The Pals visit the fantasy storytelling campfire, where Angela Carter puts a modern, feminist spin on a traditional fairy tale.
The Pals visit JRR Tolkien and his fantasy storytelling friends at Unicorn F*** Club, where Angela Carter puts a modern, feminist spin on a traditional fairy tale. Hans Christian Andersen is smitten. Frank Belknap Long gets stuck in his fursuit.
Content notes: Swearing, violence, allusion to sexual assault, vomit, gory noises, people being eaten, sex.
CAST:
with
Script by Nicoletta Giuseffi, edited by Bitter Karella and Robin Johnson. Audio production and music by Robin Johnson.
Angela Carter (1940-1992) was a feminist poet, journalist and author known for her fantasy and picaresque novels and stories. She wrote several versions of Little Red Riding Hood, including "The Werewolf", "The Company of Wolves" and "Wolf-Alice", all of which are included in her excellent collection of feminist retellings of folk- and fairy tales, The Bloody Chamber (1979). "The Company of Wolves" was adapted into a movie of the same name in 1984.
A transcript of this episode is available at https://midnight-pals.simplecast.com/episodes/the-tale-of-little-red-riding-hood/transcript
Submitted for the Approval of the Midnight Pals is a work of social and literary satire. All characters are fictitious, especially the real ones; any elements of work not in the public domain are used for the purpose of parody and comment, and no challenge is intended to the ownership or validity of any intellectual property. The Midnight Pals is the creation of Bitter Karella ©
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SCENE 1--EXT. UNICORN FUCK CLUB
CAMPFIRE AMBIENCE (FIRE CRACKLE, WIND IN TREES, CRICKETS) FADES IN.
JOLLY BALLAD-SINGING APPROACHES ALONG WITH THE CRUNCH OF LEAVES
TOLKIEN: (SINGING) JRR Tolkien, the stories he will bring 'em/ Corduroy his jacket is, and his socks are gingham... (SPOKEN) Sorry I’m late, it’s me, JRR Tolkien, famous author of The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings! I was explaining why my orcs aren’t racist to a student and it took an extremely long time. I brought snacks! Now be careful everyone, this Lembas is very dense.
ANDERSEN: Awesome, thanks, JRRT! Hello and welcome everyone to Unicorn Fuck Club – the fantasy campfire for fantasy writers! I’m Hans Christian Andersen, and I have an exciting announcement! And for once it’s not that I have a new forever boyfriend or possibly forever girlfriend… it’s that tonight I have a whole bunch of new boyfriends AND girlfriends! Because we’re going to be hosting a special visit from the kids over at the Midnight Society! I haven’t met them yet, but I’m just positive they’ll all want to be my boyfriends and/or girlfriends, really it doesn’t matter, anyone will do, God I’m just so lonely.
LEWIS: Wait, what’s that, Hans? You said the Midnight Society is coming over?
ANDERSEN: Yes, CS Lewis, author of the Narnia series, that is exactly what I said. Say, CS, would you like to be my boyfriend? We could laugh, hang out, braid each other’s hair-
LEWIS: No thanks, Hans. But why is the Midnight Society coming here?
ANDERSEN: Because our story tonight isn’t just fantasy… it’s also horror! And our storyteller is… Angela Carter!
LEWIS: That’s not a name I know.
ANDERSEN: “Nights at the Circus”? “The Magic Toyshop”?
LEWIS: No, I mean, “Angela” is not a name I know. What is it, Moorish? I’ve never heard of it!
ANDERSEN: Ah. That might be because it’s a woman’s name.
LEWIS: I don’t know about this. A WOMAN at a Unicorn Fuck moot?
TOLKIEN: That’s right. Are you sure a woman can tell a fantasy story? Does she understand the most important thing about fantasy, which is describing feasts in just absolutely obsessive detail? I don’t want anything else described, like, say, cool monsters or epic battles or any of that, I want feasts! I love ‘em!
LEWIS: Yes. And while John is describing his feast, I don’t want this new girl leaning over and pinching his chips. She could have ordered a whole feast for herself, am I right, chaps? (GUFFAW)
TOLKIEN: No guffawing, CS! We shall show this female that Unicorn Fuckers are gentlemen! Hats will be doffed appropriately, we shall listen politely to her fairytale and tell her afterwards how very nice it was, and then when she’s gone I’ll whip out the port and cigars and tell you gents The Tale of Bungo Boofnoggin’s Breakfast.
ANDERSEN: I invited her, so she stays. Also, she smiled at me, and no one’s ever done that before. So I say--(INTERRUPTING HIMSELF) here she is!
CARTER’S FOOTSTEPS APPROACH
ANDERSEN: Welcome to Unicorn Fuck Club, Angela! Say, um, would you like to be my girlfriend? We could laugh, hang out, braid each other’s hair--
CIGARETTE SIZZLING
CARTER: Yeah, no. Have any of you boys ACTUALLY ever fucked a unicorn?
FOREST AMBIENCE FOR SEVERAL SILENT SECONDS
LEWIS: Have... have you?
CARTER: I have bent the tab and slitted it in the slot marked ‘x’, for every girl is at once the unicorn’s malign trust and the perfidious virgin.
