Red Riding Hood

I liked this film, with no apologies. I bought it. It's twisted, warped, off kilter with enough loose ends to keep any critic's bazooka going full time. But it nearly touched something, nearly. It strived so hard and, for much of the film, had what it wanted contained and captured but - yes - what it sought to grasp finally withered loose and … I don't know… scampered and skittered in all directions so beginning never connected to end, or vice versa. I'm bad about sentimentalism for a near miss. It caught me up in something they-who-built-it wanted to do. I got in their van on a dark street and rode with them for a while. Never made the destination but I don't regret the ride. Jenny is scary as hell. The blend of Jenny, George and music (that music … it empowered the crucial scenes with its here-I-come tempo in time with those swinging red boots - oh, those red boots). Ah, well. Most will turn up noses, shake heads and turn their backs on this tiny flick. And, they are probably correct. For me and my ilk, however, it nearly touched something and I don't know if it fell short of touching "it" or if I jerked "it" away at the last moment. "Nice shot, George".

Red Riding Hood is about a little girl named Jenny (Susanna Satta) who has been abandoned by her mother and has come up with quite a warped sense of values. Her father was a politician who was assassinated by a wacko of some sort. Jenny takes his death as an abandonment on his part and her mother abandons her for some guy while they live in Italy, which adds to her confusion and insanity.

Jenny, along with her friend George, have become somewhat of vigilantes, punishing common thieves, hit and runners and even those who are morally bankrupt by torturing and killing them. By the way, she believes George is her puppy that is all grown up.. to over 6 ft. tall and rides a bicycle and wears a mask.

Eventually, Jenny's grandmother, Rose (Kathleen Archebald) comes to Italy to take her back to New York. The demented little girl wants nothing to change in her life, as her mother left behind lots of cash and credit cards with an unlimited balance.

Jenny's take on her life is that of the old nursery rhyme, Little Red Riding Hood, hence the name of the movie, but it is taken from the wolf's point of view. This little girl is littering up the wolf's forest and insults the size of his ears and eyes, etc. So I suppose George is meant to be the wolf.

The movie is halfway original I suppose, but Susanna's acting is a bit over the top for me and a little unbelievable. Plus, I do not think anyone would really fear for their life from a little girl, even if she does have a knife (don't want to give away too much here). The plot twists are a little different, which is good but the special effects could have used a little work. Obvious rubber props used for body parts, and little things like that rubbed me the wrong way. This was not as good as I expected. 5/10

This movie is plain and simple an "okay" movie. It's nothing special, but nothing terrible, furthermore it succeeds in places, and drastically fails in others. For starters I'll talk about the main character "Jenny". I could easily see from the beginning of the movie, what the desired effect for the character was, it was the clichéd innocent little girl with an evil twist. And to be honest I got bored with it. I can't tell whether the girls acting was terrible or whether it was the character. I felt no emotion towards any other characters and it can be seen that little time was spent on creating them. The character of Jennys tutor, "Tom" was played by a relatively unknown actor and wasn't that bad, just too simplistic. The grandmother was the only good acting in the film to be honest. Don't even get me started on the character of "George". George is a six foot tall monster that follows Jenny as she does her duty. I think George was created to add some form of horror and mystery into an otherwise dull plot. The morals shown by the main protagonist are so corrupt and predictable, it made me ask the question. "If this girl is so intelligent and all knowing why does she succumb to the things she does?" It made no sense, the director obviously just wanted to add some moral value into the flick, trying to get a reaction, which failed. Is this movie a black comedy, well, it tries to be. One good thing Is the placement of the repetitive music, yes some music was played over and over, but they were used brilliantly. The direction wasn't terrible either. It could have been something great with a better lead actor, and better scriptwriting. All in all 6/10.

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...

This movie was really impressive - we rented it expecting your typical low budget horror but it was not anything like that! it was basically a psychological horror in the tradition of the Bad Seed but much more interesting. I was shocked to find out that this girl had not been in anything else - she was amazing!! The only thing I didn't like about it was the ending, that was rather strange but I guess it was OK. The DVD had absolutely no extras which was disappointing on a movie like this. So I definitely recommend this - especially to those who like movies off the traditional track. Oh yeah and it kinda reminded me of Donnie Darko.