Pretty Good

If you don't like this, we can't be friends.

Great Film overall

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

This film has left an indelible impact on my childhood. I first saw it when I was 5 years old as my mother didn't want to watch a horror movie alone, I have been frightened (albeit also intrigued) by horror folklore.since and spent much of my teenage years reading about werewolves vampires and witchcraft and then studying psychology. If you claim to love the genre but have never seen this film I don't believe you love werewolf movies. Evocative story-telling, creative displays, both humanizing and animalising the werewolf. Watch this and 'Dog Soldier's and you will not be disappointed.

This movie is the most bizarre thing ever. Despite having a budget of 2 million (where did that go) it looks like it was filmed on a hand-held camera built by a 10 year old for his science fair project that is powered by potatoes. The acting is awful too, not believable and with these weird scenes with bad voiceovers that are just painfully bad. The ending is laughably bad- not scary, not shocking, not some sort of plot twist, just one of those scenes where you are left asking 'Why?' And let me tell you, there are a lot of scenes like that in this movie. The main actresses brooding/ naive combination is jarring and fake, and her acting while she's sleeping and having a nightmare is basically just a bad movie trope come to life. There is no chemistry between any of the characters and the relationships seem forced and unreal. The only ray of hope in the movie is Angela Lansbury, but even she is drowned in a sea of bad lines. There's a scene with a young bride and her husband, and the bride has this freaky wide eyed, boggle-y thing going on that just makes her (bad) acting automatically worse. It seems the actors don't know how to express emotions, so they just widen their eyes in an attempt to seem eerie and abject, when really it just makes them look like idiots trying to be creepy. Watch this movie only if you want a laugh, coz it is not scary, nor is it well made.

What a bizarre film.Fashioned in vein of Tales of The Brothers Grimm, this early Neil Jordan (The Crying Game; Interview With A Vampire) fantasy horror weaves a vampire-like seduction into the traditional red riding hood tale.It's heavy on the fantasy, as opposed to the horror. But when it does kick into horror-mode it gets pretty badass. The transformations are among the best I've seen...second only, maybe, to the one in American Werewolf In London.Essentially, we have a young lady who has fallen asleep while reading werewolf tales; and begins to dream she is playing a leading role in a story in which she finds herself being seduced by a charming werewolf-man....after wandering off the the path in the woods. Insert psychoanalysis here.The young lass is being groomed by her Grandmother to be a proper young lady. She warns her of the dangers that lurk off the path in the woods- granted she ever dare wander. She even made her a red shawl to wear.A boy from town is constantly trying to woo the young lady, but to no avail. No one manages to catch her eye until she meets a charming gentleman in the woods- who intercepts her on her way to her Grandmother's house...and he just so happens to be a werewolf.The back-story is introduced through flashbacks and recounts told by the old Grandmother; and young girl (in real time) to her mother (after she wakes up). This covers stuff like the death of her sister; why she began to wander off the path; and various excerpts from local legends- detailing the historic accounts of werewolf encounters.Lot's of weird stuff happens in this film: from girls running among giant mushrooms away from wolves that seem like hellhounds; and toy babies hatching from eggs...to mention only a couple. But considering it is all occurring in a dreamstate (up until maybe the end, but probably even then), this surely opens the door to symbolic readings and interpretations. There very well may be some esoteric message tied in there somewhere...but if there was, it wasn't overtly evident to me. So it probably leaves room for a broad spectrum of interpretation.That being said...the scenery and costumes are pretty cool. And, as was previously mentioned, the transformations are f*cking sweet. Especially the one where dude rips his face off until he's just muscles...although, the one where the wolf bursts through the guy's mouth is pretty rad too. Not to mention that tongue gimmick...I suppose this qualifies as a psychological werewolf horror, due to it's non-linear structure, and the fact that it's grounded in a dream world. I didn't take the time to read too much into the symbolism in this one (when I usually do haha), but it does seem to be chock full of it. And there is just enough crazy special effects (no cgi-bs) and gore to keep you horror fans interested too. Recommended. 7 out of 10.

Neil Jordan co-wrote and directed this mishmash of a story within a story within a dream within... herein lies one of the major concerns. What exactly are we watching? Beginning with a young girl's nightmare we journey through various tenuously connected - if at all - stories, flashbacks and sub-plots. we enter a nightmare world which is seemingly unbound by anything as urbane as geographical or historical context; realism being usurped by surrealism.Apropos of the general confusion Angela Lansbury's lilting accent seems to defy any attempt to pin it down to even a country let alone a particular district. Added to this is her propensity to chew the scenery in an attempt to play the doting grandma doling out words of wisdom to the strangely unlikeable heroine Rosaleen played by Sarah Patterson.There seems to be little in the way of a structured plot although the general ideas seem to involve the killing of werewolves and a rather strange updating of Little Red Riding Hood. The confusion continues scenically, chronically and symbolically.Giant mushrooms, haunted forests, a Rolls Royce, eggs hatching to reveal...? Settings, along with special effects are at times almost comical, at others rather unsettling. With little in the way of light-heartedness (oh how I prayed for Brian Glover to wrestle a werewolf!) and underlying - although frequently surfacing - sexual references the whole becomes a dark dingy effort which, even at 95 minutes seems overlong.As with other efforts by Mr Jordan I feel as though I have been invited to a private party where everybody else knows the in-jokes...