Vincent Paronnaud's survival horror movie Hunted takes inspiration from the Brothers Grimm fairytale "Little Red Riding Hood" and makes some very important changes to the narrative - here's how. While Eve (Lucy Debay) fights for her life against two men who wish to cause her harm, she is confronted with the reality of the story her mother told her as a child about the evil of man and the helpfulness of wolves. In "Little Red Riding Hood," they are exact opposite, but the tale has an even deeper meaning behind it, which is what Paronnaud changes in Hunted.
Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, known as The Brothers Grimm, were academics and philosophers that published one of the most iconic collections of fairytales and folklore in history. Their works has been adapted several times in the horror genre. For instance, "Hansel and Gretel" became Gretel and Hansel in 2020 and "Snow White" transformed into the fantasy horror flick Snow White: A Tale of Terror in 1997. While Disney is predominately recognized for their animated features taken from the Grimm stories, they do not include the horrors of the original tales. It is important to note that the brothers have a rather complicated past, as they claimed some of their folktales were taken from oral histories, but they were actually altered from Charles Perrault's 17th century text Tales Of Mother Goose. Scholar Catherine Orenstein points this out in her book, Little Red Riding Hood Uncloaked.
There are numerous iterations of "Little Red Riding Hood," but the most common depiction features a little girl who is threatened by a wolf that has eaten her grandmother. Before the animal has a chance to eat her, a man rescues her. This aspect of the story makes her out to be a victim and a damsel in distress, but other versions of the tale showcase it as one of empowerment. Instead of being saved by a man, she and her grandmother outsmart the wolf and come out as the story's victors. Paronnaud's Hunted distinctly draws from this notion as Eve outsmarts the man, but with the added advantage of having a wolf on her side. The director makes the man into the wolf and the wolf into a symbol of women's empowerment.
Hunted alters the fairytale in order to give Eve more autonomy and remove the connotation that a woman in danger is a damsel in distress. Her mother tells her the story of a woman who was set to become a victim to a group of men. She prayed to God and the forest, which resulted in a wolf coming to her aide. In this instance, Eve is warned against the evils of men and informed of women's power. The importance of making this change speaks to the repercussions of the fairytale's use as a cautionary tale of women's morality.
Perrault's version has been analyzed by scholars and historians who've concluded that the red hood indicates a person's period, and the wolf represents a predatory male figure. It was intended to be a cautionary tale aimed towards naive young women during the 17th century. As it transformed over the years, remnants of the original story remain, as it is rare to see Little Red Riding Hood save herself in cartoons, comic books, and movies. In recent years, there's been a call towards altering this narrative with movies such as Hard Candy and, most recently, Hunted. This change is important because it removes the notion that a woman cannot fend for herself and will always be a victim unless a man comes to her aide.
By Hunted's ending, Eve proves that she doesn't need a man to save her. The wolf represents her strength as a woman and her empowerment as one who refuses to let men take advantage of her. Hunted is one of the most powerful movies to date that draws inspiration from "Little Red Riding Hood" because it changes the common narrative ascribed to the girl in the fairytale and the docile expectations of women in society.