Rating: 4/5
Fairy tales and nightmares merge as a woman is seemingly thrown into the dreams of her reclusive sister, ultimately chased down by wolves with red glowing eyes
The dream continues and becomes our primary reality in which Rosaleen — a red-riding hood type, complete with hood, played by Sarah Patterson — hears the stories of warning from her grandmother — Angela Lansbury — in which men tear off their skin to become wolves and boys who ask for chest hair are consumed by the forest
“Seeing is believing,” is a refrain said by various characters throughout the movie as we question how much of the stories we are told are true
Great practical effects and visuals throughout, with varying degrees of “realism” — a wet, gross werewolf transformation vs a beheading in which the head shatters like fine china
The fairy tale elements both honor the darkness of their origins and interrogates their morals, so even the storybook moments you know aren’t quite what you know
The framing device feels unnecessarily complicated — why does the movie start in the present day and be a dream? And not all of the performances work for me. Still, a very good movie