Having been brought up with the fairy tale of Little Red Riding Hood, i was intrigued by how this adaptation would represent that. This version explores the theme of sexual predation and animalistic lust, using the werewolf to portray this. From this, NYT said: ' in keeping with the original unexpurgated versions of most fairy tales, the sexual subtext is never far from the surface. ' The film gives the audience 'warning signs' of a man with these characteristics; these being eyebrows that meet in the middle as well as a chest of hair. Of this, Film4 said this film is 'bound in a magical, mysterious world where little girls should beware of men whose eyebrows meet in the middle.'
This film follows the story of little red riding hood, Rosaleen being portrayed as little red who is going to visit her grandmother, but gets stopped in the woods by a handsome man, who clearly has eyebrows that meet in the middle. This man not only manages to consume the grandmother but also 'consumes' Rosaleen with his animalistic, sexual suggestions, as in the scene in the grandmother's house where he beat Rosaleen to the house and killed her gran. He then makes suggestive motions on Rosaleen before turning into a wolf when she denies him. IMDB had this to say about the sexual theme behind this film: 'This movie is not really a horror movie; it's more a multiple tale about growing up into adolescence.'
There are also a lot of dream-like sequences thoughout this film, such as in the beginning where Rosaleen is dreaming of her sister being chased by a pack of wolves through the woods, but with giant versions of her toys included. Her sister eventually gets killed by the wolves, because she strayed from the path. This could be seen as people's fear of what lurks in the dark if you stray too far from the path, and of the wild animals such as wolves that haunt the woods at night. There is also the scene where Rosaleen finds a storks nest, when one of the eggs hatches a tiny baby. This comes from the stories that babies were delivered by storks in the night to new parents, which of course is just nonsense.
Overall, i found this film to be funny rather than scary, especially the way the grandmother was killed and her head smashed like clay. I also liked the werewolf transformation where the wolf's jaws came out of of the mans mouth, it was cool.
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