‘Little Dead Rotting Hood’ Review
Stars: Eric Balfour, Bianca A. Santos, Romeo Miller, Patrick Muldoon, Heather Tom, Brendan Wayne, Marina Sirtis, Amy Argyle, Tony Ketcham, Jake T. Getman, Izabella Alvarez, Taylor Carr, Ashley Doris, Demetrius Stear, Baker Chase Powell | Written by Gabriel Campisi | Directed by Jared Cohn
For years, the old woman in the woods has secretly kept the wolves of the forest at bay. When the woman dies, the creatures suddenly attack the residents of a nearby town. As more people turn up dead, the townsfolk discover something far more sinister than wolves lurking in the woods and wage a bloody battle against the ruthless creatures. As the wolves begin to overrun the town, only the woman’s granddaughter holds the key to stopping the bloodbath before it’s too late…
Writer/director Jared Cohn has been carving out somewhat of a decent horror career in recent years, both in front and behind the camera. His latest, yet another film for The Asylum (he previously helmed the likes of 12/12/12 and Atlantic Rim for the studio), is a new take on the legend of Little Red Riding Hood, seemingly following the companies recent penchant for fairytale-based movies like Avengers Grimm and Sinister Squad… Though to be fair, despite its hokey title, Little Dead Rotting Hood blows the latter out of the proverbial water.
When you mention The Asylum, the first thing that springs to mind is either the companies predilection for mockbusters or their camp monster movies like Sharknado. However the company have actually made some serious, and some seriously good, genre films. Of which Little Dead Rotting Hood is one.
Opening with the death of our heroine, Little Red Rotting Hood plays like a more grown-up episode of Buffy The Vampire Slayer – if Buffy was about werewolves rather than vampires; oh, and if Buffy was a part-werewolf, part-zombie and entrusted with protecting the forest from other werewolves and the evil “den mother”. Seeing our titular heroine, Samantha, transformed into the sword-wielding undead badass that she is, take on the giant werewolf leader, isn’t quite on a par with the big set pieces of Joss Whedon’s Buffy and/or Angel but it’s damn close!
Surprisingly, the effects work here is pretty good, even the CGI werewolves look decent. Though thankfully their appearance is kept to a minimum and in the shadows to prevent the kind of ridiculous over-saturation that plagues a lot of low-budget werewolf flicks (and some big budget ones too… cough, American Werewolf in Paris… cough). Apparently Little Dead Rotting Hood also used actual trained wolves for a lot of the attack sequences, which – knowing that – adds some real gravitas to those scenes.
A a fast-paced action-horror, Little Dead Rotting Hood builds to a final crescendo that will leave audiences satisfied and best of all, the film leaves things open for further adventures of Samantha and her fight against the werewolf hoards…
Little Dead Rotting Hood is out now on DVD from High Fliers Films.
