Review: JJ Villard’s Fairy Tales “Little Red Riding Hood”

 

Overview (Spoilers Below):

“Little Red Riding Hood” is one of the most well-known fairy tales of all-time. It’s a story that’s been adapted hundreds of times over, both in a straightforward sense, but also with radically ambitious takes on the source material. It’s fair to say that “Little Red Riding Hood” is just entrenched in the public consciousness at this point. It’s the world’s familiarity with this story that allows JJ Villard’s Fairy Tales to push it to such dangerous and violent places. An innocent story about a girl’s journey to visit her grandmother turns into a volatile exercise in border security. Little Red Riding Hood becomes a ruthless drug mule who will stop at nothing to save her beloved Woodsman. However, as Red gets closet to her goal, the Big Bad Wolf and the rest of Villardia’s police narrow in on what could be the biggest drug bust of their careers.

 

Our Take:

JJ Villard’s Fairy Tales has been having a lot of fun with how it perverts classic and beloved folkloric stories, but this episode features the best premise of the bunch. It takes something as overdone as the tale of “Little Red Riding Hood,” but makes it a story about safety and justice, rather than just the basic desire to consume. It’s actually able to deliver a somewhat poignant commentary no the nation’s security, where the hand that feeds is also a razor-sharp claw that will tear out your throat. Turning “Little Red Riding Hood” into a story about border patrol issues is a clever pivot for the narrative. In this case the Big Bad Wolf isn’t just some feral animal, but rather a corrupt and abusive member of authority, which is an angle that works quite well here.

When “Little Red Riding Hood” begins, it follows the series’ typical structure where a tender fairy tale mixes together with gross-out humor. The first few beats of this story revolve around an extreme case of ass termites and the elusive cure-all cream that’s needed to fix this problem. It’s business as usual for JJ Villard’s Fairy Tales, but then the episode moves into much more thoughtful material. Once Little Red Riding Hood’s classic rouge clothing becomes camouflage for her drug running mission it becomes clear that that episode has something to say.

In the original text, Little Red Riding Hood is the Wolf’s main target, but now she’s more so a means to an end so that the border patrol can accost who really matters: Grandma Sicario Hernandez, the leading “dust lord” of Villardia. The mission becomes clear and the episode turns into a sting operation to set up Grandma, which becomes a valid means to get the Wolf into her house for phase two. There’s also the added ridiculousness of this story wherein all of this work is just so an elderly lady will rot away in prison.

“Little Red Riding Hood” is very efficient with its time and it’s impressive to see just how quickly everything comes together, even if its trajectory isn’t clear from the start. Despite the concealed dangers of Grandma and the Big Bad Wolf, it’s actually the precocious Little Red Riding Hood who’s the biggest threat out of all of these personalities. After Red firmly establishes that she is the “one who knocks,” she brutalizes both the Wolf and her Grandmother in acts that feel more at home in a Saw film than Sicario. Red Riding Hood and the Wolf even wax philosophical on torture procedures that he picked up in the Middle East as the episode becomes even more loaded, both figuratively and literally.

Many of the episodes of JJ Villard’s Fairy Tales have ended with surprise non-sequiturs that envelop the characters or their world in darkness. As a result, the bleak ending to “Little Red Riding Hood” feels appropriate for the series, but there’s still a power in realizing just how messed up Red Riding Hood is and that she’s definitely going to make Villardia a more dangerous place. As morally bankrupt as the Wolf and Grandmother are, they still respect Villardia’s territory. Red Riding Hood is just a loose cannon who doesn’t care about anything but getting that ass cream for her Woodsman.

For a moment it looks like “Little Red Riding Hood” could end on a cliffhanger and that the escaped villainess will be a looming threat for Villardia. The episode’s conclusion truly goes for broke in an inspired nod to Silence of the Lambs, which somehow mashes together with the irreverent humor of a Looney Tunes cartoon. It’s a magical, absurd, hilarious ending that perfectly encapsulates everything that JJ Villard’s Fairy Tales can be. It’s also a much stronger closer than the ass cream gaining sentience and consuming the world, which is the kind of direction that other episodes have taken. Even in the fact of utter despair, the spirits of two soul mates can still find purpose and peace through their shared destruction. It’s honestly the kind of beautifully nihilistic conclusion that feels more at home in The Shivering Truth, but “Little Red Riding Hood” makes it work here.

“Little Red Riding Hood” is another episode that contains a few surreal moments where the animation gets particularly unhinged. Broad Tex Avery-esque gestures mix with body horror to great effect. Little Red Riding Hood’s disturbing attempt to purge herself of fairy dust cargo is just one of many weird and creative pieces of animation in this installment. An abundance of clown pictures in Grandma’s house is another weid, yet appreciated detail in the episode that helps transform an innocent fairy tale into an environment more suitable for John Wayne Gacy.

JJ Villard’s Fairy Tales has never been shy when it comes to excessive gore and violence, but the episode’s conclusion really embraces the excess. “Little Red Riding Hood” gets its inspiration from gritty cartel films, but it’s honestly a little shocking to see how far they go here. Blood may paint the floor of Grandma’s house red, but moments like when the Wolf is literally evaporated into nothingness from a barrage of bullets find the humor in this excessive gore.

Every episode of JJ Villard’s Fairy Tales has leaned heavily into icons from the horror genre to round out the casting. These have mostly amounted to fun, incidental guest roles, but “Little Red Riding Hood” is full of huge names. Jennifer Tilly has a lot of fun in the Little Red Riding Hood role, but the real highlights here are Linda Blair’s unleashed performance as Grandma and Peter Weller’s sympathetic role as Sergeant Hardcop. Villard even gets Basket Case’s Kevin Van Hentenryck to voice the Big Bad Wolf, which is more an Easter Egg for hardcore horror nuts than anything else. Sometimes the horror ensemble that’s been assembled is enjoyable, but it doesn’t actually enhance the narrative. In “Little Red Riding Hood” all of these actors help compliment the increasingly vile world that they inhabit.

“Little Red Riding Hood” is currently the most fun and fully realized episode of JJ Villard’s Fairy Tales to date. The entry faithfully pays tribute to the classic fairy tale, but the twists and revisions that it applies are not just unexpected, but actually clever and deep. Some of the premises on this show feel threadbare, even for an 11-minute runtime, but this drug runner angle on the material could actually fuel a feature film. This is also the first installment of the series where the trademark ultra-violence actually fits with the story and doesn’t just seem like some random element of chaos. “Little Red Riding Hood” provides the right kind of madness and hopefully the remainder of the season will look towards this episode for inspiration.

And next time you’re ever illegally smuggling something across the border, now you know that wasabi peas, ghost pepper chips, and candy cane Joe-Joes are the ideal subterfuge.