DVD Review: 'Big Bad Wolf'

Article first published as DVD Review: 'Big Bad Wolf' on Blogcritics.

Everyone knows the story of the Three Little Pigs—most notably from Walt Disney’s 1933 Silly Symphony cartoon. I have fond memories of the animated Tales from the Crypt episode with Bobcat Goldthwait voicing the wolf; it’s a disgusting and hilarious throwaway episode. Needless to say, we’ve never seen it told like this. Director Paul Morrell tries to bring the story to a contemporary setting and within the likes of a thriller in the form of Big Bad Wolf (or Huff if you’re looking for it on IMDb), now available on DVD from Horizon Movies. Unfortunately, Morrell is saddled with a few good ideas during the first half and nowhere to go during the second half. The main problem being that’s where the actual Pigs story finally comes into play.

Huff (Charlie O’Connell) has taken on the father role to his new wife Lorelei’s (Elina Madison) three daughters: Brixie (Marie Bollinger), Styx (Jenna Stone), and Shay (Elly Stefanko). Huff rules the roost with a Bible-thumping force of hand, instilling the wrath of god into their upbringing to keep them on the straight and narrow. However, Huff is also a gun-toting, beer-swilling, drug seller, who winds up with a load of cash that Lorelei gives to the girls move on to a better life. Huff winds up killing Lorelei, along with a couple of drug runners, and is now hot on the girls’ tails to get back what’s his.

It would’ve been one thing to plant the story into a thriller context, but it was another to turn Huff into a Bible-quoting pedophile. Acting is definitely not the strong point of Big Bad Wolf, and it’s also never thrilling. The first half of the movie is at least sleazy tongue-in-cheek fun, but once Huff starts chasing his stepdaughters, Sydney Corpuscle’s screenplay loses all of its steam and turns into just another run-of-the-mill direct-to-video thriller. Horizon Movies includes two special features: the film’s trailer and the quick, seven-minute “Behind the Scenes Interviews” consisting of O’Connell, Natasha Alam, and Clint Howard. Howard says in his segment that he can’t believe no one has ever tried to make this kind of movie before, and if Big Bad Wolf is of any indication, it’s best left in the pages of a storybook. In the end, Big Bad Wolf is a big, bad bore.