Syfy's "Red"

Ok, I've been a negligent blogger of late, but semi-regular posting shall resume.

For now, I just want to let people know about the upcoming Syfy channel film Red, set to star Felicia Day (above) (link, link).

That's all for now. More substantial content soon...

David Kaplan's Little Red Riding Hood

It's somewhat hard to track down, but if you can, I recommend finding a copy of David Kaplan's 1997 short film version of Little Red Riding Hood featuring Christina Ricci and dancer Timour Bourtasenkov. This adaptation has a wide range of influences including classical ballet, German Expressionist film and the sensual cult classic The Company of Wolves. The whole thing is based upon this version of the classic tale and even features Quentin 'Naked Civil Servant' Crisp as narrator.

It's certainly not for everyone, though, and frankly does feature one of the worst cat puppets I've ever seen. Still, I'd recommend checking it out, and am now eager to see some of Kaplan's other fairy tale shorts.

Randal Kleiser's Red Riding Hood

Randal Kleiser's 2006 film Red Riding Hood is one of those films that I've never seen, but keep hearing positive about all over the internet. However, it appears all of these positive things must surely be being put about solely by people directly involved in the movie's production in some way, as whenever I hop over to something like the imdb to gauge the public opinion, the unanimous impression seems to be that this film really sucks. Still, here's a clip to help you make up your own minds.

Hansel and Gretel

I haven't seen it, so I can't make any claims as to its quality, but I'd be lying if I said that I didn't think this South Korean film based on Hansel and Gretel didn't look really interesting (warning: some minor violent imagery in the below video).



An American remake is supposedly set for a 2011 release.

The Big Bad

Once again, the underlying themes of illicit sex and murder present in the classic fairytale are exploded, this time in The Big Bad, a short film from amateur film-maker "LimeAftertasteLLC," who gives the story a sapphic twist. If I'm being frank though, some of the acting on display is questionable at best.

(warning: mature content)

A pair of The Company of Wolves fan videos

I've nothing really substantial to post right now, but the fact that I caught both Time Bandits and Legend on TV this weekend has really put me in the mood for some '80s fantasy films. In lieu of a more substantial post on the subject, here's a nice little erotic vignette featuring clips from The Company of Wolves and music from Meat Loaf.

...And yet another fan-made music video, using clips from same:

Red Riding Hood (2003)

Your own tolerance for low-budget European horror may vary from my own, but if you do happen to like that sort of thing, you can do a lot worse than Giacomo Cimini's 2003 gory horror that actually features a great deal of tongue-in-cheek humour, as well as a curious performance from the young girl playing the protagonist.

Here's the trailer for the film at imdb, although bizarrely, the trailer is attached to another, Bulgarian film.

Exploitica Rides Again!

And now, as both a follow-up to the previous post and for my own sordid amusement, here's Exploitica's take on K. Gordon Murray's Little Red Riding Hood.

WARNING: Adult humour

Little Red Riding Hood and the Monsters

"King of the Kiddie Matinee" K. Gordon Murray was responsible for bringing a number of rather bizarre Spanish-language films over to the United States. Amongst these were a trilogy of films starring Little Red Riding Hood, as well as one or two films starring Tom Thumb, who seems to have worked his way into at least one of the Red Riding Hood sequels.

Just to give you a taste of what these films were like (and don't worry, I imagine I'll be posting more about them in the future), here's the trailer for Little Red Riding Hood and the Monsters.

Pins & Needles

Moving away from advertising, but still sticking with non-stop Youtube-ing for the moment, here's a little something that I thought was too awesome not to share. It's a trailer for the independent short film Pins & Needles, a "gothic martial arts fantasy retelling of Red Riding Hood." Really, what more could I possibly add to that.

One additional note though, for people wondering about the title. As far as I'm aware, it relates to the two alternate paths Red Riding Hood can choose to take in some early forms of the tale: the "path of needles" or the "path of pins". I expect we'll be seeing some more references to those later on in the week.

Falsehood

Since it's my first day, I guess you get two LRRH-posts for the price of one.




Falsehood is but one of many revisionist short films (though at over thirty minutes this is more of a "featurette", I guess) about LRRH, but it's certainly a goodie. Enjoy!