There’s a compelling idea in anthropology that many ancient werewolf legends are derived from our species’ need to rationalize the more animalistic side of humanity – which is why lycanthropy has historically been used to explain everything from medieval serial killers to cannibalism. While I personally think there’s a lot more to unpack when it comes to tales of wolfmen and women, this is still a great example of why so many of our most enduring fairy tales involve big bad wolves.
And in the world of film, I think there’s only one feature that really nails the folkloric origins of werewolf stories, namely Neil Jordan’s 1984 fairy-tale horror classic, The Company of Wolves. Even four decades later, there’s no other genre flick that comes close to capturing the dreamlike ambience behind this strange anthology, and that’s why I’d like to take this opportunity to...
And in the world of film, I think there’s only one feature that really nails the folkloric origins of werewolf stories, namely Neil Jordan’s 1984 fairy-tale horror classic, The Company of Wolves. Even four decades later, there’s no other genre flick that comes close to capturing the dreamlike ambience behind this strange anthology, and that’s why I’d like to take this opportunity to...
- 3/25/2024
- by Luiz H. C.
- bloody-disgusting.com
From director Neil Jordan, 1984’s The Company of Wolves will be making its 4K Ultra HD debut this year, with Scream Factory announcing a Collector’s Edition release this morning.
The Company of Wolves comes to 4K Ultra HD on November 22, 2022!
Extras are in progress and will be announced at a later date.
Fascinating and imaginative, this riveting thriller from director Neil Jordan (Interview With The Vampire) brings the timeless tale of “Little Red Riding Hood” and werewolf fables together in a haunting, compelling and eerie way.
A wise grandmother (Angela Lansbury) tells her granddaughter Rosaleen (Sarah Patterson) a disturbing tale of innocent maidens falling in love with handsome strangers … and of their sudden mysterious disappearances when the moon is full and accompanied by the strange sound of a beast in the woods.
Nominated for four BAFTA awards including Best Costume Design, Best Make Up Artist, Best Production Design/Art...
The Company of Wolves comes to 4K Ultra HD on November 22, 2022!
Extras are in progress and will be announced at a later date.
Fascinating and imaginative, this riveting thriller from director Neil Jordan (Interview With The Vampire) brings the timeless tale of “Little Red Riding Hood” and werewolf fables together in a haunting, compelling and eerie way.
A wise grandmother (Angela Lansbury) tells her granddaughter Rosaleen (Sarah Patterson) a disturbing tale of innocent maidens falling in love with handsome strangers … and of their sudden mysterious disappearances when the moon is full and accompanied by the strange sound of a beast in the woods.
Nominated for four BAFTA awards including Best Costume Design, Best Make Up Artist, Best Production Design/Art...
- 8/29/2022
- by John Squires
- bloody-disgusting.com
This week sees the release of Bryan Singer's "Jack the Giant Slayer," which has survived a long delay, conversion to 3-D, and a retitling (Jack was originally a "Giant Killer"), but now must face its biggest trial by fire: The Audience.
The rather old-fashioned children's adventure feel of "Jack" is going to feel rather old-hat in comparison to the flurry of fairy tale films that film-goers have been bludgeoned with in recent years, mostly because it doesn't offer much of an ironic or modernized spin on the fable.
Maybe that's a good thing?
Let's take a look back at some past films that really took our childhood favorites in edgier, sexier directions.
'Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters' (2013)
What They Changed: Well, it's not so much what they changed but what they extrapolated on. After the title brother and sister have their famous encounter at the gingerbread house,...
The rather old-fashioned children's adventure feel of "Jack" is going to feel rather old-hat in comparison to the flurry of fairy tale films that film-goers have been bludgeoned with in recent years, mostly because it doesn't offer much of an ironic or modernized spin on the fable.
Maybe that's a good thing?
Let's take a look back at some past films that really took our childhood favorites in edgier, sexier directions.
'Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters' (2013)
What They Changed: Well, it's not so much what they changed but what they extrapolated on. After the title brother and sister have their famous encounter at the gingerbread house,...
- 2/27/2013
- by Max Evry
- NextMovie
Neil Jordan is best known recently for his worthy dramas along the lines of Breakfast on Pluto or Michael Collins but the man is quite hard to pin down in terms of a specific favoured genre because looking at his filmography he has made some strange choices.
After the low-budget and gritty Angel in 1982, Jordan went for a bizarre horror cum fairy tale story which was financed by the soon to be defunct Palace Pictures. Based on the short story writing of Angela Carter and co-written by her and Jordan, The Company of Wolves is a strange Chinese box of a movie which just about holds up in these modern times.
Starting in present day (well 1984) we meet a girl (Sara Patterson) who is very much trapped in her own world and spends all day in bed much to her parents and sister’s chagrin. The girl dreams back to...
After the low-budget and gritty Angel in 1982, Jordan went for a bizarre horror cum fairy tale story which was financed by the soon to be defunct Palace Pictures. Based on the short story writing of Angela Carter and co-written by her and Jordan, The Company of Wolves is a strange Chinese box of a movie which just about holds up in these modern times.
Starting in present day (well 1984) we meet a girl (Sara Patterson) who is very much trapped in her own world and spends all day in bed much to her parents and sister’s chagrin. The girl dreams back to...
