Red Riding Hood

Ahh...Assonitis. Just when you thought the producer of fine Italian independent films such as Tentacels, The Visitor, and Beyond The Door was maybe retired or deceased. No, not yet. He's back with another classic (without John Huston) that proves he still has what it takes to produce the worst looking films ever to come out of Italy. I assume that's because he fires anybody with talent about halfway through the production as with James Cameron on Pirahna 2 or Lucio Fulci's great D.P. Sergio Salvati on this picture. Poor Salvati probably said "look here Assonitis! every shot hand-held no good." And i bet Assonitis said "you fired! hand-hold OK because we shoot in video!" Seriously, he should have just called this Beyond The Door 4 because if you've seen those sequels it makes all the sense in the world.

This is a retelling of the classic fairytale. Here, Little Red Riding Hood is an obnoxious spoiled brat who is best friends with "the Wolf" (a mysterious figure with a cap and wolf mask, who she believes is her, well, dog.) Instead of venturing out to visit Grandma, they live with her keep her captive, torturing her. Think "Freeway" meets "Misery." I really wanted to love this movie, but I couldn't because the lead actress was so terrible and obnoxious, performing as if she were in a junior high school play. I'm not sure if the ending is a joke that misfired, but I didn't think it was amusing. If you like twisted fairy tales, you probably want to check this out, but be warned, it can get very grating at times.

I can certainly see the point of people ripping on this film. Susanna Satta doesn't set herself up for future stardom but she certainly doesn't hurt her career. The writers had something in mind here and my guess is the director screwed it up. There are some ridiculous parts to the film, but taken in the context of a twelve-year-old girl's mind, they actually make sense.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not going to give too much credit to the filmmakers because a lot of the good elements of the film probably happened on accident.

I didn't feel like I wasted my money renting this, but I probably would rent it with a bunch of friends over.

A young girl is all alone in Rome after her father (a politician) passes away. When her grandmother comes to take her away ,the girl has other plans. Little does granny know, but the girl is a vigilante who fights injustice at night in a red riding hood.

First, let me say this: 92 minutes, my eye! It felt like I was there for three hours suffering through this. How many ways can I spell out boring? Despite watching this with a group of friends (including three lovely ladies) I just couldn't wait for it to be over.

Now, granted, some death scenes were alright. The liquor bottle in the face, the use of peanut butter to cause an allergic reaction. Nice ideas. And as a philosopher, I loved the idea of using a Kant book to alert authorities to your whereabouts. But beyond that, I think this film was lacking.

First, the thought of a young girl being this self-sufficient is absurd. Maybe Punky Brewster could do it, but in Rome? This made the rest sort of hard to believe. And the crimes she gets vengeance for -- I think she's a little bit over-reacting. I've already commented on the pacing, but it bears repeating.

I disliked the advertising. We got a picture of a sexy, sassy vixen on a bike... and the film had a girl who was maybe 12 at most. The wolf shows up, but really has nothing to do with the film, or at least not enough to be really enjoyable. The red riding hood theme was very nice (I'm a collector of red riding hood paintings myself) but I think it was simply not well presented.

So we have decent deaths, slow plot, respectable acting... all in all nothing beyond mediocrity (though, I suppose, certainly not complete rubbish). I wouldn't recommend this one to you -- I don't ever want to see it again if I can help it. But if your goal is to watch the worst and most boring horror films ever made, you could do worse than this one.

Well this is one movie that I definitely judged by the cover. I guess I was hoping that I'd find some sort of hidden treasure or something, I mean it wasn't a movie that I'd ever heard of and the cover looked interesting (even if the tag line was a little cheesy) but I was utterly disappointed by it in the end. seemed low budget, the sketchy camera work at times is forgivable, but I don't get why the voices seemed to raise and lower from here to there. I was hoping it would be more philosophical considering the protagonists actions and motives, but it wasn't. and there were many parts of the movie that just give you bad feelings, never quite sure who to root for... I might not have finished it if not for the fact that I knew it'd nag at me about not knowing how it ended. I guess now that I've seen it I've got it out of my system. although I will be all the more weary from now on whenever I rent a little known about movie again...