The Test of Time: The Company of Wolves (1984)

Last Updated on August 2, 2021

We all have certain movies we love. Movies we respect without question because of either tradition, childhood love, or because they’ve always been classics. However, as time keeps ticking, do those classics still hold up? Do they remain must see? So…the point of this column is to determine how a film holds up for a modern horror audience, to see if it stands the Test of Time.

DIRECTED BY NEIL JORDAN

STARRING SARAH PATTERSON, ANGELA LANSBURY, STEPHEN REA, MICAH BERGESE

Here’s a quizzical two-parter for ya: what’s your all time favorite werewolf flick? Now what’s your all time favorite Neil Jordan movie? Is your answer one in the same?

Chances are pretty fair I suppose. Me personally, I just might say Jordan’s finest film to date is his allegorical werewolf film THE COMPANY OF WOLVE (GET IT HERE). Yet as superlative as the film remains in my memory, I’m not so sure I’d call it my favorite werewolf film. That distinction just might have to go to AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON, THE HOWLING or DOG SOLDIERS. Anyway, the reason we ask is because THE COMPANY OF WOLVES turns 35 years old this year, which of course gives us the extra incentive to revisit the film and see how well it’s aged, or not, since its release in 1984 (1985 in the U.S). After all, few films, if any, have subverted a childhood fairytale the way this one has. And not just subverted, but Jordan has disturbingly refashioned an innocent story into a nightmarish tale of sinister surrealism like no other. Beyond the narrative itself, which plumbs the depraved depths of the Brothers Grimm Little Red Riding Hood fable, THE COMPANY OF WOLVES somehow overcomes its scant $2 million budget to ascend as a soul-shuddering paragon of technical excellence. Question is, if wolves have been around forever, how then will THE COMPANY OF WOLVES fare against The Test of Time? Let’s get to the bottom of this bastard below!

THE STORY: The screenplay was adapted by Angela Carter from her own short-story anthology The Bloody Chamber, which includes the eldritch episodic exploits of The Company of Wolves, Wolf-Alice, and The Werewolf. That said, the film version more closely adheres to the radio adaptation Carter made of The Company of Wolves in 1980, which hews to the “Chinese Box” style of the narratives within narrative framing format. As for the actual storyline, such concerns a young girl named Rosaleen (Sarah Patterson) who falls asleep while reading a magazine in her bedroom and has a terrifying surreal series of fright-mares that take place in the medieval woods surrounding her house, where roaming wolves stalk in the night. The first surreal nightmare sees Rosaleen’s sister, Alice (Georgia Slowe), chased down and devoured by a rabid pack of wolves. Ros goes to stay with her Granny (Angela Lansbury, who Jordan cast on the spot due to her “air of sinister charm”), who in turn tells the girl more harrowing stories as she knits a bright red shawl for her. Granny’s admonishing refrain to Ros is to never trust a man whose eyebrows meet, as “a wolf is sometimes much more than he seems.” As we’ll find out, the wolf becomes a major metaphor for a man’s primal, uncontrollable lust, carnal cravings, and the predatory nature of his sexually desirous relation to the female species.

As Ros consorts with Granny, the two trade even more surreally dizzying anecdotes and dreamy allegorical horror vignettes. While Ros must contend with the lascivious advances of a young suitor (Shane Johnstone) and later the famed Huntsman (Micha Bergese), both she and the Huntsman morph into feral, mouth-spuming wolves, culminating in a the death of childhood innocence and the arrival of virile womanhood. In the interim of the overarching narrative come several episodes, including a young groom (Stephen Rae, who would go on to play a werewolf in UNDERWORLD AWAKENING many years later) turning into a werewolf, leaving his wife, and returning to find her remarried. Another deals with the devil (Terrence Stamp, replacing Andy Worhol, who reportedly was too afraid of flying to England to filmto accept the role ) turning a boy into a wolf, only to bind the boy to the confines of nature as vines swaddle his legs. My favorite though just might be the story Ros tells to her mother (Tusse Sliberg) about the wolves in the forest being more decent than the nobleman. The nobles at a wedding gala are then transmuted into wolves before tearing the hall apart and dashing into the enchanted forest. As Ros reckons with all these subconscious thoughts and feelings, she must come of age in a quick hurry or forever be preyed upon by hairy demonic men with insatiable libidos.

