We all know how the fairy tale The Little Red Riding Hood goes. A young girl gets tricked by a sly wolf on the way to her grandmother’s home and gets eaten. Growing up, we’re left with an important moral lesson from stories like these and our parents warnings to be careful with strangers. Straying from the path can be your undoing. But what if that story was flipped entirely on its head?
To Kill a Wolf is Kelsey Taylor’s feature debut that twists and reimagines the classic tale we all know and love into something darker, disturbing and more relevant than ever. In many ways it is powerful to see a children’s story examined through the lens of sexual abuse. Encouraging awareness and safety of children and teens, advocating for the protection of their innocence in a world so hungry to strip it away.
Exploring a rural area in Oregon wilderness, trapped in snowy terrains. We get the sense that this quiet, desolate place is buried with a lot of forgotten memories and wounds that never got to heal. Immediately, the film starts with blistering urgency as we see a young girl called Dani (Maddison Brown) run across the woods away from something or someone, showing no signs of slowing down. We don’t exactly know why and discovering the root of her desperation reveals a much darker truth about people around us.
Meanwhile, The Woodsman and social pariah (Ivan Martin) grapples with his own turmoil as a former drunk driver, guilt-ridden by his past. You see him cold, stoic, and isolated in his cabin, wandering the forest as a lone wolf. Though he finds animal traps and decides to sabotage them all to derail business vultures in the town. The Woodsman stumbles upon Dani, lying in the woods, and decides against his best interests to take her to his home. Giving her a bed to rest on and food to eat. Wondering what could possibly lead a teenager to run away from home and choose to sleep in the woods, an even greater danger to her.
The wilderness was effectively used to create an isolated space. Emphasising the powerlessness and vulnerability Dani is going through. Cleverly juxtaposing The Woodsman’s loneliness and lack of touch with humanity as a grieving man. He shouldn’t care, yet he chooses to help her and give her a home. Humans are very contradictory beings. We often act on survival instinct and impulses. So quickly do we toss away our concern for others as we fight for our own livelihood. Yet we are inherently empathy machines that compel us to want to intervene and fight for the lives of others. Dani could have easily been ignored, and there seemingly is nothing in it for him, but it’s the act of goodness and what’s right that draws him to save her.
From then on, they forge a growing bond filled with understanding and mutual respect after being at odds with each other as strangers. Ivan Martin performs with responsibility, balancing concern and humour naturally, making his character’s sobering growth feel earned. While Maddison Brown shows natural expertise in portraying a reticent teen burdened with guilt and blame unfairly misplaced on her. And the constant fear and reluctance to confront her past demons. Their shared trauma as they reconcile with their past experiences forces them to realise something deeper about themselves.
The Woodsman takes Dani to her grandma’s home only to learn she has been dead for a while now. Raising concerns for Dani who insists on keeping to herself in a vacant home. Shying away from communicating with any living relatives nearby. Clearly something has happened for her to act this way about her own family. The secret that awaits us paints a depressing truth that shocks you at your core. The wolf we thought to be the woodsman in the wild was a misdirection for something more sinister at home.
Rich with an undercurrent of locked emotions and the fear of something hidden that we must avert our eyes from. There is a sense that a looming threat overwhelms the shadows formed behind us. That sometimes it’s not what is distant from us that we should be most wary of. The gorgeous cinematographic style (D.P. Adam Lee) and the melancholic score accentuates this sombre mood. Emphasising the reserved nature of the film, deftly handled by director Kelsey. Creating a mystical atmosphere, capturing magic of a fairy tale but grounding it to the reality that we live in. Shrouding you in perturbed darkness.
In an era of constant remakes and adaptations of major franchise. It can get tiring to see stories we are so familiar with be retold through uninspired means. There’s this fear that creatives are running out of ideas. Or that studios want to play it safe, avoiding original stories entirely and banking on our nostalgia. This makes adapting a story for your first film all the more challenging because you’re already fighting against set expectations and the concern of re-treading old ground. Yet, not only does Kelsey rise above that challenge, but she also welcomes it with a point to prove. Her film may be an adaptation, but it’s not the typical retelling you’d expect. In fact, it’s the opposite.
Overall, Kelsey Taylor delivers an assured debut. Giving the viewers a sense of dread and paranoia that survivors have to live with every day in the wild. Backed by strong, understated performances by Ivan and Maddison, who express a lot of deep-seated pain without needing to say much. Sometimes the monsters that are waiting to take advantage of us are not strangers outside but someone close to us inside.
To Kill A Wolf Premiered at the Edinburgh International Film Festival on the 18th of August.
