April 23, 1985 [The Company of Wolves]

Watching The Company of Wolves, I was pretty sure I was supposed to be thinking of Bruno Bettelheim and his book The Uses of Enchantment: the Grimm tale as instruction, an opportunity for the child to learn that the evolved Little Pig is safer than his primitive, less reality-principled house-of-straw counterpart. Or better yet: Little Red Riding Hood eager to be eaten up by her wolfish father--who has already obliterated the sexless grandmother, paving a toothy way for Red's own bold consumption of her virginity. This is the movie's pleasures, all laid out, so to speak, in a hairy, gooey splendor worthy of An American Werewolf in London's or The Howling's agonizing prosthetic enlargements.

But I shuffled Bettelheim off to the side: all I could think of was a short story by Shirley Jackson--that mad old suburbanite, raising little demons and rummaging around in the battered box for the unlucky winner of a pile of thrown stones. Thirty or more years ago, I think: "The Witch," about a little boy bored in a train and a nice old man with a cigar who delights the child with a little story of his own, about pinching his sister's head off and tearing her to pieces. The boy's mother steps in and banishes the smiling old devil--always courteous, soft-spoken, matter-of-fact--no dripping, fur-sprouting special effects necessary, just a smile and a story. The little boy understands, though, decides the old man was probably a witch, and promptly resumes his boredom.

I think this is where The Company of Wolves works best, with the grownup willing to tell a story, the grandmother eager to lay it on thick, leaving out no gory detail, delighted she can give her granddaughter the opportunity to eat and be eaten. But in the end I don't believe the not-so-little girl learns anything; the fairy tale is not school but an experience, like a long train ride with witches.