My What Big Disappointment You Have

Title:  Red Riding Hood

Actors/Director/Anything Worth Mentioning Right Away:  This movie was directed by Christine Hardwicke, who did the first Twilight movie but also did Lords of Dogtown.  Considering my love for D-Town and the fact that I’d never seen the Twilight movies before, I decided to give this movie a shot.

Introduction:  We got this from the library (Like I’d pay to see it)

Location:  In an enchanted forest somewhere.  (Yes, they had big money and no whammys)

Plot:  This is similar to the tale of Little Red Riding Hood, only in this telling the Big Bad Wolf comes into the village and eats your friends if you don’t offer him a sacrifice because he also happens to be a werewolf.   I must admit that the idea of this movie- mixing the two story ideas together- is quite good, it’s just the execution of it.   For example, I’d really love to see a Zombie Bruce Lee fight a Vampire Bela Lugosi and I think it’d be awesome, but I’m sure there is a director, writer and actors out there somewhere that could screw up the delivery and make it look like, well, this.

Acting:  While there are some big names in this, my favorite is Lukas Haas.   Why oh why did he have to die and couldn’t he have been the Big Bad Werewolf?  That would’ve given this movie, like, a thousand bonus points.

Production:  This movie was in theaters, but I suppose this is where I should rant about the overall look of the movie.   The majority of this movie is very dark and black and white looking; with the only thing really standing out is Red Riding Hood because she’s red.   It reminds me quite a bit of the overall vibe I had while watching The Village.   Gina also informs me that this movie- even up until the end credits- is a lot like Twilight, which I still refuse to watch for my viewing pleasure.   As I think about this movie though, I wonder how else it could have been played out if not in seeming black and white.  If it was just done normally, and came out looking like any other movie in terms of color, then it would have lost some of its effect.   If it was set in a city like Lords of Dogtown… Hmm… That might actually be interesting.

Sex/Nudity:  Not so much, no.

Special Effects:  They mostly involve people turning into werewolves and as I’ve said before “Twilight money”.

Overall Verdict:  For whatever reason, the story of Little Red Riding Hood has been made for children (Hoodwinked) and now for the teens and tweens.   What I really want to see is someone make a darker version than this, an R rated version if you will, that is just intended to literally scare the crap out of adults.   It’d be icing on the cake if the end credits played and the Duran Duran song “Hungry Like the Wolf” came on, only covered by Lounge Against the Machine.   People might say this sort of rips off the idea of the end credits for the Dawn of the Dead remake, but screw them.   I think it’s gold.