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Angela Lansbury,
Angela Lansbury,
David Warner,
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Neil Jordan,
Neil Jordan
see all cast/crew...
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: Henstooth Video
: Foreign, Horror, Werewolves, Killer Critters, Fantasy, Fairy Tales & Myths, UK
: 92 min.
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Company of Wolves is Little Red Riding Hood for the Alien generation. Sheltered 13-year-old Sarah Patterson, living on the edge of a foreboding woods, is visited by her grandmother Angela Lansbury. The old lady delights in telling Sarah the most horrific stories, usually involving what happens to little girls if they trust wolves--the actual, rather than symbolic kind. Later on, Sarah sets out through the woods to visit her grandmother. She makes the acquaintance of a seductive young huntsman (Micha Bergese), who turns out to be.....well, what big teeth he's got. The ads for Company of Wolves, showing a wolf springing from the open mouth of poor little Sarah Patterson, were warning enough for the faint of heart. Actually, the horror is secondary to the remarkable Grimms-Fairy-Tale ambience which the film successfully sustains from beginning to end. And, in keeping with the original unexpurgated versions of most fairy tales, the sexual subtext is never far from the surface. Director Neil Jordan would further develop some of the subliminal themes in Company of Wolves in his 1994 production Interview with the Vampire. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
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| Ready made college term paper here
by Lastcrackerjack
March 12, 2006 - 9:44 PM PST
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4 out of 4 members found this review helpful
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A fantasy film crafted for the literate adult, or for the college student who has a paper due on mythological subtext, this cult classic weaves the tale of Little Red Riding Hood with the werewolf movie and analyzes the pseudo sexual elements of a young girl crossing into adulthood that the Brothers Grimm probably never got around to.
Directed by Neil Jordan, from a script he co-wrote with Angela Carter based on her short story, the film is definitely a class act. It eschews going down the horror route - there is really nothing scary here except maybe the weird werewolf transformations - and instead unfolds like an art film, a dream within a dream within a bedtime story.
Angela Landsbury is very well cast as Gran. David Warner, Stephen Rea and an uncredited Terence Stamp put in appearances, and Sarah Patterson - who shares a welcome resemblance to Alexis Bledel - is good as Rosaleen/Red Riding Hood.
I admired what the film attempted. It's drenched in dreamy imagery, has outstanding dialogue, solid performances, vivid set design (by Anton Furst, later of Batman) and unfolds in an intriguing fashion. It could almost function as a companion piece to Time Bandits as it begins with an adolescent locked in her room. Her rich fantasy life soon pulls her down a path filled with wise tales, omens and temptation as she inserts herself and her family into the Brothers Grimm universe. The filmmakers really embraced their imaginations here and force the audience to do so as well.
That said, the European look and feel are pretty tough to surmount. The film is shot on very balmy looking video and the music by George Fenton has a synthetic, Faerie Tale Theatre sort of sound to it. Worse, there is no real narrative here, something a director like Terry Gilliam would have been gifted at providing while also slamming you with his imaginative production design and visuals. Oh well, he was busy fighting Universal to release his movie Brazil.
What's here is a worthy entry in Jordan's filmography and probably helped land him the gig directing Steve Guttenberg and Daryl Hannah in High Spirits for Tri-Star in the mid-1980s. Lucky him.
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GreenCine Member Rating
(Average 6.25)
158 Votes
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