Red Riding Hood

      What did I think of Red Riding Hood (2011)? I don’t really know. Kind of hard to say I guess.  It was alright, not bad.  Catherine Hardwicke (Thirteen, Lords of Dogtown, Twilight) directed it.  I am not to sure I enjoy her style.  While I absolutely loved Lords of Dogtown, her other movies, not as enjoyable I guess you could say.  David Johnson (Orphan, Clash of the Titans 2) wrote the screenplay. There is a  novel by Sarah Blakely-Cartwright. It is based on the shooting script not the finished film. (Just some interesting trivia for you.)  Anyway, it is an iteresting twist to the Little Red Riding Hood story and I did enjoy that aspect of it. Instead of there just being a big bad wolf it is actually a werewolf.  So, they had a werewolf hunter come into town to help.  I really liked how they tied in an old werewolf legend.  A man was hunting in the woods, and cut the paw off a wolf, though the wolf itself managed to escape otherwise unharmed. He kept the wolf paw and put it in his hunting bag as a trophy. When he got to his friend's house, he told the story and pulled the paw out to illustrate- except it was no longer a paw, but a woman's hand! The man's wife was found to be missing a hand. That was a fun twist as well.
     My husband asked if it was a “chick flick”.  In a way you could say it is, for the 12 to 14 year old “chick”.  Which isn’t to say that is a bad thing, just to give you an idea. That seems to be the age group that would enjoy it the most. It is not a horror movie! For some reason people got the impression that it is scary, well it isn’t. It is just the story of Little Red Riding Hood with a different sort of twist.