1984 - Directed by Neil Jordan
 Starring Angela Lansbury, Sarah Patterson, David Warner, Tusse Silberg, Stephen Rea and Micha Bergese

 A distinctly dreamy and surreal take on the werewolf mythos, Neil Jordan’s 1984 film was released when I was 10 years old, so I can’t really guess how old I was when I finally saw it for the first time.  What I can tell you is that the image of the wolf sprouting from the mouth of the man on the cover of the video is an image that’s been burned into my memory for what feels like as long as I can remember.  I can still recall how I became familiar with the box art of the VHS cassette at the supermarket where my mother shopped.  I’d stare at it in wonder while waiting for her to pay for the groceries, completely gobsmacked that such an image could exist and fill me with an equal sense of wonder and dread at the same time.

 A series of fairy tales, retold with a decidedly feminist and sexual slant, the film begins in modern era with a young teen girl dreaming of her sister being pursued by the toys that populate her room, then quickly shifts into a narrative set in the nineteenth century, immediately following the burial of a young girl who was killed by wolves.  Young Rosaleen (Patterson) is taken home by her Granny (Lansbury), who regales her with wisdom such as “Never stray from the path, never eat a windfall apple and never trust a man whose eyebrows meet in the middle.”

 To illustrate her point, she begins to tell her budding young grandchild various dark fairytales in which all manner of superstitions hold sway: for example, a young Groom (Rea) is revealed to be a werewolf on his wedding night, disappearing into the forest before he can consummate his marriage only to return years later to haunt his bride and reveal his true nature to her.  Beware the unibrow!

 Rosaleen is meanwhile pursued romantically by what I assume is the ugliest kid they could possibly cast in the role, perhaps to illustrate the slim-pickings for women of the time and why they might just fall for a man who could end up being a monster, if he was at least less outwardly hideous at first glance than the neighbor kid who’s been making eyes at you around the village.  Rosaleen takes a walk with the boy, only to discover evidence of another wolf attack, this time the victim is only a farmers’ cattle.

 The men of the village go on a hunt; only to have Rosaleen’s Father (Warner) return visibly shaken from the hunt, revealing that the forepaw he’d cut from the offending beast when they set upon it has now turned into a human hand.

 There are more ‘Once Upon A Time…’ bits in the film, told from several different character’s points of view, one of the best being about a woman ‘done wrong’ by a man of means, whose wedding she crashes, then bewitches his entire family and wedding party into taking on the forms of wolves, which features some truly amazing visuals and one of the images that will always stick with me from the film, it’s a very arresting sequence.  The story is related by Rosaleen to her Mother (Silberg), who of course is surprised to hear the nonsense that her mother in law has been filling her daughter’s head with.

 Rosaleen eventually meets a Huntsman (Bergese) on her way to Granny’s place, whose darkly menacing air works like catnip for her, so she’s drawn into a very high stakes version of Little Red Riding Hood as they race to her Granny’s cottage in the remote corners of the woods.

 The film is a lushly realized fever dream, with strangely anachronistic bits (the Devil, played by Terence Stamp, cruises through the forest in one story in a chauffer-driven limo?), sexy innuendos and some terrific practical effects that are both slightly dated and still rather disturbing to look at.  I think the one thing that keeps this from being a perfect film experience in my mind is that the werewolves almost all end up as wolves once fully transformed, losing the ‘were’ part in my mind altogether.  I’ll always prefer the man-wolf to what is essentially a creature they rented from the local zoo to run through the forest sets, y’know?

 I’ve come to love this film, it’s possibly in my top ten of the horror genre, as I think it manages to walk a fine line of art film and horror, though I could see the hardcore gore fan or whoever being put off by the dreamy nature of it, but then it’s obviously not made for them.

 Well worth a look if you’ve not seen it.

 Highly recommended.

 8.5/10