Red Riding Hood - Movie Review

There seems to be a lot of remakes of fairy tales right now (see Beastly) and the latest one is Red Riding Hood.

Loosely based on the Little Red Riding Hood tale, this movie follows a young woman named Valerie (Amanda Seyfried), who lives in the little village of Daggerhorn, surrounded by a forest. Valerie is planning to run away with her lover Peter (Shiloh Fernandez), a woodcutter, to escape an arranged marriage to Henry, an iron smith. When the werewolf that has been terrorizing the village kills her older sister, Valerie and Peter's plans are halted while the towns people decide to hunt for the werewolf themselves. When they are unsuccessful, they call in Father Solomon (Gary Oldman), a famous werewolf hunter. When Valerie discovers that she can hear the werewolf talking to her, she begins to suspect it is someone she is closely linked to, and she is used as bait to capture the werewolf.

Red Riding Hood had a very macabre setting, with dark shadows and abrupt flashes of things and sudden appearances of people that kept you jumpy in your seat. The music is eerie and the fear is at times palpable through Seyfried's acting. The movie ends with such a surprising twist, and a huge deviation from the original fairytale. Given that Red Riding Hood was directed by the same person who did Twilight (Catherine Hardwicke), it is quite reminiscent of Twilight at times. The movie was good enough that it keep you guessing at who the werewolf was, but it was nothing special. Twilight fans will love it though.

Red Riding Hood comes out in theaters this Friday, March 11th.