Shot in and around the Santa Clarita Hills, at Rene’s ’50s Town, Little Dead Rotting Hood is another helping of schlock from The Asylum. The same company who is determined to produce Sharknado until the end of time, and yet amazingly still manages to delight with Z Nation, has now done werewolves. (Without a tornado in sight…)
Written by real estate specialist Gabriel Campisi (which explains so much) and directed by Jared Cohn it stars a bored Eric Balfour. The film also features a tiny, blink and you will miss it, cameo by Star Trek actress Marina Sirtis.
The film also starts The Fosters regular Bianca A. Santos as “Rotting Hood” and Romeo Miller as the love interest. Little Dead Riding Hood has a meandering plot. It is set in the mountains where the old wolf lady,played by Sirtis, kills herself at the start of the film to empower her granddaughter.
Balfour’s sheriff has his hands full with his kids being dropped off by his ex. There are also increasing amounts of wolf attacks on the local citizenry. Santos is the granddaughter, whom granny lets die before empowering her, and Miller is Samantha’s boyfriend.
In keeping with The Asylum’s practice of slapping storylines together that make no real sense, the werewolves, which crop up toward the end of the film, are a complete surprise. Also in keeping with nonsensical plot devices, the head werewolf is a giant.
The FX for the enormous werewolf leader varies. In some shots the creature looks okay and in others it resembles a draft effort. (Still the thing did look marginally better than the unintentionally funny zombie gorilla in Zoombies. The gigantic werewolf leader may have looked dodgy but it did not elicit eruptions of hysterical laughter like the big monkey did.)
Balfour as Sheriff Adam looks as though he misses his Haven costars Emily Rose and Lucas Bryant. Of course it could have been that the actor is not used to playing cops after five seasons of being the bad boy on the SyFy series.
The storyline, such as it is, meanders all over the place and does not really hold together at all. One has the feeling that a lot wound up in the cutting room floor, or, the script was never meant to make a whole lot of sense.
On the plus side, the blood flows like a good claret and the wolves, when they attack, are very convincing. (IMDb states that real wolves were used for the filming.) On the very crowded minus side the film was very clearly shot in and around Santa Clarita. A location that does not remotely resemble Maine or the Appalachian Mountains or where ever the film is really meant to be.
Little Dead Rotting Hood is atypical pap from The Asylum that is meant to be watched while smoking pot and munching on stale pizza. (Or conversely drinking beer and eating stale pizza.)
This is “Drive-In” fare that would have preceded the main film back in the day. A real 2.5 star effort that one should watch if only nothing else is available. Confusing and boring, this is even worse than “Zoombies.” This is streaming on Netflix, at the moment. Approach with caution and arm yourself with mood altering substances before watching.
