The commonly told story of Little Red Riding Hood (LRRH) derives from the Brothers Grimm’s version and goes something like this- a little girl, who wears a red cloak with a hood, is on her way to visit her grandmother when she meets the Big Bad Wolf in the woods. Afraid to attack her in public, Big Bad sweet talks Little Red into revealing where she is heading and then buys time by suggesting she picks some flowers for her gran. Big Bad then rushes ahead to grandma’s house, tricks his way in and eats granny whole. When Little Red turns up with a freshly picked bouquet, Big Bad impersonates granny before also eating Little Red whole, then promptly falls asleep. In comes a hunter/woodchopper who slices Big Bad open and out pops granny and Little Red alive. They then help the hunter/woodchopper sew rocks into the wolf’s stomach, who upon waking goes to a well to drink and drowns.
Folk tale predecessors to our current sanitized version of LRRH played with themes far more disturbing than simply stranger danger. Interpretations of LRRH and it’s differing cultural variations have explored concepts of sexual awakening, sexual predators, sexual violence, cannibalism, the nature of men and the monster within.
"Alas! Who does not know that these gentle wolves are of all such creatures the most dangerous!"- Charles Perrault, creator the modern genre of fairy tales, is the first person known to have set the story to paper in 17th Century- giving it its title- Le Petit Chaperon Rouge (his version served as a morality tale, with no rescue for Little Red)
The sexual nature of LRRH has served as a warning to young women as to the sexual desires of men for centuries. However recent film interpretations of the fairy tale have added new dimensions to the story, often empowering Little Red instead of presenting her as defenseless and naïve whilst still playing with the story’s themes of gender, morality and sexuality. This article will look at The Company of Wolves, Freeway, Hard Candy and Hoodwinked!- all of which have taken a new spin on an old tale.
The Company of Wolves (Neil Jordan, 1984)
‘Little girls, this seems to say, never stop upon your way, never trust a stranger friend, no-one knows how it will end! As you’re pretty, so be wise! Wolves may lurk in every guise! Now, as then, it’s simple truth, sweetest tongue has sharpest tooth!’
Mixing fairy tale with horror and taking more than a pinch from Perrault’s telling of the story, director Neil Jordan (The Crying Game) adapted the film from a short story collection by British author Angela Carter called The Bloody Chamber.
Set in modern times, the film’s action largely takes place in the dreams of the young protagonist Rosaleen (Sarah Patterson). In these dreams Rosaleen lives in a fairytale village unsettled by strange wolf attacks. Her grandmother (Angela Lansbury) knits her a bright red cloak and warns her to “never trust a man whose eyebrows meet in the middle”. But Rosaleen forgets this warning and one day as she travels through the forest to see her grandmother, she comes across a handsome Huntsman (Micha Bergese), whose eyebrows meet. The huntsman challenges Rosaleen to a race to see who can get to granny’s house first. When Rosaleen arrives she finds that the Huntsman, who is in fact a werewolf, has killed and eaten her grandmother, but her emotions are confused- she is angry, afraid and attracted to the huntsman. After a scuffle where the Huntsman is shot, Rosaleen cares for the huntsman and opts to join his pack as opposed to staying with the villagers.
Part nightmare, part coming of age story, The Company of Wolves is one of the best filmic interpretations of the LRRH story, exploring the traditional fairy tale in an original and exciting way. Jordan created a topsy-turvy world confusing dreams and reality, man and beast, fear and desire. Added to the central narrative, the characters tell additional fairy-like-tales, delving the film further and further into storytelling and questioning whether the true monsters wear their hair on the inside?
Set in 90s California- Freeway is a modern, completely over-the-top, R-Rated twist on the LRRH story. Mixing violence and black comedy- Freeway gives us a Little Red that can more than take care of herself.
Vanessa Lutz (Reese Witherspoon) is an illiterate, street-wise teenager, with a drug-addicted, prostitute mother (Amanda Plummer) and an abusive step-father. Eluding social services, Vanessa takes off in a stolen car to seek out her grandmother. On the road Vanessa encounters Bob Wolverton (Kiefer Sutherland), who appears to be a kind-hearted therapist; but Bob’s true nature is much darker and he turns out to be the infamous I-5 killer/rapist. However Bob has met his match with Vanessa, who manages to overpower him, robbing him and leaving him for dead. A disfigured Bob survives and due to the differing social standings of Vanessa and Bob and his wife (Brooke Shields), Vanessa is sent to juvie only to escape for a final showdown with Bob at her grandmother’s trailer.
