Scream Bloody Entertainment

“All love shifts and changes. I don't know if you can be wholeheartedly in love all the time.” – Julie Andrews

Perhaps most well-known for directing Twilight, the teenage hit movie that is now used in direct relation with her name, director Catherine Hardwicke takes her newest love story back to the Middle Ages and wraps it around a popular fairy tale involving a hooded young girl and a big bad wolf. Entitled Red Riding Hood, a title not nearly as appropriate as one may think, it stars Amanda Seyfried as the main attraction, and, by the looks of the trailer and the way the film is promoted, it seems to be trying to put a new spin on the genre of teenage romance, Hollywood’s most newfound gold mine.

Red Riding Hood starts off with a few gorgeous shots of forest landscape and scenery, an intro highly reminiscent of Catherine Hardwicke’s previous directorial effort Twilight, which opens in a very similar fashion. Unfortunately, that’s not the only thing Hardwicke borrows from the teen vampire love fest, eventually ending up irreversibly damaging this film with her constant rehashes and tiresome invocations used in the hope of injecting some of the ingredients from the Twilight series’ recipe for success into a modernized fairy tale.


Amanda Seyfried plays Valerie, a young girl living in a medieval village haunted by a wolf-like beast. Very much in love with one of the village’s woodcutters whom she’s been close to since childhood, but arranged by her family to marry the son of a wealthy blacksmith, Valerie struggles in the affairs of love while at the same time trying to cope with her sister’s demise at the hands of the dreaded werewolf that’s been plaguing her village. Things get even worse when a fanatic witch hunter (played by the magnificent Gary Oldman) arrives in the village and is resolute on slaying the murderous beast, no matter the cost.

The similarities between Red Riding Hood and Twilight are immediately noticeable, from the indecisive girl caught in a love triangle with two regular heartthrobs, the recurring theme of the forbidden fruit symbolised by the presence of a dangerous being, the girl’s fragile status among the society she belongs to, all the way to the stylised look of the film and the ‘enhanced’ appearance of its characters. While a few of these lent attributes could prove to be beneficial in some way or another, most just end up negatively influencing the movie and leading it down a drain hole.


Story-wise, Red Riding Hood starts off relatively well, introducing us to Valerie and the rest of the villagers and setting things up for a promising storyline. However, as the film progresses, it becomes more and more clear that things aren’t going to go nearly as well as expected. The constant bombardment of expository dialogue, deviations from the main plotline and all the characters supplied with far too much make-up and hair gel serve as a reminder of how hard Catherine Hardwicke is trying to make her film look at its best instead of focusing on more important things. To make matters worse, once the soundtrack composed of contemporary alternative rock songs kicks in, it becomes quite obvious that Red Riding Hood has lost all hope for redemption.

The cast of the film is comprised of a lot of talented actors such as Gary Oldman, Virginia Madsen or Julie Christie, whose involvement in this mess still puzzle me to no end, but there’s simply no decent material for them to work with, ultimately ending up just letting their talent go to waste (except maybe for Gary Oldman, who somehow manages to shine during certain scenes). Amanda Seyfried is decent enough in the leading role, displaying a good amount of potential, but the only thing that needs to be said about her is that she needs to start picking her roles more carefully, because she’s been ending up partaking in a lot of mediocre efforts lately.


The rest of the cast varies from half-decent to surprisingly bad, with a good example of the latter one being Shiloh Fernandez, who plays one of Valerie’s love interests. Everything from the way he delivers his lines to his inappropriate mannerisms and the failure to display emotions different from unintentional anger or pure apathy make him one of the film’s weakest links. Another weak point of the film is that not only does it barely hold true to the fairy tale of Little Red Riding Hood, but it also completely alters it to fit as a teenage love romp rather than as a fantastical piece.

By the end, Red Riding Hood completely destroys all the promise that its premise set up and delivers a final product that is neither entertaining nor enjoyable, except maybe for the audience of hormonal teenage girls that it’s clearly targeted at. It also concludes with one of the worst possible twists: one that tries way too hard to be unpredictable and therefore loses any sort of logic or relation to the actual plot. The days of Thirteen and Lords of Dogtown are truly gone for director Catherine Hardwicke, but perhaps one day she will realise the myriad of faults present in her more recent works and go on to correct herself. Here’s to hoping that day comes sooner, rather than later.