Little Red Riding Hood and Other Stories

This unique release compiles three short fairy tale adaptations directed by David Kaplan. A teenage Christina Ricci stars in the title role in the headline production, 1997's Little Red Riding Hood, in which Kaplan shoots in expressionist black-and-white and eschews dialogue in favor of overlaid narration by Quentin Crisp. As in the source material, Red meets Wolf (Timour Bourtasenkov)—depicted here as an androgynous dancer in stylized garb—en route to granny's house. Once Red arrives, she finds meat and wine on the table and digs in, even though the talking cat (a puppet) explains their grim provenance. After that, Wolf asks her to disrobe and climb into bed. Whether the beast means to seduce or to kill her isn't clear, but it does become obvious that Red is no simple innocent girl. Little Suck-a-Thumb (1992), filmed in color and based on a “cautionary tale” by Heinrich Hoffman, revolves around a boy (an adult Cork Hubbert) with poor impulse control. After tucking him in for the night, his mother warns that he'll lose his thumbs if he sucks them, but he can't resist, and a pale man with scissors pays a late-night visit. Kaplan takes a silent-film approach to The Frog King (1994), which tells the story of a girl (Eden Riegel) and a frog (another puppet) who retrieves the girl's doll from a well in hopes that she'll sleep with him. When she reneges, he follows her home. DVD extras include audio commentaries by Kaplan and folklore scholar Jack Zipes. An engaging collection of darkly twisted shorts, this is recommended. Aud: C, P. (K. Fennessy)