WHAT HOLDS-UP: The single most aspect of THE COMPANY OF WOLVES that still holds up just as well today as it did in 1984 is the eye-popping production design by Anton Furst. Seriously, few films if any have ever been able to visually reconstruct the aesthetic of childhood dreams the way Jordan, Furst and DP Bryan Loftus were able to on this film. Argento’s SUSPIRIA comes to mind as coming close to rivaling the dreamy surrealism, but that’s really about it, and that flick doesn’t even factor in the innocence of childhood fairytales the way this one does. The arresting imagery and eerily foreboding forest setting is so well realized that, even without a shred of dialogue or slightest turn in plot, would still mortify an audience with its visual panache alone. There’s little coincidence in what still holds up today, and what the BAFTAs nominated the film for in 1985: Costume Design, Make-up Artist, Production Design, and Visual Effects.

The fact these guys built such a lived-in world on soundstages with just $2 million is as impressive as anything else in the movie. The moldering tree branches, ethereal scrim of fog, distorted thorn bushes, portentous pathways and ominous air of danger around every corner is palpably realized in the film. The surreal imagery, according to Furst, was inspired by the work of artists like Salvador Dali, Gustave Dore, and Samuel Palmer. The dazzling appearance of the movie is so beauteous and breathtaking that you could freeze-frame damn near every shot of the film, print it and hang it on your bedroom wall. Indeed, so impressive is the production design of THE COMPANY OF WOLVES that the peerless Stanley Kubrick immediately hired Furst to work on FULL METAL JACKET. Two years later, Furst won an Oscar for his production design of Tim Burton’s BATMAN. And you know what, this just might remain his finest work!

We’ve alluded to it above, but the other thing that still plays just as powerfully today as it did back in the day is the fearsome subversion of childhood fairytales. Red Riding Hood is obviously front and center here, but so too is the tale of Snow White, what with the inclusion of the worm-ridden apple and carnally charged Huntsman. The subtext in the Grimm tales is rife with sexual innuendo and coital metaphor, but never before has someone been bold enough to really explore such on the big-screen. Hell, if Disney waters down Grimms’ tales, then Jordan bloodies them up. The distinction is a much appreciated one for hardcore horror fans, and very little if anything about what Jordan was able to capture onscreen in ’84 has been degraded by today's standard. Going further, I dare you to watch Catherine Hardwicke’s RED RIDING HOOD, then THE COMPANY OF WOLVES, and tell me that the latter has lost a single fang from its bite!

Speaking of bites, we must talk about the actual wolves and ghastly onscree metamorphosis of such. First, due to safety and budget constraints, it’s pretty astounding to think that only two real wolves (during the duck luring scene and finale with Ros) were used during the shoot, while all the others were Belgian Shepherd Dogs with dyed fur. However, I’d argue that the first transformation scene is among the best we’ve seen on screen, right on par with that of AMERICAN WEREWOLF and THE HOWLING. The FX work helmed by Dave Eltham (INCEPTION, SOLO: A STAR WARS STORY) is top-flight in this scene as the wolf’s slavering visage is brutally birthed through Rea’s eviscerated flesh. And while the second stint is slightly less impressive (because it’s briefer), when Ros herself morphs into a hair she-wolf in the end, we’re given a visceral wraparound that reminds us of where we started. The circular nature of the onscreen carnage keeps the film as balanced as can be, and thanks to the killer FX work, said balance has been preserved 35 years later!

WHAT BLOWS NOW: To be clear, there isn’t much actually shown in the film that feels inferior now to when it was released in 1984. However, what didn’t make it into the film as a result of limited time and resources; is somewhat lamentable. One instance includes the originally scripted finale, which would have seen Ros’ bedroom floor suddenly open up like a large chasm, into which Ros would dive before the hole closed up. Jordan liked this idea for an ending, but couldn’t achieve such with limited funds and a 9-week shooting schedule. Also, and this is an inconsequential gripe, but the ever-changing appearance of Ros from story to story is a bit confusing, even if the red-cape denotes her identity for more than half of the film. I swear, in the early scenes she looks like Danielle Harris in HALLOWEEN 4, and in the wedding banquet scene, she’s a dead-ringer for Kirsten Dunst in INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE, of course also directed by Jordan (coincidence? I can't tell). This doesn’t make or break the film, but it is one thing about the movie that’s always nagged at me a bit.

THE VERDICT: Beyond the diegetic subversion of Little Red Riding Hood and Snow White to terrifying ends, it’s the supremely inimitable visual representation of THE COMPANY OF WOLVES that still looms large as ever. It's one of the most hauntingly beautiful films ever made. Never before has a movie replicated the surreal dreamlike milieu of childhood sleep the way Jordan has here, and despite all the forces working against it, the movie still engenders a highly stylized sense of a child’s nightmarish subconscious. It may not be my all time favorite werewolf flick, but THE COMPANY OF WOLVES still proves 35 years later that it’s probably my favorite Neil Jordan film.

What says you? Spill some motherf*cking blood below!