The phrase ‘Fever Dream’ is banded about a lot these days. But with ‘The Wolf and the Seven Little Goats’ (Known in the US and UK as ‘The Big Bad Wolf’ I feel fully justified in using that phrasing.

Intended as a movie to fill the kiddy ‘Matinee’ slot on weekend mornings while mum and dad did the shopping or just had a couple of hours without the endless painful screeching of parenthood eroding their very essence as beings. I can only BEGIN to hazard a guess at the level of trauma this film must have instilled on little Bobby or Bobbette when it hit the big screen. I saw a fairly murky VHS copy of this included in AGFA and ‘Something Weirds’ ‘Krazee Kids Video Party’ set…and even I was vaguely haunted by it.

The plot, as the title suggests, follows 7 humanoid/animal hybrid goat children as they attend school. Their teacher informs them of the dangers of the world, before introducing them to ‘The Big Bad Wolf’ a known predator (not in that way…I hope…) and murderer of goat Children. The Goat kids laugh and joke about how they’d stop the wolf if it came for them…and then they head home.

On getting home though, their mother (also a humanoid Goat abomination) tells them she needs to run out to do some errands and leaves them in charge of cleaning and prepping the house for the evening. So far, so harmonious. Until THE ‘Big bad wolf’ turns up, spots that the Goat childrens mother is going out, and hatches a plan to break into the house and eat…pretty much all the goat children. Tom and Jerry/Home Alone style shenanigans ensue.

This is a nippy 58 (or so) minutes long, is decently paced in terms of what its trying to do, and is clearly targeting very young children and as such, the plots incredibly basic too. While some of the advice in this film may be a little dated, I feel what morals it was trying to instill arnt ENTIRELY awful. and the characters are relatively well developed (even if there are a few more…aggressive moments in this, that almost certainly wouldnt have made it into a remake from this century).

What IS the main selling point of this film however is the visuals. As it appears the vanity chest of Summerisle has been ransacked to dress the cast here. Giant faux animal heads with flappy mouths are the flavour of the day, and are BEYOND unsettling for most of the runtime. especially when viewed through an ‘Nth’ generation VHS copy. Honestly, played at half speed, this could easily substitute for ‘Creepypasta’ material.

The direction is relatively well handled, even if they didnt quite succeed in making ACTUAL REAL LIFE Birds keep a tiny hat on their heads while overdubbing them. but the slapstick is clean cut, nicely brought to life and incredibly surreal to watch. The cine is much the same, with this being a cropped and degraded VHS copy of an original film print, I dont really have the full scope to make a call on detail or composition. But whats here is fine enough and again, follows the basics of the technical process.

The performances are animated and lively, which is nice because, as anyone whos worn a fursuit will tell you, what you animate inside the costume is maybe 10% of what will animate outside of the costume. they really throw themselves into this, and I think they do a solid (if not terrifying) job.

throw in a gratingly ‘Twee’ soundtrack, and you have the makings of my next therapists appointment. Between this and ‘Fun in Balloon Land’ the ‘Krazee Kids Video Party’ has more or less paid for itself. Definitely worth catching at least once, I’ll almost certainly watch this one again when I need to stare into the horrors of the abyss for 60 minutes.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/the-wolf-and-the-seven-little-goats/