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This chapter introduces Neil Jordan, who was born in Rosses Point, County Sligo on 25 February 1950, and studied English and History at University College Dublin. It talks about Jordan's first book, a collection of short stories titled Night in Tunisia in 1976, which feature many themes and ideas that Jordan would revisit throughout his career, including sexual relationships and notions of identity, and an experimental approach to perspective and narrative. The chapter also discusses Jordan's unique approach to storytelling that helped usher in a new kind of filmmaking in Ireland and radically changed perceptions of Irish culture for international audiences. It examines how Jordan's idiosyncratic approach to storytelling became more striking with each successive film. Finally, the chapter mentions The Company of Wolves as Jordan's second film and first foray into the realms of Gothic horror.

This chapter focuses on Neil Jordan's The Company of Wolves as a pivotal film that secured much wider distribution than a lot of other British films at the time. It recounts how The Company of Wolves is dubbed into different languages, such as Spanish, German, and Italian. It also mentions Palace Pictures that produced several of Jordan's later films, including Mona Lisa and The Crying Game, explored themes of identity, gender, infatuation, and desire. The chapter talks about Dream Demon from 1987; another film concerning female sexual anxiety that unfolds within the Freudian dreamscape of its protagonist. It describes The Company of Wolves as a ground-breaking British genre film that is often overlooked and affirms its place in horror-fantasy cinema.

This chapter looks into the heart of Neil Jordan's The Company of Wolves as a story of sexual awakening, literal and figurative formation, and the empowerment of women. It discusses how The Company of Wolves carries a strong feminist message that is more than a singular concept, like the short stories from Angela Carter's The Bloody Chamber. It also explains Carter's brand of feminism that represents one strand that was often at odds with those of other feminists at the time and even considered highly controversial. The chapter analyses how Carter sought to expose how women's sexuality is perceived as a myth instigated and perpetuated by moral and social conditioning. It discloses Carter's frequent visit to the world of fairy tales to critique culturally constructed notions relating to women, gender roles and femininity.

This chapter explains how werewolves have traditionally been a masculinised beast associated with cultural concepts of masculinity. It explores Neil Jordan's The Company of Wolves as an atypical werewolf film that uses the figure of the lycanthrope to explore notions of adult sexuality from a distinctly feminine vantage point. It also mentions Angela Carter, who described The Company of Wolves as a menstrual film in which the wolves stand for the girl's own sexuality, rather than rough, hairy male sexuality. The chapter discusses female werewolves that have been used as the vehicle to discuss various 'human' anxieties for many centuries. It looks at Rosaleen's encounter and seduction of the huntsman as a significant and influential moment in the history of horror cinema that challenges the traditional representation of the werewolf that is inherently masculine.

This chapter focuses on The Company of Wolves, as a dark fantasy film about the horrors of the adult world and of adult sexuality glimpsed through the dreams of an adolescent girl. It analyses how The Company of Wolves amalgamates aspects of horror, the Female Gothic, fairy tales, werewolf films and coming-of-age parables. It also illustrates how The Company of Wolves is drenched in atmosphere and an eerily sensual malaise that boasts striking imagery immersed in fairy-tale motifs and startling Freudian symbolism. The chapter mentions Neil Jordan as the director of The Company of Wolves, his second film and his first foray into the realms of Gothic horror. It cites several short stories from Angela Carter's The Bloody Chamber from 1979 as the basis for The Company of Wolves.

This chapter discusses the stories and myths regarding humans turning into wolves that have fascinated and terrified people for millennia and continue to speak of an elementary aspect of the collective human consciousness. It talks about the common perception of the werewolf that derives from its myriad representations in folklore, literature, and cinema. It also mentions The Book of Were-Wolves by Sabine Baring-Gould and Werwolves by Elliott O'Donnell in reference to the occurrence of lycanthropy that is invoked as the result of a curse, or through the practice of diabolical occult rituals. This chapter mentions the most widespread ideas of lycanthropy that and originate from Hollywood cinema. It mentions historical anthropologist and witchcraft scholar Willem de Blécourt from Werewolf Histories, who references antiquated tales from Estonia and Russia concerning women who unwittingly marry werewolves.

This chapter talks about the tale of Little Red Riding Hood as one of the most enduring and provocative of all the fairy tales ever told. It discusses the plight of the red-hooded girl who encounters a ravenous wolf as she wanders cautiously through the deep, dark woods on an errand to her Granny's cottage, which has haunted popular culture for centuries. It also reviews how Red Riding Hood has been told and re-told for centuries with its meaning interpreted and reinterpreted to reflect changing social values and attitudes. The chapter explores the scene of Rosaleen's encounter with the lycanthropic huntsman in the woods in Neil Jordan's The Company of Wolves, which essentially provides an elaborate preparation for the central story. It analyses how folk and fairy tales were used to civilise listeners and readers in the ways of their communities and convey to them an understanding of acceptable conduct and behaviour.

This chapter analyses the fairy tales, folklore, and the art of oral storytelling that are all woven into the very fabric of Neil Jordan's The Company of Wolves. It outlines The Company of Wolves's fragmented narrative structure, which exists within the dreams of a sleeping adolescent girl that is comprised of stories told to her by her Granny. It also talks about how The Company of Wolves plays with the form of the fairy tale and its ideas regarding initiation, redemption, and personal and social progress in order to explore the changes and uncertainties of growing up. This chapter explores Jordan and Carter's process of demythologising culturally constructed notions of gender and identity by retelling the very fairy tales that helped establish such notions. It examines the role played by fairy tales in conditioning communities, and how certain tales were repurposed through literary adaptations to educate and instruct different types of audiences.