by Charles Kirkland, Jr.
In a modern re-imagining of Little Red Riding Hood, a social pariah discovers a teenage runaway in the Oregon Wilderness and does his best to help her find a way home in To Kill A Wolf.
On the edges of the Oregon wilderness, two lost souls are unexpectedly brought together when a solitary woodsman discovers a teenage runaway, Dani, collapsed and near death from the cold. Reluctantly, he agrees to return her to her grandmother, setting off on a journey across the state that binds them in unexpected ways. Along the way, their fragile alliance forces them to confront buried traumas, test the limits of their trust, and ultimately discover the courage to face the wolves that haunt them.
To Kill A Wolf marks the feature debut of writer-director Kelsey Taylor and stars Ivan Martin, Maddison Brown, Kaitlin Doubleday, Michael Esper, and David Knell.
At first glance, the premise sounds familiar: a young girl lost in the woods, a stoic protector, a grandmother’s house, and a lurking menace. Red Riding Hood whispered in modern grain. But Taylor reinvents the fairy tale, grounding it in a stark, contemporary psychodrama. Here, the “big bad wolf” may not have fangs, but its hunger is no less dangerous. And the woodsman’s quest to deliver the girl to safety becomes inseparable from his own quiet struggle toward redemption.
Structured in three intimate chapters, “The Woodsman,” “Grandma,” and “Wolf,” the film shifts from solitude to confrontation with mounting tension. When we first meet The Woodsman, he lives in deliberate seclusion, checking wolf traps, listening to old records, and talking to a stuffed raccoon in his cabin named Dave. His silence and seclusion are broken when he stumbles upon Dani, nearly frozen and unresponsive, lying amidst the forest. He rescues her and shelters her, bringing her back from sure death. Despite the extreme hospitality, Dani guards her past with tight-lipped defiance, her intentions blurred by escape and fear.
As their uneasy journey unfolds, the story becomes less about the destination and more about the bond forged between two broken and stoic loners. Both are running from grief, from violence, and from themselves. Only together can they find the strength to step out of the woods.
Taylor carefully unfolds this modern-day fairy tale in a manner that feels relevant and intelligent. Instead of a cautionary tale, To Kill A Wolf is an instructional manual about survival and overcoming. It is about the power of the company vs. the loneliness in isolation, how we need each other to get through.
To Kill A Wolf is available digitally starting September 23, 2025.
Grade: B