Die Zeit der Wölfe

Thirteen-year-old teenager Rosaleen : Sarah Petterson lives with her parents : David Warner , Tusse Silberg, on the outskirts of a forbidding forest . Meanwhile , the beautiful girl listens her grandmother : Angela Lansbury telling fairy tales and the latter fills the heroine's head with grim stories of wolves until a sticky final . As Rosaleen dreams of a medieval fantasy environment inhabited by men who turn into wolves. As the bizarre world in which the charming teen lives is full of polecats, owls , toads , snakes , hopping , prowling and slithering round the crooked houses of the woods .

A horror fairy tale , being consistently paced , freely based on Charles's Perrault's Little Red Riding Hood and crossing it with Legend of the Werewolf . Weird terror movie that's heavy on dreamy visuals , gorgeous production design by Anthon Furst , colorful cinematography by Bryan Loftus , primitive but acceptable special effects with gruesomely vivid werewolves and Freudian symbolism . Main cast and support cast are frankly excellent , giving powerful interpretations . Starring attractive Sarah Patterson as the girl who's on the verge of womanhood and discovers rare worlds , in spite of her early age she gives an enticing acting , as well as high quality performance from veteran Angela Lansbury as the sympathetic granny , along with brief interpretations from David Warner, Georgia Slowe, Graham Cowden , Brian Glover , Terence Stamp and Stephen Rea who is Jordan's regular .

It displays a sensitive and atmospheric musical score by George Fenton, adding a medieval backgrounding sounds . The motion picture was original and compellingly written -along with Angela Carter- and directed by Neil Jordan . This great filmmaker has made splendid movies, such as : Mona Lisa , High Spirits , We're no Angels , The Crying Game , The Miracle , Interview with the Vampire, in Dreams, Michael Collins , The Butcher Boy , The Good Thief , The Brave One , Byzantium , among others . Rating : Better than average . Worthwhile watching . Essential and indispensable seeing.

The company of wolves is very far from being the typical movie about werewolves, it's very different from films such as An American Werewolf in London or The Howling. This film is full of symbolism, it's a kind of rewriting of Perrault's Little Red Ridding Hood with Freudian elements. The film was directed by Neil Jordan, but in it we can notice the writing of Angela Carter, an author who is mainly interested in rewriting folklore myths from a feminist point of view. If you see this film you will enter a world of magic, of dreams, not only by means of the script, but also by the settings, which are really wonderful. The film itself deals with the end of childhood and the beginning of adolescence, with all its sexual connotations, and the loss of innocence. When we become adults we realize life is not a magic tale. All this is treated from a feminist point of view, the main character is a girl who dreams about several stories with werewolves. Visually the movie is incredible, and it manages to reflect the symbolism of woods, the mixture of light and darkness, the magic creatures which live there during the night and the dangerous inside them especially for the girls who don't follow the path. From my point of view the film is one of the best dealing with the myth of werewolves, mainly because the film is a metaphor of life, of the human specie, all of us have an animal inside.

Rosaleen (Sarah Patterson) is a teenager, living in a country house in England with her family in the present days, and having a nightmare with wolves and werewolves in the Middle Ages. In her dream, her boring sister is dead, she lives with her father (David Warner) and her mother (Tusse Silberg), but she spends lots of time with her lovely grandmother (Angela Lansbury). Granny tells her many stories of werewolf and gives her the following advice: "- Never stray from the path in the woods, never eat a windfall apple, and never trust a man whose eyebrows meet." One day, Rosaleen, while going to visit her grandmother, meets a handsome man and bets who would arrive first at her granny's house. Soon she finds who he is.

"In the Company of Wolves" is the second and one of the most fascinating films by Neil Jordan. Based on the fairy tale of the Little Red Riding Hood, it is indeed an adult stylized version of the tale in a dreamlike atmosphere with open end. But further than that, it is also a spectacular approach of the beginning of the puberty, losing of the innocence through wild and erotic dreams, when the character of Sarah Patterson is becoming a young woman. Neil Jordan makes an excellent horror movie, which can have the most different interpretations, depending on the experience of the viewer. He uses many symbols, such as the lipstick, or the first date of Rosaleen. The gorgeous and promising actress Sarah Patterson has never become a star. With her interpretation in this cult-movie, any fan would believe she would have a great career ahead, what has never come true. My vote is nine.

Title (Brazil): "A Companhia dos Lobos" ("The Company of the Wolves")

Note: On 23 March 2024, I saw this film again.

Overall this film is pretty good; I wouldn't say it rivals "American Werewolf in London", or even "Dog Soldiers", but it's a fun fantasy horror flick. Though the film is only an hour and a half long, it does tend to drag in a few places, but overall it's worth your time. Great practical effects, atmospheric production design, and inventive storytelling make this film enjoyable, particularly for fans for gothic fantasy and horror.

The company of Wolves. why is it so underrated? A simple low budget sweet tale that everybody knows cleverly put together into this horror masterpiece with a few more short stories added. Special Effects are great. I love the first story the most where they cut the Werewolves head off and it turns back human. I'm probably going to upset a few people now when I rate the special effects more than In An American Werewolf In London. But the best bit if all is all the god damn German Shepherds jumping through the window at the end. Believable as Wolves Not - but still such a delicious, entertaining, humorous and gory. The Company Of Wolves is OK in my book.