LittleRedRidingHood Tagged Articles at Cinematical

Ever since The Dark Knight, we've become obsessed with making things darker. Little Red Riding Hood? Make it darker! The Wizard of Oz? Dorothy should be cutting up the wicked witch with a chainsaw! Alice in Wonderland? Alice should be a meth-addicted stripper who's afraid of big hats! (Note: Don't fret, Alice is not a meth-addicted stripper in Tim Burton's upcoming adaptation, though I bet she exists somewhere in that form.) Thankfully we still have Disney and their arsenal of cute, charming, cuddly princesses. And since Disney would never in their right minds turn one of their beloved princesses into some sort of trashy, blood-thirsty sexpot, those of you who'd like to see what something like that would look like can now check out Jeffrey Thomas' pretty fantastic collection of Twisted Disney Princesses.

Out of all his images, I think Snow White is my favorite -- but only because she comes equipped with seven nasty looking dwarf-trolls, all of whom would probably make up the greatest horror-comedy in history if anyone was ever a allowed to throw something like that together. I can picture it now: There's Sleepy passing out just as he's munching down on the severed head of his latest victim. Oh, and there's Dopey getting blood all over Snow White's brand new white leather sofa ... again!

Check out some of our favorites below, and the rest over at Jeffrey's page.



[via Neatorama, via ScarletScribe's Twitter]

It looks like leaving Twlight was the best thing Catherine Hardwicke could do. While there have been insider murmurings and rumors that Summit wasn't happy with her work, that's not stopping her from getting a whole heck of a lot of it now that she's left the vampires behind. We've already heard about Maximum Ride, If I Stay, and the modern Hamlet. Now The Hollywood Reporter's Risky Biz Blog is saying that there are also some biggie projects that could end up on her plate.

First, Hardwicke is said to be in negotiations to helm The Girl with the Red Riding Hood -- the Appian Way/Leonardo DiCaprio project I mentioned earlier this month. (Variety, meanwhile, seems to think it's definite.) But that's not all. It seems she's also in early talks to helm the new feature film version of 21 Jump Street -- the project Jonah Hill is writing and thinking about starring in. Of course, there could be scheduling problems with all of these productions, so that will definitely play into whether she gets the gigs.

Leonardo DiCaprio already has a whopping 23 projects in development -- between acting and producing. Now we can make it 24. On the heels of news that DiCaprio is stilling visiting The Twilight Zone, Variety reports that his Appian Way company is gearing up to tackle the story of Little Red Riding Hood with the help of Orphan scribe David Leslie Johnson.

Seeing that Johnson's lone feature film is a horror, are we finally going to get a true Riding Hood tale, like I blogged about all the way back in 2007? It would seem so. Unfortunately, it won't be a straight adaptation, but rather a "Gothic reimagining." I'm sure it can be all kinds of cool, although the tale doesn't really need to be reimagined. The original stories bring to life a myriad of creepy things through its many versions. There's a werewolf dining on grandma's blood, and demanding Little Red de-robe and come to bed with him, a hunter who cuts out the girl and her grandmother, and even a grandma meat pie.

There are no plans for Leonardo to take on a role himself, so we won't see him getting wolfy in any way -- although that'd be a great way to keep things fresh. Whoever stars, the bigger question is who will direct this gothic tale?

Earlier this month, I was writing a post about fairy tales and I wondered why we don't get many classic fairy tale horror movies. I'm not referring to reimagining familial tales into something more adult (like Dorothy and bdsm), but rather going back to the source of the fairy tale. There have been a few attempts, such as Sigourney Weaver's Snow White: A Tale of Terror, but not nearly as many as there could be in the seas of zombie movies and Saw sequels.

What is creepier than kids, parents, evilness, sorceresses, wolves, and cannibalism? Before the stories were ripped from their horror roots, they were just right for scary, gory films. The early days of fairy tales weren't all rosy cheeks and puckered, pouting lips; they had blood, flesh, and genuine frights. If kids of yesteryear saw the tykes of the last 50 years, I think we'd all be getting a feline-sounding name that isn't too complimentary.

So here are seven tales perfect for scary movies. Some wouldn't need any embellishment, while others could easily be morphed into a chilling tale that not only taps into our younger days, but also thrills our current adult lives. Take this as a dare, scary filmmakers! Look through this creepy list and whip up something to scare the pants off us. And for you non-filmmakers out there -- which tale would you want to see on the big screen?


Hansel and Gretel

A family is starving, so the evil mom says: "Hey, let's send the kids out into the forest so that we have enough food for ourselves." But the buggers come back, because they leave a trail of pebbles that lead them back home -- a reason we should never teach our children, the insidious food-stealers! So dear old mom tries again, and the kids only have breadcrumbs, so they're stuck in the forest. They come upon a house made of bread, with sugar windows. Their little mouths begin to salivate, and they start eating the house. The old woman who owns the house takes the kids in, which seems awfully nice for a woman who just found kids eating her lovely home. That is, until she makes Gretel her servant, and fattens up Hansel so she can eat him. But then Gretel kicks her old butt into the oven, and the kids are free. They find their way home, and conveniently, their mom has since died of "evilness," so they live happily ever after with their previously mom-whipped dad.

There's not too much actual horror in this, beyond the burning of the old woman, but imagine her cannibalistic dreams, or the children's evil mom's fears about starving while they frolic. Or, maybe the old woman has done this before, and they find half-eaten children piled up in back. Who knows!?