Red Riding Hood

The critical reception from the US may be scary enough to keep filmgoers out of the big, dark multiplex this month as Red Riding Hood hits our screens. This front runner for 'worst film of 2011' is loosely based on the classic folk tale and directed by teen-specialist, Catherine Hardwicke – her supposed fightback after being dropped by the Twilight franchise after just one film.

Red Riding Hood takes us deep into some stunning mountain landscapes to the idyllic forest hamlet of Daggerhorn. Here we find our heroine, Valerie (Amanda Seyfried), in love with her dark, brooding childhood sweetheart – now woodcutter – Peter (Shiloh Fernandez). Her parents would prefer her to wed their choice of suitor, Henry Lazar (Max Irons, son of Jeremy), an all-round good boy who has a few more irons in the fire career-wise as the town's blacksmith. So far, this all sounds a bit like Twilight, but these boys must also contend with a girl-eating werewolf. One that lives in human form within the town walls and wants Valerie for itself.

And so Red Riding Hood plays out as part fantasy film, part whodunnit, treating itself with the utmost seriousness. Annoyingly, considering the richness of the source material, the storytelling is lazy and the script is just plain bad - not even Gary Oldman, playing werewolf hunter Father Soloman, can add bite to lines like “Lock him up in the elephant”. The film does have some merits such as beautiful design and a perfectly cast Amanda Seyfried as the wide-eyed girl entering womanhood. But, unless you're a bored teenager with spare pocket money this Easter, your time would be better spent visiting your actual granny than chumming Red Riding Hood through the forest to see hers.