30 Day Horror Writing Challenge: Day 4

After watching the horrible movie "Red Riding Hood" today, I was inspired to make it work as an R-rated horror film. Beware, there will be spoilers for the film.

I am going to keep the basic plot points but enhance them to add some drama and terror, I hope.

If we must keep the love triangle, where the main girl (Valeria/Red) is in love with one man (Peter) but engaged to another (Henry), let’s have some kind of relationship between the boys, make them brothers, best friends or enemies, something. In the film they act like they barely know each other, even though they are a part of such a small village, so I would make sure there is some kind of drama between them to add some depth. Keep Valerie’s sister’s death but make it far more dramatic, as much as I hate gore we really need some here, make her mangled and maimed make it more tragic. Have Valerie react with anger rather than sadness, take away the annoying weepy lovesick girl and make her seek vengeance and pick up a damn axe! Forget going to grandma’s house have her follow the men to the cave, have her distract Henry when the wolf comes for his father, that way he has a better reason than cowardice for not fighting the wolf. He wants to both protect the woman he loves but he is also angry at her for getting his father killed, chemistry breeds out of conflict, so make him conflicted. Again the father needs to be torn apart not just scratched, if we are to believe that he was killed out of anger then it needs to be reflected in his wounds.

I would actually do away with the village priest character altogether, he has no purpose other than as a way of bringing Oldman into the village, he is a fanboy and nothing else. Solomon (Oldman’s priestly character) should come in as a stranger, not with an entourage or at least not one so ornate, the Elephant is interesting but not necessary. I would make Solomon more of a Spanish Inquisitor type, no charisma, are far more ruthless, he doesn’t feel the need to explain his actions, he is feared at the start. Oh and no kids, keep his story of killing his wife, but have her kill the kids when she got home, give him nothing to live for. Solomon needs to be scarred, not just emotionally but physically as well, no lavish purple priestly suit, but keep the silver fingernails, that was a perfect addition.

No party in the village square, instead we focus on where Solomon and his crew will stay, how he acts with the towns people, have him leer at the women not openly but on the side. When the wolf attacks the village for the first time, it will be the first time it is onscreen, forget about that little snap shot they show in the cave, no he will be heard but not seen until this point. The beast should be larger and less cartoony, more ferocious and more, well, snarly is the only way I can describe it. The beast goes after one of Valerie’s suitors and her mother, but doesn’t kill them. When the wolf encounters Valerie and the red head don’t have the silly telepathy, but have her understand it anyway, we don’t hear what it is saying, she could be crazy. Solomon tells the town that one of them is the wolf, have his guards lock down the village but make them far rougher, hitting people and locking them in their homes, one by one they are tested. When they get to the red head and her brother, they do believe him to be a witch, his retardation would have been evidence of black magic in that time period, so that makes sense. Solomon takes the boy and puts him on the rack and start to torture him, making his family watch, so that one will break if he doesn’t, the sister stops him and begs him to stop and offers herself. But instead of the PG strip tease, have him force her nude, his men taking off her clothes, then have him laugh at her. She finally offers Valerie up in place of her brother.

Meanwhile, at the same time all of this drama is happening, Valerie and Peter are talking and she is terrified that he might be the wolf, he is far more aggressive sexually which makes her suspect him and push him away, she runs off. Henry watches and suspects Peter as well and offers to help her, but she pushes him away as well, he smacks her accidently and she runs to her grandmother’s house. When she gets to her grandmother’s she finds the house open, as she walks through the house she calls for her grandmother and hears only moaning. When she checks on the old woman she finds her half dead and trying to tell her something, that is when Solomon, his men and some men from the village ccome in, including Peter, Henry and Valerie’s father, her grandmother starts screaming as much as she can pointing at the men. Solomon stabs her because she was bitten and could turn. He then accuses Valerie of killing her grandmother and working with the wolf, when Solomon threatens to kill Valerie’s betrothed Henry, she is forced to tell him that the wolf spoke to her and wants her alone. He takes her to his quarters to interrogate her, he forces her to strip, by threatening to kill her family and lovers, he rapes her and then ties her to the center square to wait for the beast. She is now so enraged and traumatized that she welcomes the wolf, so when her lovers try to save her she refuses and waits for the wolf. She is sick of her family dying, she is angry and ready to fight if she has to, she blames the wolf for all of the suffering she is going through. The wolf doesn’t come, it knows the plan and wouldn’t try to get her, but they soon find that Valerie’s mother has been killed.

The next morning Solomon is enraged at having to wait so long and threatens to kill Valerie but his forces are taken over by the villagers and Henry and Peter kill Solomon. Valerie starts to suspect everyone around her and runs to her grandmother’s house to hide away, when she gets there she feels the wolf following her. When she gets to the house it is in ruins and she hears someone inside, so goes in knife in hand, she calls out and her father answers. He tells her that he knew about her sister not being his, about his mother’s betrayal etc. like in the movie. Being that her father was the only person left who she thought she could trust, the man who raised her, she feels far more betrayed than we see in the film. He says that he wanted her to come willingly but that if she doesn’t he will turn her either way, he transforms and bites her. Peter comes in with the axe. Big fight, far more intense and fierce than in the film, it goes outside, Peter gets clawed and bitten, badly injured he falls. Valerie kills her father with the axe, beheading him. When she sees that Peter has been bitten, she takes out her knife to cuts some fabric from her skirt to bind the wound, he says that she has to kill him but she refuses…

here is where the story can either end happily as would be the norm, boring: She shows him that she was bitten as well, they run off and are wolves together.

If you want the darker version, far more fairly tale-y: he grabs the knife and hugs her so that the knife stabs into him. Henry runs in and thinks that Peter must have been the wolf the entire time and that he killed her father. Valerie cannot speak or move she is so horrified, he takes her back to the village and marries her, trying to bring back some happiness. We don’t see if she changes, but we are left wondering.