Writer/director Matthew Bright’s film has been compared to Oliver Stone’s (who’s the executive producer of Freeway) Nature Born Killers more than once and this should be indicative of the tone for readers who haven’t seen the film. With its ironic dialogue, lurid depiction of American white underclass and heightened violence, Freeway is the Little Red Riding Hood story on meth.
Showing that you can have too much of a good thing, Bright followed this film up with Freeway II: Confessions of a Trick Baby, that from all accounts is a much seedier, less successful, exploitation rehash of the Hansel and Gretel fairy tale.
Hard Candy (David Slade, 2005)
Written by Brian Nelson (30 Days of Night) and directed by David Slade (30 Days of Night, Eclipse) Hard Candy takes the premise of sexual predator to its modern extreme of pedophilia and internet grooming. Turning the story of LRRH on its head, Hard Candy is a confronting, disturbing and provocative film designed to make audiences squirm.
Hayley (Ellen Page), a bright 14 yr old, meets Jeff (Patrick Wilson), a thirtysomething photographer, at a café after weeks of chatroom flirting. The power seems firmly placed in Jeff’s corner. After telling Hayley about a bootlegged Goldfrapp LP, the pair return to Jeff’s modernist house, where the walls are adorned with picture of the young models he has snapped. The balance of power shifts dramatically during their time together and as tension grows Hayley proves to be far from an innocent victim.
This film questions who is the predator in the scenario, giving us a story of vigilantly justice. Nelson, an admirer of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, wrote Hayley as a strong, intelligent and powerful character. The comparisons to LRRH seem incidental, with both the writer and director claiming the similarities are more coincidences of costuming (red hoodie) and post-production poster art then an intentional fairy tale revision.
Hard Candy is a film completely unafraid of vexing its audience, creating a pedophile that is human, not monster or animal and a heroine that is violent and cunning. Shot over just 18 day, with only the two central characters for the majority of the film, Hard Candy is an impressive character piece. With clever use of colouring to convey mood and an eerie found soundtrack this film is a marvel of small budget cleverness, excellent editing and incredible performances.
Hoodwinked! (Cory and Todd Edwards, 2005)
This animated film is the most light-hearted vision of the LRRH story, but by no means the least modern interpretation. Set in a fairy tale world with talking animals and sing-song moments, this version not only empowers Little Red, but her grandmother too.
Starting halfway through the story, the film begins with Red (voiced by Anne Hathaway) arriving at her grandmother’s house to find The Wolf (voiced by Patrick Warburton) in her grandmother’s bed, dressed in her clothes. Granny (voiced by Glenn Close), who is tied up in a cupboard escapes and all chaos breaks loose when The Woodsman (voiced by Jim Belushi) busts through the window waving an axe. Cut to the police on-scene and each character is questioned giving their version of events. Added to the plot is an evil recipe-stealing bunny (voiced by Andy Dick), and a subplot that takes a swipe at large corporations that dominate markets (seriously).
While the animation for the film has been widely criticised (it’s no Pixar), the novel approach to the material garnered praise for the children’s film. Hoodwinked! opened up the idea of multiple voices to the fairy tale, showing truth is purely perspective. The Wolf isn’t a maneater- he is simply a reporter after a juicy story. Granny isn’t a victim- she’s an extreme sports enthusiast. The Woodsman isn’t a hero, he’s a wannabe actor rehearsing for a part. And most importantly Red isn’t a pushover.
These film versions of LRRH range from the comical to the violent and tense. Whether maintaining the fairy tale world of the source material or grounding the plot in a contemporary urban environment, these films all have one thing in common, they have a strong female protagonist, who is no longer reliant on a burly man to save her. The villain of the piece has also changed- the Wolf is more than simply a hungry animal. In some cases he is a sexual predator, in others he is resurrected as a character misunderstood.
The next filmic version of LRRH being touted is Catherine Hardwicke’s (Twilight) gothic reimagining starring Amanda Seigfried, Lukas Haas, Gary Oldman and Julie Christie- lets hope it lives up to its filmic predecessors.
First published in Trespass
