Directed By: Neil Jordan
Starring: Sarah Patterson, Angela Lansbury, David Warner
Tag line: "The desire... the fantasy... the nightmare"
Trivia: Neil Jordan named his production company after this film
Based on a short story by author Angela Carter (who also co-wrote the screenplay), The Company of Wolves is a dark, gothic retelling of Little Red Riding Hood that, at the same time, puts a new and refreshing spin on werewolf mythos, presenting the creatures in a way few films have done before.
While asleep in her bedroom, young Rosaleen (Sarah Patterson) dreams that she and her family; father (David Warner), mother (Tusse Silberg), and older sister Alice (Georgia Slowe), have entered the world of make-believe, living as peasants in what appears to be a 19th century village. After Alice is killed by a pack of wild wolves, her grief-stricken parents send Rosaleen to stay with her Grandmother (Angela Lansbury) for a couple of days. During their time together, Grandmother tells Rosaleen a number of stories, all of which center on werewolves, while also revealing the 3 most important rules for surviving the forest that surrounds them:
1. Never stray from the path
2. Never eat a windfall apple, and
3. Never trust a man whose eyebrows meet in the middle
After giving her a red-hooded cape that she initially knit for Alice, Grandmother kisses Rosaleen goodbye and sends her back to her parents.
Over the next several months, Rosaleen realizes that her Grandmother’s stories were more than simple legends. While out walking with a neighbor’s son (Shane Johnstone), she spots a large wolf, which is then hunted by her father and the other men in the village. They manage to trap and kill the beast, only to receive the surprise of a lifetime after doing so. Later on, Rosaleen, on her way to Grandmother’s to deliver supplies, encounters a huntsman (Micha Bergese) in the middle of the forest, and despite the fact his eyebrows meet, she finds herself drawn to this stranger, and even accepts his wager that he will get to grandmother’s house before she does…
Featuring impressive set designs, awesome special effects, and a grandiose performance by Angela Lansbury, The Company of Wolves works quite well as a modern telling of Little Red Riding Hood, but it’s the movie’s “other” segments, i.e. the reenactments of the various stories told first by Grandmother, then by Rosaleen that make this Neil Jordan-directed fantasy / horror film such a treasure. With tales ranging from the frightening (the first, about a traveler played by Stephen Rea who marries a pretty young woman, then disappears into the night, has what is easily one of the most shocking werewolf transformations I’ve ever seen) to the darkly comic (a wedding feast is interrupted by a peasant girl the groom impregnated and tossed aside, and her revenge against both him and his prestigious guests will bring a smile to your face), these segments are every bit as important as the main story, establishing both this unusual world and the people / creatures that inhabit it.
From start to finish, Jordan brings a dreamlike quality to The Company of Wolves; even the opening credits sequence, supposedly set in the real world, has elements (swooping camera movements, foggy exteriors) that suggest all is not as it seems. Toss in not one, but two amazing transformation scenes (both of which rank right up there with the groundbreaking work done by John Landis and Rick Baker in An American Werewolf in London), and you have an occasionally gorgeous, often disturbing werewolf film that continues to impress to this day.
