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Little Dead Rotting Hood

Cinedigm // Unrated // January 5, 2016
List Price: $14.93 [Buy now and save at Amazon]

Review by Kurt Dahlke | posted February 23, 2016 | E-mail the Author
Little Dead Rotting Hood:
Man I want to write this review as a poem. It wouldn't take that long to read, which would be appropriate, because there's not much to the movie anyway. It would go something like this:
And I would give
Dead Rotting Hood some kind of prize
for that name alone
because it's a good and clever name
which the movie is not
(good or clever, that is)
but it does have
what every movie wants
a 20-foot-tall werewolf
to take your hard earned cash

And there you have it. Slap a Skip It rating there at the bottom and call it a day. Rotting Hood comes from The Asylum, notorious purveyors of spoof titles, many of which are previewed before the main attraction unspools. This accomplishes one thing; all the crappy previews for things like Sharknado 3 let you know you're about to watch a crap movie. But, at least The Asylum is getting into making original features, such as this one (I mean, what possible movie could they be spoofing here?) rather than more Transmorphers.

Rotting Hood is a make-work movie for a production house with a certain amount of cash and the obligation to crank out X number of movies a year. Sadly, it lacks the rum-drunk brio of sub-tropical, classic 1960s Roger Corman cheapies made with the same game plan but much more boozy panache. Rotting instead reads like a poverty-row knock-off version of The OC, made for The CW, with a werewolf or two thrown in for good measure.

What's happening is that a little hamlet suffers from an infestation of wolves displaying the uncommon traits of wanting to kill everyone in town. A mysterious hottie shows up dressed kind of like Red Riding Hood. Is she there to kill everyone too? As a werewolf? Or is something ... different ... afoot?

Or, do we much care?

actors Skype in their perfs
They care, just barely enough
Under no illusions that they need be great
In a movie that's clearly not great
With fuzzy computer images
Of weird dudes dancing 'The Robot'
As they transform into crummy wolves
But hey
There's that
20-foot werewolf


(which sucks)

A bit of nice (CGI) gore crops up once or twice, but it's the only calling card in an action creature-feature that wouldn't be unwelcome if you were happily channel surfing Cable TV late at night, but otherwise barely musters a Skip It rating. And I'm being generous. (Must have been those Robot-dancing werewolves.)

The DVD

Video:
16 x 9 widescreen visuals will dazzle your eyes with a fairly standard DVD presentation. Colors appear natural, black levels are adequate, and details are good enough to highlight the really cheap-o quality of the CGI, especially as concerns the big werewolf, who not only looks like a student-project video game creation, but also moves like a marionette controlled by the town drunk.

Sound:
English Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound holds its own, which is often the case. Something about getting good sound being much easier than making a good movie. Dynamic range is good, with a punchy low end, and atmospheric placement is fairly active. Dialog is mixed well with other soundtrack elements, for a fine listening experience.

Extras:
Extras include The Making Of Little Dead Rotting Hood, 7 minutes of standard self-congratulatory BTS/EPK space filler. About one-minute each of a Gag Reel and VFX: Before And After fly by on a wisp of wolf-fur. Trailers let you know which Asylum features to steer clear of, and lastly, but not leastly, you can navigate through a Comic Book version of Little Dead Rotting Hood, which is kinda cool.

Final Thoughts:
Little Dead Rotting Hood sports a great title but little else. As an action creature-feature, it's nowhere near the level of Underworld, one of the movies name-checked on the DVD case. A little decent wolf gore doesn't coat the relative badness of this movie with enough blood to conceal its half-hearted self. Plus, it's got a real cruddy looking 20-foot CGI werewolf at the end, if you like that sort of thing. Skip It.

www.kurtdahlke.com

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