52 Weeks: Dream within a Dream

The Company of Wolves (1984)

★★★★★★★☆☆☆ (7 out of 10 stars)

Director: Neil Jordan
Producer: Chris Brown, Stephen Woolley
Starring: Sarah Patterson, Angela Lansbury, David Warner, Micha Bergese, Terence Stamp

“Never stray from the path, never eat a windfall apple, and never trust a man whose eyebrows meet in the middle.”
— Granny

The Review:

My precocious pack of perusers of peril, gather close and lend me your attention, for I have a curious specimen to share with you tonight.

I first met this film when I was still a young thing in art school, all ambition and no wisdom. I confess I did not truly understand it then. It slipped through my fingers like smoke. Yet even in my confusion, I could not deny its beauty, nor the peculiar, dreaming style that clung to every frame. Some films you comprehend. Others you simply feel. This was the latter, and it has stayed with me across the long years since.

Let me tell you what it is, though “is” may be too firm a word for so slippery a creature. This is the tale of Little Red Riding Hood, yes — but reflected through a warped and surreal glass. It does not march forward in a straight line. Instead, it unfolds as a series of short dream segments, narrated anthology-style, all nested within the sleeping mind of a young woman. Stories inside stories inside a dream. A matryoshka doll carved from wolf’s bone.

Now, if you come to this film hunting for a tidy three-act structure, you will find yourself lost in the woods. It chases theme over story, mood over mechanics, image over plot. Judged by the old rules of linear storytelling, it may frustrate you. I will be honest about that, as I always am.

But here is where my true appreciation was born. Look at it instead through the lens of direction, detail, and consistency, and the whole thing transforms before your eyes. Each segment stands as a testament to the director’s vision and his firm hand upon the emotional and visceral reins. The costuming is impeccable. The casting is inspired. The writing sinks its teeth deep. Nothing here is accidental. Every choice serves the fever-logic of the dream.

So allow me to offer a warning, spoken with care. If you approach this film only as a horror hunter, sniffing for scares and body counts, you may well leave disappointed and hungry. But if you leap in and take a proper bite — savoring the artistic worth of the piece, honoring it as a monument to directorial ambition and challenge — then you may find yourself thoroughly delighted. Once you pin it down, dear ones, there is genuine meat on the bone.

That is the secret, you see. Embrace it as short dreams, told by an unreliable narrator, drifting through the mind of a dreamer. Do that, and the doors swing open. Anything goes. Wolves wear the faces of men, brides shed their skins, and the forest keeps its own dark counsel.

So dim the lamps, let the fire burn low, and do not stray from the path — unless, of course, you wish to.

Until we meet again in the shadows, keep prowling alongside us through 52 Weeks of Halloween from Scaldcrow Games.

Yes child, there is more…so much more. See what you have missed: T. Glenn Bane’s 52 Weeks of Halloween Index.