Red Riding Hood Is an Interesting Folk

¶ … Red Riding Hood is an interesting folk tale which has been very popular among children and adults alike. Several versions of the story are found but the most common elements remain the same whereby a young little girl is asked by her mother to visit her grandmother and give her some food. Upon her arrival however, she finds that a wolf has replaced her grandmother but just when he is about to attack Red riding hood, he is killed by a woodcutter who happens to be around when the little girl calls for help.

Recently the story was made into a movie but honestly speaking, the movie bears very little resemblance to the original tale. Apart from the werewolf aspect, there happens to be no real point of comparison because the movie is far more inspired by Twilight than it is by Little Red riding hood. It was not even loosely based on the story even though it borrows the title from the story. The Little red riding hood role is essayed by Amanda Seyfried who fits the part very well but since the whole story is ridiculously fragmented, her performance doesn't carry much weight.

There are few if any similarities and there are host of differences. For one the little red riding hood is anything but little. She is not the little girl of the original story but instead a 21-year-old who is torn between two men. There is no love angle in the original tale but in the movie, it has a major part as the young woman is thrown in a difficult situation when she has to choose between two men, one that she really loves and the other has been chosen by her mother.

In the movie, the wolf is not the ordinary wolf found in the original story instead it is a werewolf who is an insatiable beast. For years this wolf has been accepting animal sacrifice by the people of the village, but has changed his tactics and now chooses to take a human life to satiate his appetite. This human being happens to be Amanda's sister Lucie. However while the angle should have been important for the movie, it doesn't matter much as the heroine and her suitors are too occupied with their own love triangle to think much of Lucie's death.

No such death or love triangle is found in the original story. It is unfortunate that a movie that so boldly borrows the title from a children's story doesn't offer much to younger audience. It is much more complicated than it was supposed to be. The movie would have fared much better had it stayed closer to the original folk. The differences are far too many and extend to the point where it is very difficult to even link it to the original tale apart from the title. The werewolf can only be captured with the help of Father Solomon who is an expert in the area. Father Solomon discovers that werewolf has not died but his soul has been transferred into another person and thus the werewolf lives on. This complicated soul transfer has nothing to do with the original story and is only added to give another dimension to an already complicated storyline.

The only factor is the presence of a grandmother. We find this figure in both the movie as well the original tale. The ending somewhat looks similar to the story than does the rest of the movie because even in the film we have a grandmother figure who hides herself from Red Riding hood when she visits her because it is not the grandmother but the werewolf in disguise. This is the only scene that looks similar to the story while everything else was highly fantasized version of an otherwise simple folktale.