Todd Itcush

Girls, Wolves, and Madmen: Horror Film Revisions of Little Red Riding Hood Todd Itcush

Most critics accept that the genre of horror is quite similar to fairy tales. However, few explain the direct correlation between horror films and folk-fairy tales. Girls, Wolves, and Madmen demonstrates that contemporary horror films serve a similar purpose for audiences that folk-fairy tales used to do. The violence and sexuality that make slasher films controversial are important conventions that have their origins in folk-fairy tales before they were adapted for young children. These films are admonitory, warning their predominantly teenage audience about the dangers of sexuality ? especially to females. The plot elements and motifs of LRRH are compared closely to each of the films, revealing many similarities. All this evidence leads to the conclusion that these particular films are revisions of LRRH, and have taken on the fairy tale?s function of teaching sexual morality to female adolescents by scaring them with the fatal consequences of being immoral. This introduces a new way for both literary and film theorists to analyze horror films in terms of structural, feminist, and cultural theory.