We really were hoping this was going to be something fun with a bit of gothic cool, but the teaser trailer has arrived for Catherine Hardwicke‘s “Red Riding Hood” and it’s essentially another version of the “Twilight” story. No surprise she’s so comfortable with the material as she did direct the first entry in the teenage vampire phenomenon.
The film features a strong cast with Amanda Seyfried, Shiloh Fernandez, Julie Christie, Gary Oldman, Max Irons, Lukas Haas and Virginia Madsen in the David Leslie Johnson (“Orphan” and one of the writers hired to write “Clash of the Titans 2”)-penned screenplay, which takes the Brothers Grimm-like tale and sets it in a medieval village haunted by a werewolf. Seyfried is in the titular role as a girl who falls in love with an orphaned woodcutter (Fernandez) though she’s engaged to marry the son of a blacksmith (Irons) with the overarching story centering on the haunting presence of a werewolf in the village they call home. So it’s really too bad it plays out like every other forbidden teen romance we’ve seen over the past few years. We’re not going to get into the wretched song that accompanies this (we presume a Chop Shop Music-curated soundtrack is on the way) or Gary Oldman’s Anonymous Foreign Accent, but we will say we like the burst of primary colors and the sets have an appealing, obvious fakeness to them that’s alluring in a “Sleepy Hollow” sort of way.
The film will hit theaters on March 11, 2011. Check out the poster, synopsis and trailer below (or at Apple in HD).
In “Red Riding Hood,” Seyfried plays Valerie, a beautiful young woman torn between two men. She is in love with a brooding outsider, Peter (Shiloh Fernandez), but her parents have arranged for her to marry the wealthy Henry (Max Irons). Unwilling to lose each other, Valerie and Peter are planning to run away together when they learn that Valerie’s older sister has been killed by the werewolf that prowls the dark forest surrounding their village. For years, the people have maintained an uneasy truce with the beast, offering the creature a monthly animal sacrifice. But under a blood red moon, the wolf has upped the stakes by taking a human life. Hungry for revenge, the people call on famed werewolf hunter, Father Solomon (Gary Oldman), to help them kill the wolf. But Solomon’s arrival brings unintended consequences as he warns that the wolf, who takes human form by day, could be any one of them. As the death toll rises with each moon, Valerie begins to suspect that the werewolf could be someone she loves. As panic grips the town, Valerie discovers that she has a unique connection to the beast–one that inexorably draws them together, making her both suspect…and bait.
