A modern version of the fairytale, nothing more. Not exactly a children fairytale, maybe, since there are killings are torture, but not a horror version either.
There is a village that has been offering animals to a werewolf every full moon for years now, and everything seemed to be going well, until one morning Lucille is found dead, killed by the werewolf! Father August has the "brilliant idea" (bad, bad idea!) to call for Father Solomon, a real fanatic who uses the methods of an inquisitor. Lucille was Valerie's younger sister, and Valerie is our protagonist. She's never called Red Riding Hood in the movie, but all the other crucial points are there: she wears a nice red cloak, the granmother lives alone in the woods, and Valerie walks to her house with a basket in hand, although there isn't any food in there. In a dream there is also the famous scene of the big eyes/ears/teeth her granma has. But let's move on.
Valerie is in love with Peter, who to me seems the only one not to have a French name. Unfortunately her family promised her to Henry because he has a better position and therefore more money, and I sort of expected an older man, or an ugly man, or maybe just an evil one... instead we see a blonde, tall guy with gentle looks who apparently has always been madly in love with her, and I was like : that's better than Peter! Forget that cold fish of your boyfriend! But she doesn't.
Then Father Solomon arrives, the werevolves hunter, obsessed by them because apparently he married one, and had to kill her to protect his two daughters... yep, daughters. That surprised me a lot, but after all that's not Italy, and maybe they do things differently there.
Finally we see the wolf, when he comes to ruin the party: literally, they were having a big party because they thought they had already killed it, but he came to prove that they were wrong by killing a few people, but not Valerie! He stops in front of her, and while her friend only hears scaring noises, Valerie can clearly hear words, and the wolf wants her. I guess they wanted us to suspect the two boys, but I never believed that.
SPOILERS.
I had thought of the father and the grandmother as possible suspects, but I discarded the idea because I thought it didn't make sense. I mean, they were her family, she trusted them, it would have been easy for them to convince her to go away together without raising suspicions, and I still think this is the major problem with the film. At the end her father doesn't force her right away, he talks to her, but obviously she's already scared (or maybe disgusted..), knowing that he had killer her sister. Not to frightened to react, since she's the one that kills him, but still she's not going to think 'oh dear father, it was you?'...
That didn't make sense to me, it would have been more reasonable if he had talked to her in his human form, convincing her to go away with him, and only then try to explain the situation? The whole thing of his message, intercepted by Lucille and their meeting when he was a wolf was a mere excuse, a way for him to understand that she wasn't really his daughter because she wasn't able to understand him. Of course at that point only a stinky piece of shit like him would react killing her, as if all the years spent in the same house, calling her his daughter didn't mean a thing!
Anyway, as I was saying, it didn't really make sense.
Gary Oldman as Father Solomon was good as usual, but I really disliked the character, for what he was and what he did, torturing and killing innocent boys for what he thinks is the greater good... another stinky piece I'd say...
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