The start of an ongoing partnership with producer Stephen Woolley showcases Jordan’s evident affection for Gothic fantasy. Adapting Angela Carter’s oneiric short stories in collaboration with the author, this imaginative combination of classic fairy tale and Hammer horror surveys the troubled dreams of an adolescent girl, whose subconscious sexual anxieties refract childhood tales through adult flesh-and-blood desire.

Structurally, it only just hangs together, but production designer Anton Furst’s studio-created magic forest is a marvel, the sinewy lupine transformation effects are a nostalgia trip in themselves, and Hollywood legend Angel Lansbury is just perfect as the heroine’s understandably protective grandma.

Showing as part of our Neil Jordan Retrospective which runs throughout May. His new film, Byzantium, opens on May 31st. 

See our online exhibition of some of Neil Jordan’s substantial document collections held by the IFI Irish Film Archive.