The Company Of Wolves (1984)
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Horror Movies & Sci-Fi Movies Database
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03.05.09
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A bag full of symbolic folklore about werewolves, or, rather, their sexual connotation. Granny tells her granddaughter Rosaleen strange, disturbing tales about innocent maidens falling in love with handsome, heavily eyebrowed strangers with a smoldering look in their eyes; about sudden disappearances of spouses when the moon is round & the wolves are howling in the woods; about babies found inside stork eggs, in a stork nest high up a tree; etc., etc. Of course the story of Little Red Ridinghood is also present, with a very handsome he-wolf! (And of course this he-wolf consumes Grandmother, but 'consumes' Little Red Ridinghood). All the stories are somehow reducible to loss of innocence, and fear of/hunger for (a newly acquired sense of) sexuality; their Freudian character is mirrored in their dreamlike shapes. This movie is not really a horror movie; it's more a multiple tale about growing up into adolescence.
Movie Tagline:
Where fairy stories meet horror stories [Australia Theatrical]
Title: Company Of Wolves, The
Release Date: July , 1984
Runtime: 95 mins
Genre: Horror
All Genres: Horror, Fantasy
Languages: English
Country: UK
Colors: Color
Sound: Dolby
IMDB Rating: 6.6
Brimstone Pit Rating: 7.7 - (Rate This Horror Movie)
Category: Horror Movies Starting With C
MPAA Rating: R
Director(s):
Neil Jordan
Cast:
Sarah Patterson ...Rosaleen
Angela Lansbury ...Granny
David Warner ...Father
Tusse Silberg ...Mother
Micha Bergese ...Huntsman
Brian Glover ...Amorous Boy's father
Graham Crowden ...Old Priest
Kathryn Pogson ...young Bride
Stephen Rea ...young Groom
Georgia Slowe ...Alice, Girl Killed by Wolves
Susan Porrett ...Amorous Boy's mother
Shane Johnstone ...Amorous Boy
Dawn Archibald ...Witch Woman
Richard Morant ...Wealthy Groom
Danielle Dax ...Wolfgirl
Vincent McClaren ...Devil Boy
Ruby Buchanan ...Dowager
Jimmy Gardner ...Ancient
Roy Evans ...Eyepatch
Edward Marsen ...Lame Fiddler
Jim Brown ...Blind Fiddler (as Jimmy Brown)
Jim Carter ...Second Husband
Terence Stamp ...The Devil
Remaining Cast:
Producer(s):
Chris Brown
Nik Powell
Stephen Woolley
Stephen Woolley
Writer(s):
Angela Carter
Neil Jordan
Composer(s):
George Fenton
More Movie Taglines:
- Where fairy stories meet horror stories [Australia Theatrical]
- Within the forests are strangers lying in wait for innocents . . . who stray from the path! [Australia Theatrical]
- The desire... the fantasy... the nightmare
- In the dead of the night, the beast is unleashed!
- The Company of Wolves. They're all the company we keep. Even in our dreams.
Movie Quote(s):
- Granny: Never stray from the path, never eat a windfall apple and never trust a man whose eyebrows meet in the middle.
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Rosaleen: And that's all I'll tell you, cause that's all I know.
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Rosaleen: Little girls, this seems to say / Never stop upon the way / Never trust a stranger friend / No-one knows where it may end / As you're pretty, so be wise / Wolves may lurk in every guise / Now as then, 'tis simple truth / Sweetest tongue has sharpest tooth.
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Rosaleen: Little girls, this seems to say, never stop upon your way, never trust a stranger friend, no-one knows how it will end! As you're pretty, so be wise! Wolves may lurk in every guise! Now, as then, it's simple truth, sweetest tongue has sharpest tooth!
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Granny: Your only sister, all alone in the wood, and nobody there to save her. Poor little lamb. Rosaleen: Why couldn't she save herself?
Movie Trivia:
- The film is primarily based on the werewolf stories in Angela Carter's short story collection The Bloody Chamber ('The Company of Wolves', 'Wolf-Alice' and 'The Werewolf'). However, the plot of the film is more similar to Carter's 1980 radio adaptation of 'The Company of Wolves' than to the original story, as it was in the adaptation that Carter introduced such concepts as digressive narration within the main narrative (in the original story, the various diversionary narratives are separate from and occur prior to the main narrative).
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Director Neil Jordan had wanted Andy Warhol to play the role of the Devil. Producer Stephen Woolley traveled to New York to meet Warhol, who had recently been shot, and Warhol agreed to do the film. However, fearing for his life if he traveled, he would only play the role if his scenes were shot in New York. This was impossible, and so Jordan cast his friend Terence Stamp in the role. Stamp agreed to do the role if Jordan bought him a suit, which Jordan did, much to Stamp's amusement.
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The exact age of Sarah Patterson's character, Rosaleen, is not mentioned in the film. However, in his director's commentary for the UK Special Edition DVD, director Neil Jordan says she is supposed to be 12-and-three-quarters. On the U.S. DVD (Hen's Tooth Video edition), the promo trailer contains a scene where Rosaleen tells Granny she is 12-and-three-quarters. (Granny: "Maybe you're too young / too young to understand." Rosaleen: "Tell me Gran / I'm 12-and-three-quarters.")
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Angela Carter's first draft of the screenplay, which contains a number of differences from the finished film, was published in her anthology 'The Curious Room'. One of the most noticeable differences is the end. In Carter's script, the film ends with Rosaleen diving into the floor of her bedroom and being swallowed up. 'Neil Jordan' liked this ending, but as he explains on the DVD commentary for the film, the limited visual effect technology of the time made such a scene impossible to shoot on a small budget. Other differences include another story told by the Huntsman to Rosaleen, a different final tale told by Rosaleen to the wolf and a scene in a church with an animal congregation.
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According to Neil Jordan, it was he who suggested adding the modern frame story to the narrative, giving the film what Jordan calls "a Chinese Box structure" (stories within stories). He came up with this idea after seeing Rekopis znaleziony w Saragossie (1965), which has a similar structure. Jordan also talks about this film on his DVD commentary, where he also sites Roger Corman's films as a major influence, especially Pit and the Pendulum (1961), The Tomb of Ligeia (1964) and The Masque of the Red Death (1964).
IMDB Links:
» User Comments at imdb.com
» More information at imdb.com
Keywords:
Folklore, Sexuality, Grandmother, Woods, Teddy Bear ...[more]
Keywords All:
Seduction, Coming Of Age, Animal In Title, Dark Comedy, Metamorphosis, Demon, Supernatural Power, Storytelling, Cruelty, Turns Into Animal, Teenage Girl, Mother Daughter Relationship, Blood, Marriage, Monster, Sexual Awakening, 1700s, Severed Head, Severed Hand, Lipstick, Shape Shifter, Mythology, Devil, Cult Favorite, Dead Sister, Forest, Lycanthropy, Beast, Animal, Metaphor, Death, Fairy Tale, Rite Of Passage, Werewolf, Cabin, Little Red Riding Hood, Gothic, Sympathy, Storyteller, Transformation, Decapitation, Psycho Sexual, Nightmare, Surrealism, Wolf, Dream, Independent Film, Title Spoken By Character
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Rating: 7.7 out of 10.0 - 70 votes cast total
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