(Film only review)

== Red Riding Hood ==
Red Riding Hood is a 2011 movie starring the very talented Amanda Seyfried, as she plays the lead role of a young girl called Valerie (basically red riding hood but under a different name). Red Riding Hood is a dark mysterious fantasy film directed by a lady named Catherine Hardwicke. The movie is pretty much based on the old fairy tale (which I loved when growing up) Little Red Riding Hood and we all know what Little Red Riding Hood is about. The movie starts with a young girl named Valerie who at first is a young kid in the movie and she is with her boyfriend who both go both down in the woods trying to catch a rabbit, after catching the rabbit they intend on killing it for food as its hard to find around their village but neither of them can pluck up the strength to kill it. Now after this weird and very stupid scene the movie starts properly 10 years on from that day and the pair are all grown up.

Valerie is from the village of Daggerhorn where she grew up with her family and from a very young age she fell in love with a woodcutter named Peter (Shiloh Fernandez) who is also her young boyfriend back ten years (but obviously played by someone else) ago and they are still madly in love. Valerie's mother Suzette (Virginia Madsen) and her strange curious father Cesaire (Billy Burke) have made a promise to a very rich and noble blacksmith called Adrian Lazar (Michael Shanks) that their oldest daughter Valerie will marry hos only son Henry (Max Irons) even though Valerie's wishes to be with Peter, but she agrees so that Cesaire debt with Adrian is paid off.

Valerie is displeased with being set up to marry some guy she hardly knows and she makes plans to run away with Peter as no matter how much she loves her father, the love she has for Peter is true love, however little did they know things were about to take a sick and twisted turn and the village sirens erupt, which is the meaning that the werewolf that attacks their village has struck again and has taken a life of another villager. After inspecting the body they realize it is Lucy, Valerie's older sister and then rumors begin to spread throughout the village that Lucy was in love with Henry (who Valerie has been set up to marry). Now the remaining villagers gather their silver weapons and go hunt for the werewolf.

Later on they come back after killing what they first think is the werewolf, after the arrival of a famous witch hunter Father Solomon (Gary Oldman) he tells them that this is not the werewolf and its only just a wolf, as he has fought with one before. He then tells them that the werewolf is one of the villagers. The villagers don't really believe him and continue having a celebration as they think they have actually killed the werewolf, but have they?

=== Did You Enjoy It? ===
Now to be perfectly honest I don't think many people will like this movie as its the same creators as the people that made the Twilight franchise and that movie has its fans and its own enemies. Red Riding Hood is actually pretty similar to that and all though I didn't really enjoy the Twilight movies, this was actually rather good. The story literally dragged me in all the way through it and it was actually rather addictive. At first I was like...eh Red Riding Hood, a horror movie? and to be honest I was surprised at how great it was. Another thing is I didn't know anything about this movie until yesterday and I watched it later that night and I am really thrilled I did watch it as well.

The movie has a whole list of things I liked about it but it did however have some things I disliked about it. I wasn't entirely happy that its basically another love triangle type movie, like Twilight. The story was also predictable throughout the whole of it, I was however slightly surprised on who the werewolf was and I wont reveal it but it came as a little shock. I thought the ending was absolutely brilliant, although the movie did take a while to kick in and start. A good thing for me about this was that the movie had surprises all the way throughout of the film and some of them were very strange. One of the scenes I loved was with Valerie, she is basically asleep having a nightmare laid next to her granny and she starts saying things to her like 'Oh my what big eyes you have', 'Oh what big teeth you have' and to be fair I thought that was fantastic about the movie. Another thing I was impressed with was the red hooded cloak granny gives her, its brilliant and makes her look like a good Red Riding Hood. All in all I enjoyed this, much better that Twilight!

