Girl walks into forest. Shit goes down. Pretty much all there is to it. Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Blair Witch Project, Snow White, Little Red Riding Hood. The image is ever present because it resonated with us, its use goes all the way back to folk stories and fairytales because it touches onto something primal and universal in all of us… fear. 

 

Fear can motivate, exhilarate or paralyse, but it can also manipulate. When you tell a child the story of the Little Red Riding Hood, the horrors described within, stick with them and you can be damn well sure they’ll never go into the woods alone or talk to strangers.

 

Even looking at these fairytales now, they all seem rather horrifying, but the further back into its folk history we look, the more gruesome Little Red Riding Hood’s story becomes. 

It tells the story of a young girl, who’s just reached maturity, who flagrantly ignores all of the many warnings she’s given and defiantly goes where she’s not supposed to. For this transgression she is met with violence, terror and unbelievable atrocities. The story brutally confronts us with life after death, cannibalism, raw sexuality and cruelty, teaching us a lesson; follow the rules, or this could happen to you. 

 

But our lives are not as predictable as fairytales, they do not follow a simple linear, narrative structure and we cannot always know the consequences of our decisions, before we make them. Existence is ruled by chaos and coincidence, our choices sometimes saving us, other times condemning us and sometimes… having no bearing on the outcome.

 

This project, takes an age old fairytale we all know, shamelessly exploits its most gruesome aspects and takes away its predetermined linear structure, forcing the viewer to choose what will happen to the girl, while at the same time, depriving them of a comforting option.

 

Girl walks into forest. Shit goes down.

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the end.