Cast and Crew: Angela Carter (Screenplay); Stephen Rhea, Terence Stamp

What It’s About:  When Father (David Warner) and Mother (Tusse Silberg) arrive home they ask her older sister  Alice (Georgia Slowe) to fetch Rosaleen (Sarah Patterson)-but she’s asleep on her bed, wearing her sister’s make-up and dreaming.   In her dreams, various objects in Rosaleen’s room-including an incredibly creepy doll-inhabit a haunted forest, where Alice is looking for her until a pack of wolves devour her.  Her parents distraught, Rosaleen spends more time with Granny (Angela Lansbury), who fills her head with folk tales of werewolves. These include classic themes, including marriage to supernatural creatures, wolves whose trophy body parts become human when unwrapped, aristocrats turned into wolves as a punishment for their rapacious behavior, and of course, the classic Little Red Riding Hood story.

Why Watch it Today?:  Filmmaker Neil Jordan turns 64 today.  Although he is perhaps best known for The Crying Game, Jordan’s work includes not only dramas, historical and crime films, but also stories with supernatural elements such as Interview with a Vampire, High Spirits and today’s psycho-sexual take on werewolf and wolf folk stories.  Just a warning-like the folk tales it draws inspiration from, it is quite gruesome at times.