The Company of Wolves
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| The Company of Wolves | |
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| Directed by | Neil Jordan |
| Produced by | Chris Brown, Stephen Woolley |
| Written by | Angela Carter, Neil Jordan |
| Starring | Sarah Patterson, Angela Lansbury, Stephen Rea, David Warner |
| Music by | George Fenton |
| Distributed by | ITC Cannon/Hen's Tooth (U.S.) |
| Release date(s) |  15 September 1984 (premiere at TIFF) September 21, 1984 19 April 1985 |
| Running time | 95 mins. |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $2,000,000 (estimated) |
| IMDb profile | |
The Company of Wolves is a 1984 fantasy-horror film directed by Neil Jordan, and starring Sarah Patterson and Angela Lansbury.
The film is based on the werewolf stories in Angela Carter's short story collection The Bloody Chamber ("The Company of Wolves", "Wolf-Alice" and "The Werewolf"). Carter herself co-wrote the screenplay with director Neil Jordan.
Carter's first draft of the screenplay, which contains some differences from the finished film, has been published in her anthology The Curious Room (1996).
[edit] Synopsis
The film concerns Rosaleen, a thirteen year-old girl. The story is set almost entirely within her dreams. She imagines herself as a Red Riding Hood analog, encountering dangerous wolves and sexually charged werewolves who threaten the safety of her fairytale village.
At several points within her dream, Rosaleen either tells or is told fairytale-like stories about werewolves, witches and the Devil.
The film emphasises the psychological and sexual allegory that underlies fairy tales and the werewolf myth. The stories that Rosaleen hears and the creatures that she encounters represent the frightening but empowering onset of puberty.
[edit] Trivia
- Due to budgetary constraints and other factors, most of the 'wolves' shown in the film are Belgian Shepherd Dogs, mainly Terveurens and Groenendals.
- The use of lycanthropy as a metaphor for an adolescant girl's burgeoning sexuality is also used in the film Ginger Snaps.
