The Company of Wolves (1984)

This film is pretentious. Wizard of Oz meets a horror movie to discuss the s(REDACTED)xuality of a (REDACTED FOR ARBITRARY REASONS!!!!)aged girl. This is a pretentious art house movie and one that thinks that it is vastly more intelligent than it really is. It wants to retell the Little Red Riding hood story in a semi-erotic way, but never actually achieves it. But, at least it's pretty.

There's a lot of "Little Red Riding Hood" to this Neil Jordan fantasy about the young "Rosaleen" (Sarah Patterson). This woman is prone to vivid dreams set many centuries earlier, where she lives happily with her parents (and without her dull as ditchwater sister) and where she is regular regaled with portentous stories by her grandmother (Angela Lansbury). It's in one such dream, and whilst walking through the woods to visit her elderly relative that she encounters a handsome and enigmatic young man who wants to bet who will reach the old woman's house first! She is intrigued, but is she prepared for the true identity of her admirer? Though the story is a bit staccato at times, but this is still a rich and vividly constructed adaptation of a story that mixes romance, fable and a soupçon of horror cleverly and entertainingly - whilst subtly presenting an undercurrent of emerging sexuality. Sure, some of the effects are not what they might be and the stylised presentation doesn't always work, but the storytelling of "Granny" and some of her warnings about the path, the fruit and about a chap whose eyebrows meet in the middle are engagingly delivered by an on form, and ideally cast Lansbury. A solid supporting cast and a rich score from George Fenton make for quite an enjoyable and creative interpretation of a well trodden story, and I quite enjoyed watching it.