History Film / TheCompanyOfWolves

* TransformationScene: There are a couple of intense, brutal scenes of men changing into wolves. They're rather amazing for being done quite some time before CGI started dominating movies.

* DontGoInTheWoods: Or, "don't stray from the path" as it is said in the film. Granny warns young Rosaleen in this way, lest she fall victim to men and their wiles.

* AssholeVictim: Alice. She has very little time on screen, in which she manages to be utterly repulsive. The viewer gets almost instant satisfaction from her violent death early in the movie.

* BeautyIsNeverTarnished: Alice looks quite good for someone who got savaged by a pack of wolves.

* WomanInWhite: Alice at her funeral looks interestingly more like a young bride, than someone who was savaged by wolves.

* TheGloriousWarOfSisterlyRivalry: Rosaleen and Alice are implied to be locked in one of these. Alice is older and more glamorous, with lipstick that Rosaleen keeps borrowing so she's probably the pretty sister. Rosaleen meanwhile is intuitive and imaginative, making her the smart sister.

* GainaxEnding: Where did all those "wolves" come from? And is Rosaleen still dreaming at that point? Neil Jordan's original ending would have had her jumping to the floor - where she'd disappear as if into water.

* ColorMotif: White objects turning red happens more than once, usually through bloodshed.

* ChekhovsGun: [[spoiler: The moment the wolf/huntsman knocks off Granny's head seems to be out of left field, unless you remember that while other major characters were featured in the real world sequences--Rosaleen's parents and sister--Granny was never a person at all. She was one of the dolls in Rosaleen's room.]]

* GainaxEnding: Where did all those "wolves" come from?
* TheGloriousWarOfSisterlyRivalry: Rosaleen and Alice are implied to be locked in one of these.

* PainfulTransformation - The infamous werewolf transformation scene where a man peels of his own skin, to reveal a NightmareFace, only to have a werewolf snout burst out from within his mouth, transforming him entirely into a wild bloodthirsty wolf. Then his head is chopped off by someone!

* OneDialogueTwoConversations: Deliberately done between Granny and the Huntsman. [[spoiler: On first viewing, and from Granny's point of view it sounds very like the huntsman is just a smooth talker, snidely telling Granny that [[VictimBlaming Rosaleen was asking for it]]. From the huntman's point of view "Nothing she didn't want" literally means he didn't do anything Rosaleen didn't consent to.]]

[[caption-width-right:300:"Don't stray from the path."]]

* BadassGrandma: Rosaleen's grandmother certainly puts up a better fight than the tradition granny in ''Little Red Riding Hood''.

* TheCameo: Terence Stamp as the Devil.

* NoNameGiven: Any of the cast other than Rosaleen, in particular The Huntsman, Granny, and her parents. Alice's name is only revealed in the credits.

%%* {{Grimmification}}

* AManIsAlwaysEager[=/=]AllMenArePerverts: Granny's opinion about male sexuality. The mother challenges this. [[spoiler: Turns out that the mother is right.]]

* SomethingAboutARose[=/=]TheTragicRose: The white rose that turns red in the Wolfgirl story could be either, or both, depending on your interpretation.

* WomanInWhite: Alice at her funeral looks interestingly more like a young bride', than someone who was savaged by wolves.

* NeverWorkWithChildrenOrAnimals: Averted. Not just with the dogs, but filming went fairly smoothly with the actual wolves, as well. (Neil Jordan commended Sarah Patterson on her bravery during the scene where she had to sit right next to and pet one of the wolves.)

Think of it as "Literature/LittleRedRidingHood", written by Sigmund Freud and directed by David Lynch.

* DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything: The entire movie has scenes reminiscent of Freud ideas about sexuality.

* WomanInBlack: Granny, who appears to be a widow. She is the matriarch of the family and the strongest voice of warning against Rosaleen straying from the path. [[spoiler: As it turns out, her words are more restriction than actual warning.]]

Rosaleen, a young girl ("[[MissingTrailerScene I'm twelve and three-quarters old!]]"), falls asleep in her parents' mansion and dreams of living in a medieval village. After her sister is killed in the forest by a pack of wolves, her grandmother comforts Rosaleen, telling her several stories of the dangers of deceptive wolves who roam the forest at night, looking for young girls. She is informed to never trust a [[BigOlUnibrow man whose eyebrows meet in the middle]] and that the most dangerous wolves are the ones with fur on the inside.

* AdaptationExpansion: The movie goes into much more detail than the short story.

* AllJustADream: [[spoiler:Averted. She gets attacked after waking up.]]

* TheBigBadWolf: [[spoiler:The Huntsman is truly a wolf in diguise.]]
* BigOlUnibrow: A sign that a man is a werewolf.

* BitchAlert: Rosaleen's sister Alice. It's no wonder she gets eaten by wolves at the very start off the dream.
* BittersweetEnding: The same as most coming of age stories--Rosaleen learns about being an adult at the cost of childhood innocence.

* OverlyLongTongue: Rosaleen's love interest in the end is a werewolf and has a long, canine-like creepy tongue.

* LittleDeadRidingHood: This is set up all through the movie, particularly towards the last trip to Granny's house when Rosaleen finds blood by the gate.

* TheLostWoods: The dream is set in medieval times where this trope came from. Wolves live there and they're not mundane ones.

* AManIsAlwaysEager[=/=]AllMenArePerverts: Granny's opinion about male sexuality. The mother challenges this. [[spoiler: Turns out the mother is right.]]

* OurWerewolvesAreDifferent: They're metaphors for sexuality.
* OverlyLongTongue: Rosaleen's love interest in the end is a werewolf and has a long, canine like creepy tongue.
* PainfulTransformation - The infamous werewolf transformation scene where a man peels of his own skin, to reveal a Nightmare Face, only to have a werewolf burst out from his mouth, transforming him entirely into a wild bloodthirsty wolf. Then his head is chopped off by someone!

* {{Satan}}: The man in the car is implied to be Satan since Granny prefaces the story with, "One day he'll meet the devil in the wood."

* WasOnceAMan: Rosaleen's father takes a paw from a wolf for a trophy. It turns into a human hand.

* WomanInWhite: Alice at her funeral looks interestingly more like a young bride than someone who was savaged by wolves.
* WorldOfSymbolism: There's very little in this film that isn't either overtly or covertly about puberty, sexuality, or impending adulthood.

* BodyHorror: The [[PainfulTransofrmation werewolf transformation]] scenes are very [[spoiler: bloody...]]