- 10/9/2012
- by Chris Holt
- HeyUGuys.co.uk
Once upon a time there existed a cinematic landscape where not every feature-length fairy tale movie was drawn from a classic story, and the descriptor “fractured fairy tale” didn’t just mean gross-out humor and a Scottish-accented Mike Myers playing a big green ogre. While some of those films have certainly succeeded (this writer has a soft spot for the first “Shrek”), the kind of tale that the likes of the Brothers Grimm would collect in their oeuvre of beloved folklore was often of the darker-hued variety – pitting characters in bleak struggles that would see them rise from the ashes as better individuals for it in the end. Yes, the stories were simple, but they also served as a basis for many of the storytelling tropes that are used today – and may have influenced a few of our own moral compasses, with the fables acting as parables for life's lessons.
- 5/31/2012
- by Benjamin Wright
- The Playlist
by Nick Schager
[This week's "Retro Active" pick is inspired by another fantasy revamp of a storybook classic, Mirror Mirror.]
Red Riding Hood's signature shawl symbolizes the eroticism and menace at the heart of The Company of Wolves, Neil Jordan's sensuous reimagining of the iconic fairy tale. Jordan blends realities with the same dreaminess that characterizes his entire film, opening with a wolf's dash through a misty fantasyland forest that ends at a manor house and the arrival of a modern car, out of which appears the parents of Alice (Georgia Slowe) and, in an upstairs room behind a locked door, Red Riding Hood herself, Rosaleen (Sarah Patterson). Via a pan across her room, Rosaleen is discovered asleep in bed and apparently wracked by a feverish nightmare that seems to bleed into the real world—or does it actually become real?—once Jordan's camera reaches a window overlooking a mountain range, and we're transported back into an ancient forest. There, Alice flees a horde of wolves,...
[This week's "Retro Active" pick is inspired by another fantasy revamp of a storybook classic, Mirror Mirror.]
Red Riding Hood's signature shawl symbolizes the eroticism and menace at the heart of The Company of Wolves, Neil Jordan's sensuous reimagining of the iconic fairy tale. Jordan blends realities with the same dreaminess that characterizes his entire film, opening with a wolf's dash through a misty fantasyland forest that ends at a manor house and the arrival of a modern car, out of which appears the parents of Alice (Georgia Slowe) and, in an upstairs room behind a locked door, Red Riding Hood herself, Rosaleen (Sarah Patterson). Via a pan across her room, Rosaleen is discovered asleep in bed and apparently wracked by a feverish nightmare that seems to bleed into the real world—or does it actually become real?—once Jordan's camera reaches a window overlooking a mountain range, and we're transported back into an ancient forest. There, Alice flees a horde of wolves,...
- 3/30/2012
- GreenCine Daily
There have been many portrayals of werewolves and other shapeshifting man/woman-beasts, in the media of film, but I can’t say there has been many memorable ones. With The Wolf Man (1941) Lon Chaney Jr. transformed into a werewolf at the full moon, and created one of the three most famous horror icons of the modern day. Werewolf fiction as since been an exceptionally diverse genre with ancient folkloric roots and manifold modern re-interpretations – from high shcool basketball players to American tourists hiking through the UK. Here is the list of my personal favourites.
#13- El aullido del diablo/ Howl of the Devil (1987)
Directed by: Paul Naschy
Paul Naschy, also known as Jacinto Molina Alvarez, was a Spanish movie actor, screenwriter, and director working primarily in horror films. His portrayals of numerous classic horror figures—the wolfman, the hunchback, Count Dracula, the mummy—have earned him recognition as the Spanish Lon Chaney.
#13- El aullido del diablo/ Howl of the Devil (1987)
Directed by: Paul Naschy
Paul Naschy, also known as Jacinto Molina Alvarez, was a Spanish movie actor, screenwriter, and director working primarily in horror films. His portrayals of numerous classic horror figures—the wolfman, the hunchback, Count Dracula, the mummy—have earned him recognition as the Spanish Lon Chaney.
- 10/13/2011
- by Ricky
- SoundOnSight
For Part One of my look back at The Company of Wolves click here before reading on.
And so, what of the aformentioned FX?. Whilst time has, understandably, not been the kindest to them the sheer creativity on display is enough to make up for any technical shortcomings. Only 3 years earlier Rick Baker had wowed audiences with his stunning work on John Landis’ “An American Werewolf In London” (still, arguably, the greatest man to wolf transformation scene ever comitted to celluloid) and so it was perhaps wise for the FX team to avoid a similarly extended, fully lit transformation sequence.
Nonetheless the finished film does boast some extraordinary, albeit dated, scenes including Stephen Rea tearing the very skin from his face (his eventual metamorphosis sadly looks decidedly mechanical), a gypsy woman transforming an entire wedding party into a pack of slobbering wolves (the decision to shoot parts of this scene...
And so, what of the aformentioned FX?. Whilst time has, understandably, not been the kindest to them the sheer creativity on display is enough to make up for any technical shortcomings. Only 3 years earlier Rick Baker had wowed audiences with his stunning work on John Landis’ “An American Werewolf In London” (still, arguably, the greatest man to wolf transformation scene ever comitted to celluloid) and so it was perhaps wise for the FX team to avoid a similarly extended, fully lit transformation sequence.
Nonetheless the finished film does boast some extraordinary, albeit dated, scenes including Stephen Rea tearing the very skin from his face (his eventual metamorphosis sadly looks decidedly mechanical), a gypsy woman transforming an entire wedding party into a pack of slobbering wolves (the decision to shoot parts of this scene...
- 12/9/2010
- by Nick Turk
- HeyUGuys.co.uk
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