=== Characters/Performances ===
The characters in the movie, I feel was pretty good although you don't even hear Red Riding Hood mentioned at all throughout the movie and its just plain old Valerie. Amanda Seyfried who plays the lead role as Valerie, does remarkably well in my opinion and actually suits the role as Red Riding hood. To be honest I haven't really been a huge fan of her until I watched this as she was brilliant. Gary Oldman plays the role of Solomon and hes as good as ever, fun to watch sometimes rather intelligent and at other times hes quite a bit silly but he does do a great job. Now in the movie it is a lot like Twilight in the terms of a love triangle and this is basically with Valerie and two other guys. One of whom is the woodcutter Peter, who she has been in love with for over 10 years, played by Shiloh Fernandez and Henry who is the rich blacksmiths son and he is played by Max Irons. Now they both seem to do pretty great to be fair, I just hope this movie doesn't start a 'Team Peter' or 'Team Henry' thing like the Twilight series with Jacob and Edward because its ridiculous. All in all they seem to all give a great performance and I can really see this doing pretty well.

=== The Director ===
The director of Red Riding Hood is of course Catherine Hardwicke who was born October 21st, 1955 in Cameron, Texas, USA. Catherine Hardwicke is better known as the director of the first Twilight movie which has its critics as I was never a big fan, but with this movie she does do a great job and has made it brilliantly. She has also directed a couple of other movies such as, Thirteen, The Nativity Story and Lords of Dogtown, however I would have to say this is her best work yet.

=== Special Effects ===
The special effects of the movie did remind me of Twilight quite a lot but I would have to say they are slightly better in this film. The designed layout of the places, like villages, caves and the forest was excellent and looked beautiful in places. Also the scenes with the werewolf (which to be fair is hard to see a proper close up) were quite good especially when the werewolf was ripping people apart. I did however have one little problem with something along the lines of the special effects and that was the lighting of the movie, I was sat there watching it and sometimes I couldn't make out what a few things was or a few things that was happening because the movie was way to dark. It is almost night time all the time throughout the movie but it could of done with a little more light. A street lamp wouldn't go a miss. However it does make it a little bit blah but it doesn't make the movie bad i any way because it really was great. I was quite impressed with a lot of things to do with the special effects.

=== Soundtrack ===
This part of the movie was really average, I mean how can they put up to date songs or music into a dark fantasy film set back in old times?, I mean don't get me wrong they did have some pretty good, scary at times music to freak you out and keep you on edge or in suspense but it really wasn't that effective. The other sounds to the movie were great, like the werewolf was really good and reminded me of the old American Werewolf movies. Another part I liked was the siren when the werewolf was around, that made the movie more enthralling and suspenseful. The only real let down was some of the pointless music playing whilst nothing was happening or going to happen. But to be honest this aspect of the movie didn't effect the movie to much and I still enjoyed it.

=== Other Bits ===
Now there are a fair few movies like this such as many horror movies with werewolves and many romantic/horrors like Twilight but not so many that are set in medieval times. To be fair its the first movie I have seen that has a werewolf, red riding hood and is based with a love triangle. All in all I really enjoyed the movie but did find some things a bit pointless but there were some parts that blew me away, especially the end of the movie with a huge cliffhanger, basically telling us there is going to be another Red Riding Hood movie...I think. Twilight is basically almost ending soon and this could be the start of maybe a new franchise? who knows.

All in all Red Riding Hood is a really good movie, I would recommend it to almost anyone except youngsters (even though it is Red Riding Hood) as it is no way near suitable for the younger audience. Its thrilling, chilling and a very suspenseful movie. If you love Twilight I am very certain you will adore this, if you don't like Twilight you may still like it as I did. It is quite a good tale and you can tell its based on The Little Red Riding Hood story. Really enjoyable movie that I would give a pretty decent 8/10!

The runtime for Red Riding Hood is 100 minutes, so its not as long as Twilight so it doesn't drag on like that movie does. However the certificate to Red Riding Hood is PG-13 it does contain violent scenes, it does contain some scenes of a sexual nature and it does contain a very ferocious werewolf, so be warned!

This review is posted on Ciao under the username: MrBrightside1987! Thanks for reading my review!