The Company of Wolves
1984 Directed by Neil Jordan
Synopsis
A bag full of symbolic folklore about werewolves, or, rather, their sexual connotation. Granny tells her granddaughter Rosaleen strange, disturbing tales about innocent maidens falling in love with handsome, heavily eyebrowed strangers with a smoldering look in their eyes; about sudden disappearances of spouses when the moon is round & the wolves are howling in the woods
Genres
Popular reviews
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Never stray from the path, never eat a windfall apple and never trust a man whose eyebrows meet in the middle.
-GrannyFor Neil Jordan's sophomore effort he chose to adapt Angela Carter's short story of the same name from her anthology The Bloody Chamber. They co-wrote the script together which ends up being a nightmarish take on Little Red Riding Hood that explores the more veiled themes of the Charles Perrault original and subsequent different versions with the most famous being from the Brothers Grimm.
The story is a werewolf film that takes place within the dream of a preteen girl and explores the dangers of strange older men praying on the innocence of young girls. The dream is…
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A bizarre but mesmerizing take on the Red Riding Hood myth, Neil Jordan's "The Company of Wolves" combines beguiling gothic fantasy with trappings of blossoming pubescence and femininity to disarming effect. The acting is a bit hit and miss (although Angela Lansbury is a hoot as Granny) and the physical werewolf FX have aged dismally, but the feature is both an aesthetic and thematic joy, layered with nuances and metaphors which both intrigue and awe. Visually it's conservative yet haunting, with an atmospheric musical score supplying added trepidation to the deliberately hazy narrative. It's essentially a coming of age story, examining the abandonment of childhood and burgeoning of sexuality with style and intelligence, writer Angela Carter (a major player in contemporary feminist fiction) leaving just as authorial a stamp on proceedings as Jordan's own arresting touch. Much more sophisticated and rewarding than 2011's glossy but hollow "Red Riding Hood".
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1984 British Gothic fantasy-horror film directed by Neil Jordan
Roger Ebert gave the film three stars out of four, and called it a "disturbing and stylish attempt to collect some of the nightmares that lie beneath the surface of Little Red Riding Hood."
Roger was right on. This is what I call a horror film. The atmosphere is subtle and creepy and this leaves you enjoyably uneasy. I love how dark and foreboding the film feels.
An American Werewolf in London and the Howling are usually first to come up in conversations of Werewolf films, brutally lost in this conversation is “The company of Wolves,” which is just an extremely well done film. The sets which were done on a…
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Working on Harry Knowles' web series, Ain't It Cool, keyed me in to a few films that I never knew existed before. Harry owns the poster for this film, which is an incredible image of a wolf exploding out of a man's gaping mouth. It is shocking and I was sold.
In watching this film in preparation for my Cannon Fodder column, I was not disappointed. Neil Jordan is a phenomenal story teller and this film is no exception.
Structured as a series of stories within a dream, Jordan captures a perfect blend of mythology, fantasty, horror, and sexuality.
There are also some awesome practical werewolf transformation effects.
Basically, this movie is everything TWILIGHT wishes it could be. Nubile, innocent teens experiencing a sexual awakening in the midst of fantasy/monster elements. Plus Angela Lansbury.
I dug it.
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Stimmungsvolle Kombination aus Horror, Märchen und Drama über das Erwachen der Sexualität. Durch seine episodische Erzählung fällt der Film leider etwas auseinander und vermag den Zuschauer nicht mehr komplett zu fesseln. Die künsterlische aber auch künstliche Optik unterstreicht die Theatralik des Szenarios und erzeugt ein fieberhafte Traumstimmung.
Immer noch schön anzuschauen, dramaturgisch leider etwas schlecht gealtert! -
Neil Jordan's take on Red Riding Hood isn't a bad, and has some very interesting undertones (sexual and otherwise), but it borders on camp way too much (the visuals, the fake werewolf at the end). It looks really dated and, for the most part, corny.
Recent reviews
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A bizarre but mesmerizing take on the Red Riding Hood myth, Neil Jordan's "The Company of Wolves" combines beguiling gothic fantasy with trappings of blossoming pubescence and femininity to disarming effect. The acting is a bit hit and miss (although Angela Lansbury is a hoot as Granny) and the physical werewolf FX have aged dismally, but the feature is both an aesthetic and thematic joy, layered with nuances and metaphors which both intrigue and awe. Visually it's conservative yet haunting, with an atmospheric musical score supplying added trepidation to the deliberately hazy narrative. It's essentially a coming of age story, examining the abandonment of childhood and burgeoning of sexuality with style and intelligence, writer Angela Carter (a major player in contemporary feminist fiction) leaving just as authorial a stamp on proceedings as Jordan's own arresting touch. Much more sophisticated and rewarding than 2011's glossy but hollow "Red Riding Hood".
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Not as great as I thought it might be, but I did fall asleep to be honest...
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1984 British Gothic fantasy-horror film directed by Neil Jordan
Roger Ebert gave the film three stars out of four, and called it a "disturbing and stylish attempt to collect some of the nightmares that lie beneath the surface of Little Red Riding Hood."
Roger was right on. This is what I call a horror film. The atmosphere is subtle and creepy and this leaves you enjoyably uneasy. I love how dark and foreboding the film feels.
An American Werewolf in London and the Howling are usually first to come up in conversations of Werewolf films, brutally lost in this conversation is “The company of Wolves,” which is just an extremely well done film. The sets which were done on a…
-
Never stray from the path, never eat a windfall apple and never trust a man whose eyebrows meet in the middle.
-GrannyFor Neil Jordan's sophomore effort he chose to adapt Angela Carter's short story of the same name from her anthology The Bloody Chamber. They co-wrote the script together which ends up being a nightmarish take on Little Red Riding Hood that explores the more veiled themes of the Charles Perrault original and subsequent different versions with the most famous being from the Brothers Grimm.
The story is a werewolf film that takes place within the dream of a preteen girl and explores the dangers of strange older men praying on the innocence of young girls. The dream is…
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The fairytale from hell.
(Or at least a very hellish, windowless, claustrophobic studio set with a lot of very cute dogs posing as wolves) -
The VHS cover for this movie used to scare the crap out of me whenever I would see it in the video store. It's a shame, then, that the film itself does not live up to the striking image it was sold on, and I feel pretty much the same way about The Company of Wolves as I did when I first saw it a decade ago. Strong atmosphere, a good score, and some cool special effects are unfortunately wasted on a poorly structured film that makes little narrative sense and has a large, boring gap in the middle where nothing interesting happens. I know the whole movie is supposed to be a dream (this is not a spoiler -…
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Some interesting atmosphere. This is a nice sensibility for fairy tales, but it's lacking something to really engage with.
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Tedious. Stilted. Bizarre. Not for me.
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If you love fairy tales give this a go. It's like watching a crazy dream, and I absolutely adored it.