Unless director Catherine Hardwicke (“Twilight”) is willing to shoulder some of the blame, it’s useless to try and figure out why “Red Riding Hood” is so bad. I stuck with it till the bitter end, but I’m not proud of that achievement and wouldn’t recommend that anyone follow my lead. Amanda Seyfried plays the title character, who lives in a small village at the edge of a deep dark forest. We are told right at the beginning that the villagers live in constant fear of a wolf who claims a sacrificial victim whenever the moon rises (Lon Chaney Jr. must be rolling in his grave). When the wolf kills Riding Hood’s sister, someone hires Father Solomon (a wasted Gary Oldman) to take charge and conduct a witch-hunt that’s almost as vicious as the killings. Oldman convinces the villagers that they are dealing with a werewolf who is so deceptive, he may be living among them undetected. This will eventually lead Riding Hood to suspect everyone around her. Is it her boyfriend? Her father maybe? Or even worse, her grandmother? A better question to be in this case is “who really cares?”.

Seyfried perhaps is well cast as Red. She gives her character just the right look…but everytime she opens her mouth you’ll be begging for that werewolf to put her out of her misery. To be completely fair though, no actor could be expected to excel given the cheesy dialogue and Hardwicke’s terrible direction. Good actors such as Gary Oldman, Virginia Madsen and Julie Christie struggle to make an impression and it shows. It pains me to see talented actors like these wasting their time on such drivel. Billy Burke tries his best to keep things lively, but that’s a small reward considering how bad the rest of the movie is.

 I’d rather watch “Twilight” again than have to sit through another one of these dreadful wannabe horror flicks…but I suppose it’s inevitable, especially since studios make so much money out of these films. In Hollywood these days, that seems to be all that matters.

Fiasco!