After the “Red Riding Hood” screening, I expressed my feelings about the film to a colleague who was lucky enough to have been otherwise occupied. “Was it really that bad?” she asked. “Bad?” I replied. “Hitler was bad. This was awful.”

If the story of a young woman (Amanda Seyfried) caught in a love triangle between two men, one dark and brooding (Shiloh Fernandez) and the other warm and long-suffering (Max Irons), sounds really familiar, that’s because I’ve just described half the plot of the dreadful “Twilight.”

It’s also half the plot of “Red Riding Hood.” Both films are directed by Catherine Hardwicke, who clearly has a thing for werewolves (one of the aforementioned men just might be one). Turns out the village in which they all live has maintained an uneasy truce with the beast for years, but under the three-day blood moon, the werewolf has begun killing villagers seemingly at random, leading to imprudent hunting parties bent on revenge and the summoning of a werewolf slayer (Gary Oldman), who just might be more dangerous than the monster he’s out to kill.

“Red Riding Hood” is a Frankenstein’s monster of ill-fitting parts: the political paranoia of “The Village,” the accusatory betrayal of Arthur Miller’s “The Crucible,” the dubious offspring of “Psycho,” and, of course, the sexual tension of “Twilight.” Upgrading the enduring fairy tale (popularized by, but much older even than the Brothers Grimm) with a werewolf was the film’s first great idea. Unfortunately, it was also its last.

“Red Riding Hood” may be the funniest comedy of the year. Often throughout the screening, the audience erupted in laughter, talked back to the screen and felt the freedom to begin transforming the evening into a sort of “Mystery Science Theater 3000” spectator sport.

If you’ve ever sat through a junior high school play, then you’ll recognize the tone. A palpable sense of pretense and play-acting pervades every corner of the film. Atrocious dialogue is delivered by inexpressive actors (many of whom are quite good, otherwise) who look as if the first time they’re seeing their lines is also the first time they’re delivering them in front of the camera.

Fernandez, the brooding corner of our love triangle, plays the woodsman Peter (of course he does — cue Prokofiev), an actor so dull he’s as wooden as the trees his character fells for a living. Even star Seyfried (my, what big eyes you have) seems to be there in body but certainly not in mind or spirit. Oldman alone excels, only because he clearly has an eating disorder and remedied it by chewing up this film’s scenery.

Some of the production design is much better than the film deserves, and, at its best, evokes a sort of low-rent Tim Burton. Hardwicke manages a couple of lovely visuals — namely Seyfried’s billowing red cloak set against stark white snow — but is erratic, gratuitous and sloppy the rest of the time she’s behind the camera.

We are never told where “Red Riding Hood” takes place — some sort of snowy Eastern European kingdom that exists only in fairy tales. The film opens with breathtaking scenery (thanks to the Canadian Rockies) as we soar over jagged mountain peaks and pristine alpine lakes. But as soon as the opening credits conclude, we enter and never again leave an obvious soundstage. When your film is never better than its very first minute, you’re doomed.

details

RED RIDING HOOD

Cast: Amanda Seyfried, Gary Oldman, Billy Burke, Shiloh Fernandez, Max Irons, Virginia Madsen, Lukas Haas, Julie Christie

Director: Catherine Hardwicke

Rated: PG-13 (for violence and creature terror, and some sensuality)

Running time: 1 hour, 40 minutes

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