Company of Wolves
is
Little Red Riding Hood
for the
Alien
generation. Sheltered 13-year-old Sarah Patterson, living on the edge of a foreboding woods, is visited by her grandmother Angela Lansbury. The old lady delights in telling Sarah the most horrific stories, usually involving what happens to little girls if they trust wolves--the actual, rather than symbolic kind. Later on, Sarah sets out through the woods to visit her grandmother. She makes the acquaintance of a seductive young huntsman (Micha Bergese), who turns out to be.....well, what big teeth he's got. The ads for
, showing a wolf springing from the open mouth of poor little Sarah Patterson, were warning enough for the faint of heart. Actually, the horror is secondary to the remarkable Grimms-Fairy-Tale ambience which the film successfully sustains from beginning to end. And, in keeping with the original unexpurgated versions of most fairy tales, the sexual subtext is never far from the surface. Director Neil Jordan would further develop some of the subliminal themes in
in his 1994 production
Interview with the Vampire
.