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company_of_wolves_poster_01It’s been some time since I last watched The Company of Wolves, and I may take my own recommendation and watch it again.  I remember the first time I saw it, way back all those years ago when I was a wee child, I just simply didn’t get it.  That’s the great thing about age and maturity, sometimes you get the subtext.

This is “Little Red Riding Hood” as told for adults.  Rosaleen dreams she lives in a forest, and after her sister is killed by wolves she goes to visit with her grandmother, played by a very fairytale looking Angela Landsbury.  Granny Angie is nice enough to knit a bright red shawl for her granddaughter.  As Rosaleen returns home she is accompanied by a boy with romantic intentions, but all romance is dashed when they discover cattle torn and killed by wolves.

The attack on the cattle rallies the villagers and they hunt down the pack of wolves.  Tracking a wolf, they kill it.  But the wolf, upon dying, transforms into a man.  Did I mention the hunter in the woods?  The one with the unibrow?  What did granny say about men whose eyebrows have grown together?  What was that a sign of?  And why is Rosaleen attracted to the hunter?  And what are they doing at granny’s house?


The Company of Wolves is dreamy, which is only right since it takes place in Rosaleen’s dreams.  It is a dark bedtime story bubbling with sexuality.  This was director Neil Jordan’s second film, and he would go on to worldwide acclaim for such films as The Crying Game, Michael Collins, and Interview With a Vampire, but this remains one of his most stunning works.  The special effects, mainly the werewolf transformations, look dated (it was released in 1984), but that will not stop you from falling under this movie’s spell.

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