Rish Outfield's reviews
Once again, it looks like it's up to me to be the bad guy. Well, in this case, I don't mind so much.
I hated The Company of Wolves. You know, unless there is another version of this film that is drastically different (i.e. makes sense and has a tangible plot), there's no way this film's hoards of followers could convince me of its worth. Boys and girls, this film was dull, pretentious and completely pointless.
Well, from beginning to end, this was a fairy tale-like art house film about a magical land where wolves and men aren't what they seem. A young girl (Sarah Patterson) who wears way too much makeup when she sleeps, is told several wolf-related stories by her frighteningly-earnest grandmother (Angela Lansbury), and tells one herself. She is quite literally Little Red Ridinghood, complete with the "What big eyes you have" dialogue. She also has several dreams, and dreams within dreams, and indeed, the whole film may well be a dream, which would explain its surreal and nonsensical nature. It also deals with temptations of the flesh and warnings about attractive strangers, which must hearken back to the origins of many fairy tales. But most of all, the film is an incomprehensible mix of moody photography, bizarre allegories, irrelevant shots of frogs and rabbits, and pseudo-intellectual metaphors.
Here's the very definition of 'artsy fartsy,' where the plot takes a back seat to nonsensical highbrow visual odds and ends. A little dream imagery can be entertaining, kids, but enough is enough! And I can't mention it enough--it is ALL a dream. This is almost not a horror movie, as though people are eaten by wolves and they leap in slow-motion toward their prey, no one ever takes it very seriously. Werewolves are common things in this neighbourhood, I guess.
It was very English, with its locale of dark woods and cast with bad teeth, but it also had some pretty countryside and night shots (you know I am stretching for review material when I mention the landscape). The best thing about the film was the nice production design by Anton Furst, who went on to do Batman.
I won't call it overambitious (that's almost a compliment), but I will say that there were too many stories told and not enough attention paid to the main one, which I could barely describe if you beat me with a stick. It was a very cute kid that played Red Riding Rosaline, but I couldn't tell if we were supposed to see her as a child or an object of lust (very probably both). David Warner played the girl's father, in another thankless role, though he does get tell the severed-paw-turned-into-a-hand part of the werewolf legend. Did I mention that Angela Lansbury was spooky? Well, I'll bet I didn't mention that her head was made of porcelain, did I?
I liked the fact that they used real wolves and used some kind of magic to make their eyes glow all the time (see Zoltan: The Hound of Dracula for another example) and most of the effects were really quite interesting, especially the main werewolf transformation. Unfortunately, it goes on too long, like shots of The Enterprise in the first "Star Trek" movie, killing any wonder or charm. And while it happens, the girl just stands there, unafraid. In fact, all sorts of evil crap happens and she never shows any fear. Maybe she knows it's all a dream.
I did find one double-entendre, before it all grew tiresome, pretty clever, as a man-wolf goes out of his house on moonlit night to answer the "call of nature." But as I said, they took it too far, burying us under long, awful, poetic dialogue, with no basis in reality (English or otherwise). Maybe in Narnia people might speak that way, I'll give you that one.
Company of Wolves tries to be all literary and allegorical, but ends up stumbling over its own pompous feet. For fans of the film (pick up a sense of humour, next time you're out shopping), I will grant you there are a couple of lyrical moments, but it's one of those cases where because EVERYTHING is supposed to be symbolic and/or beautiful, in the end NOTHING ends up symbolic and/or beautiful.
I'd Recommend It To: Smug blowhards that want to feel superior to me. Go ahead, you know you want it.
Best Scare: One early dream sequence featured some scary-looking giant dolls, but they weren't near as eerie as the counterparts Rosaline had in her bedroom.
Posted: September 20th, 2000.

The tyranist's thoughts
I like the werewolves as much as anyone else and I'm generally more into introspective, symbolism heavy movies than the average person. If I find a movie that speaks to me, regardless of whether it is deeply symbolic or a simple narrative, I usually gush. Kind of like most of the reviews that I've read for The Company of Wolves.
Too bad I didn't feel the same.
Really the failings of the movie can be summed up in one simple problem for me: they lacked any kind of cogent narrative. Sure the whole damn movie's a dream, but that doesn't mean that you can just throw whatever the hell you want onto the screen and expect me to swallow it. Even dream-logic has to make enough sense to communicate a story, a plot, a message, something.
About the only thing that kept me watching was that I found Sarah Patterson so nice to look at. If it weren't for her, I might have turned the whole thing off and you'd never get to hear how much I disliked it. Luckily, I watched Donnie Darko earlier in the evening so it wasn't a total waste.
You don't have to believe us, you know. A lot of people seem to really like this one and you might too. On the other hand, you can't blame us if you watch it and hate it. We warned you.
Posted: October 31st, 2002