Girls, wolves, and madmen: Horror film revisions of 'Little Red Riding Hood'

This thesis will argue that contemporary horror films serve a similar purpose for audiences that folk-fairy tales used to do. The violence and sexuality that make slasher films controversial are important conventions that have their origins in folk-fairy tales before they were adapted for young children. More specifically, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974), Friday the 13th (1980), and Ginger Snaps (2001) are revisions of "Little Red Riding Hood" (LRRH). These films are admonitory, warning their predominantly teenage audience about the dangers of sexuality---especially to females. The plot elements and motifs of LRRH are compared closely to each of the films, revealing many similarities. The structural theories of Vladimir Propp on fairy tales and Vera Dika on slasher films overlap enough to indicate that both genres have parallel plot conventions. As well, many of the motifs that make a fairy tale a version of LRRH appear in the three films. The gender-specific role of the protagonist in LRRH is also upheld in slasher films. She obeys the moral values of society and consequently survives. Critics like Maria Tatar, Charles Derry and Carol Clover have demonstrated the cultural importance of either cautionary fairy tales or slasher films. All this evidence leads to the conclusion that these particular films are revisions of LRRH, and have taken on the fairy tale's function of teaching sexual morality to female adolescents by scaring them with the fatal consequences of being immoral.