About.com Rating

There is perhaps no more polarizing phrase in cinema today than "from the director of Twilight," but Catherine Hardwicke's Twilight follow-up Red Riding Hood might actually accomplish the improbable task of uniting horror fans and Twi-hards with its tasty blend of genre thrills and romantic wistfulness.

The Plot

On the edge of a dark forest lies a small medieval village whose resident have lived in fear for decades.

The area, it seems, is plagued plagued by a werewolf that emerges monthly during the full moon. For the past 20 years, the village has lived in an uneasy truce with the beast, placing a livestock offering outside its gates in exchange for being left in peace. However, without warning, the wolf strikes one night, leaving a teenage girl dead.

The attack not only decimates victim's younger sister Valerie (Amanda Seyfried), but it also throws a wrench in her plan to elope with her childhood sweetheart, woodcutter Peter (Shiloh Fernandez). Valerie feels she needs to run away because her parents have arranged for her to marry the more well-to-do blacksmith Henry (Max Irons), whom she hardly knows.

Those plans take a backseat when the village declares war on the wolf, bringing in renowned werewolf and witch hunter Father Solomon (Gary Oldman) to slay the beast. But when he suggests that one of them is in fact the werewolf, tensions rise as suspicions, jealousy and ulterior motives turn the villagers against one another in the race to determine the creature's identity.

The End Result

Unencumbered by the clunky melodramatic source material that she worked with on Twilight, Catherine Hardwicke delivers a more robust final product that, in terms of melding horror and romance elements, out-Twilights Twilight. The script was written by David Leslie Johnson, who brought us the guilty pleasure of 2009 in Orphan, and while not as engaging as that film, Red Riding Hood delivers similarly pulpy lowbrow entertainment value (Don't look for historical accuracy.). From a horror perspective, the gore and scares are minimal, but there are enough thrills to satisfy, thanks to quick pacing, a serviceable whodunit mystery and strong visuals -- including a werewolf design that outshines the more high-profile Twilight series.

Hardwicke's cinematic flair melds with the stylish production design to paint a lush fairy tale environment that captures some of the otherworldly magic conjured in 1984 by Neil Jordan's Little Red Riding Hood-inspired werewolf film The Company of Wolves. Lacking that work's surreal gothic edge, Red Riding Hood plays like its PG-13 cousin: safe, inoffensive, but still enchanting and evocative of the fairy tale spirit.

Yes, there is some residue of the teen angst and love triangle melodrama that weighs down the Twilight films, but Red Riding Hood feels more like a genre movie with some romance elements than a treacly romance that happens to have werewolves and, as the case may be, vampires. Another aspect elevating it over the Twilight Saga is the cast -- anchored by veterans Gary Oldman and Julie Christie and up-and-comer Amanda Seyfried, whose cat-eyed gaze personifies the famed "What big eyes you have" dialogue.

The Skinny

• Acting: B- (Oldman, Seyfried and Christie balance out Virginia Madsen and Twilight vet Billy Burke's stiffness.)
• Direction: B (Picturesque and cinematic, capturing both suspense and romance.)
• Script: C+ (A fairly standard, but still involving, whodunit wrapped in medieval werewolf trappings.)
• Gore/Effects: B- (No gore, but strong CGI and design.)
• Overall: B- (A stylish werewolf mystery that makes up in entertainment value what it lacks in originality.)

Red Riding Hood is directed by Catherine Hardwicke and is rated PG-13 by the MPAA for violence and creature terror, and some sensuality. Release date: March 11, 2011.