboot of Star Trek, Red Riding Hood is that surprise package in being able to find some common ground and believable rationale to tell the story the way it had to, coupled with recognizable elements from the classic so as not to alienate fans or abandoning what made it stand out altogether.
I went to see Red Riding Hood with a friend and right as it ended we looked at each other and said, I think that was the worst movie I have ever seen and then laughed.How to critique something so miserable...
But, seeing as they wanted to have this film out in theatres and not as a mini series, I think what they put in the film fit wonderfully with the time gap of the audience's attention.Now, it is one thing to review a movie on it's pros and cons and to point out where the plot failed or the story line succeeded.
And, I believe the director, the camera crew, the actors, etc all played in to this old, twisted fairy tale we all think we know and did a very good job of it.All in all, Red Riding Hood did what it was supposed to.
There's a werewolf and a lead named Peter who has feelings for Lil Red...so imagine someone had a great idea: Peter and The Wolf story meets Little Red Riding Hood, and together they defeat a big bad.
The numerous side stories/characters could have been in place to confuse the viewer and make you second guess who the wolf was so if that was the purpose then job well done.Visually the movie was great but sadly I think that if they made this rated R we could have seen more gore and actually explored the wolf nature a bit better to scare you like it was meant to.
A Flawed Gem. I had anticipated this film with great delight, a modern and darker take on the fairy tale of Red Ridding Hood starring the enchanting Amanda Seyfriend.The movie drew me in from the very beginning thanks to the stunning visuals, the setting of the story couldn't have been depicted any better.
The story was acceptable considering we're talking about a fairy tale, personally I would have seen a few things done differently.To sum up, despite all of the numerous cons my final impression of the movie was not bad at all, I actually liked it very much, probably due to the fact of being an avid fantasy fan.
Set in a medieval village that is haunted by a werewolf, a not-so-young girl (Amanda Seyfried) falls for an orphaned woodcutter, much to her family's displeasure.I have always enjoyed the story and imagery of Red Riding Hood, and think it has the proper material to make a great horror film (indeed, others have tried and had various degrees of success).
Seems like the wolf is after Red Riding Hood (Amanda Seyfried) but she has a love, a protector named Peter (Shiloh Fernandez).
Now I had seen trailers for this modern film adaptation of the "Little Red Riding Hood" story.