A young girl gets lost in the woods after straying from a path. And there are wolves (literal and figurative). A variation on a dark fairy tale transplanted to Oregon, To Kill A Wolf is in the Competition Features strand at the Edinburgh Film Festival 2024.
The first thing to note for animal lovers reading this: I do not recall seeing any wolves being killed during this movie.
A wolf does appear on screen, but the real question I found myself asking part-way through this variation on a fairy tale was “Who is the wolf in this story?”.
To Kill A Wolf is an independent film with a small cast, set in rural Oregon and divided into chapters based around some of the characters. Identified only as The Woodsman (Ivan Martin), the gruff outcast lives in a cabin in the forest, spending his time fine-tuning his stereo system and releasing wolves from the various traps situated around the area. When he comes across teenager Dani (Maddison Brown) one day – lying in the forest on the point of hypothermia – he reluctantly takes her to his cabin for her to recover.
If your alarm bells aren’t ringing by now then mine certainly were – yet despite The Woodsman encouraging and even insisting that Dani goes home as soon as she is able, it quickly becomes obvious that she does not want to leave. A perspective switch explains to us how Dani came to be lying in the forest and eventually, via a trip to grandma’s house, she is reunited with her aunt and uncle, from whose house she was running when she got lost in the forest. Whether this fairy tale goes on to have a happy ending is not perfectly clear, and it certainly won’t be happily ever after, but events do provide an element of redemption and a new beginning for some of the characters.
The Woodsman appears to us as a stranger and possibly somewhat sinister as we don’t know his motives, and yet the most chilling of moments occur when Dani is in a place that should be safe for her. To Kill A Wolf turns on its head the notion that we should be wary of strangers and not stray from the familiar path – danger, particularly for teenage girls – can be anywhere, and the chest-tightening dread does hit the viewer on a couple of occasions.
To Kill A Wolf is described by director Kelsey Taylor as “a modern reimagining of Little Red Riding Hood as a troubling exploration of trauma and redemption” and I think she has succeeded. It’s a dark story with a hint of hope and strong work for a first-time feature director.
To Kill A Wolf receives its World Premiere in the Competition Feature strand at the Edinburgh International Film Festival.
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A young girl gets lost in the woods after straying from a path. And there are wolves (literal and figurative). A variation on a dark fairy tale transplanted to Oregon, To Kill A Wolf is in the Competition Features strand at the Edinburgh Film Festival 2024.
The first thing to note for animal lovers reading this: I do not recall seeing any wolves being killed during this movie.
A wolf does appear on screen, but the real question I found myself asking part-way through this variation on a fairy tale was “Who is the wolf in this story?”.
To Kill A Wolf is an independent film with a small cast, set in rural Oregon and divided into chapters based around some of the characters. Identified only as The Woodsman (Ivan Martin), the gruff outcast lives in a cabin in the forest, spending his time fine-tuning his stereo system and releasing wolves from the various traps situated around the area. When he comes across teenager Dani (Maddison Brown) one day – lying in the forest on the point of hypothermia – he reluctantly takes her to his cabin for her to recover.
If your alarm bells aren’t ringing by now then mine certainly were – yet despite The Woodsman encouraging and even insisting that Dani goes home as soon as she is able, it quickly becomes obvious that she does not want to leave. A perspective switch explains to us how Dani came to be lying in the forest and eventually, via a trip to grandma’s house, she is reunited with her aunt and uncle, from whose house she was running when she got lost in the forest. Whether this fairy tale goes on to have a happy ending is not perfectly clear, and it certainly won’t be happily ever after, but events do provide an element of redemption and a new beginning for some of the characters.
The Woodsman appears to us as a stranger and possibly somewhat sinister as we don’t know his motives, and yet the most chilling of moments occur when Dani is in a place that should be safe for her. To Kill A Wolf turns on its head the notion that we should be wary of strangers and not stray from the familiar path – danger, particularly for teenage girls – can be anywhere, and the chest-tightening dread does hit the viewer on a couple of occasions.
To Kill A Wolf is described by director Kelsey Taylor as “a modern reimagining of Little Red Riding Hood as a troubling exploration of trauma and redemption” and I think she has succeeded. It’s a dark story with a hint of hope and strong work for a first-time feature director.
To Kill A Wolf receives its World Premiere in the Competition Feature strand at the Edinburgh International Film Festival.
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