BUSHES RUSTLE AS MIDNIGHT SOCIETY CREW ARRIVES
BARKER: I think I might have... I mean, whatever it was, it only had one horn.
LEWIS: Ah, Midnight Society! You made it!
POE: Hey, everyone. Angela. Hans. CS. JRRT.
KING: Sorry we’re late! ’Course you all know me, Stephen King, author of Eyes of the Dragon, that classic fantasy story you all know and love. Seeing a lot of new faces here, new names we’ll have to remember.
LOVECRAFT: Hey, isn’t that bad luck? To have a woman at a campfire?
KING: That’s ships, Howard.
LOVECRAFT: Why would you have a ship at a campfire?
KOONTZ: (NERVOUSLY) Steve, I’m scared. I’ve never been to another campfire before!
KING: Hey, it’s okay Dean. Angela’s going to tell us a fairy tale. You like fairy tales, right Dean?
KOONTZ: Oh gee! Oh boy! A fairy tale? Gosh I can’t wait!
BOOTS APPROACHING THROUGH CRISPY LEAVES
SHELLEY: Sup, fuckers.
POE: Hey, Mary.
SHELLEY: There was nobody at our campfire, so I followed the smell of burning, like I always do. Unless I can’t smell burning. Then I set fire to something.
LEWIS: Oh my good Christian God, now there’s two of them. Two women in one group?!
SHELLEY: You can have more than one female character, you know. We’re not all fuckin’ Smurfette.
LEWIS: It’s Adam, Eve, Cain, Abel and Seth, not Adam, Eve, Cain, Abel, Seth and... another female character!
CARTER: What, you never heard of Lilith?
LEWIS:/TOLKIEN: NON-CANON!
PONDEROUS, PLODDING CRUNCH THROUGH LEAVES
LONG: (MUFFLED) ohai!
POE: (RESIGNED) Oh, Frank Belknap Long tagged along. And he brought his fursuit.
LEWIS: (EXCITED) Frank Belknap Long tagged along! And he brought his fursuit!
LONG: (MUFFLED) Can someone fix my zipper?
ZIPPING SOUND
LONG: (MUFFLED) Thanks!
CARTER: I have always depended on The Company of Wolves.
KING: Wow, she said the line!
SHELLEY: I’m surprised no one tried to shoot you in that thing, it’s quite realistic. It would be so easy... but back to what’s important. I hear you’re telling the story tonight, Angela? Nice.
LOVECRAFT: Do we really have to listen to another woman story?
CARTER: This one’s got cake.
LOVECRAFT: (EAGERLY) What kind of cake? Is it... (PAUSE) chocolate?
TOLKIEN: Cake? Now that sounds like a proper fantasy feast! You know, come to think of it, I think it’s great to have a woman telling the story for once. I believe there should occasionally be a woman in things, after all. You know, for the fans.
CARTER: (GETTING A LITTLE HEATED) And there should always be a disgusting, drooling man incapable of--ahem, yes, this is a fairy story. Not a fairy tale. There’s a world of difference.
LOVECRAFT: Wait a minute. A fairy tale? Aren’t those for babies? I’m NOT a baby. I’m a big boy. My auntie says so when she brings my cocoa.
TOLKIEN: Who brought this nerd?
KING: That’s just. Howard. He’s one of our friends... (UNEASILY) although come to think of it, I don’t think anyone actually likes him...
LOVECRAFT: Hey, I belong here! I wrote “The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath”. That’s fantasy!
TOLKIEN: Is it really?
LOVECRAFT: It’s got more made-up words than real ones in it. And I drew a map in the endpaper. [PAPER RUSTLING] There’s the Forest of Talking Weasels, there’s the Citadel of the Moonfrogs--
LEWIS: He does have a Citadel, John. That’s ten points.
TOLKIEN: All very well, but does it have any feasts?
LOVECRAFT: It has cats that eat people. And zombies that eat garbage.
TOLKIEN: I’m not sure that technically makes it fantasy.
LOVECRAFT: It has veiled racism.
TOLKIEN: Oh, well, why didn’t you say so, old chap? You’re in.
LOVECRAFT: Good! I’d hate to have done all that veiling for nothing.
CARTER: Am I going to tell my story this decade? Or will I have to wait for a more sincere liberation than the broken promises of the new century?
CIGARETTE SIZZLING
TOLKIEN: Oh, right! The entire reason we’re here. Yes. Very well, Miss Carter. Hans, as the resident fairy tale expert, feel free to jump in whenever.
CARTER: (CUT OFF BY HANS’ NEXT LINE) Wait, what the fuck?
ANDERSEN: Sure thing, friend!
CARTER: Bloody hell. All right. Submitted for the approval of Unicorn Fuck Club. I call this story: “The Tale of Little Red Riding Hood.”
KOONTZ: I know this one. In this story the girl is wearing a red riding hood.
CARTER: It is a hymen.
LEWIS: (SIMULTANEOUS WITH SHELLEY BELOW) Ewwww!
SHELLEY: Cracking!
LONG: (MUFFLED) Can we talk about the wolf yet?
CARTER: We have to talk about the girl first.
TOLKIEN: Oh, bother. Are you sure?
CARTER: I’m pretty sure. [CIGARETTE SIZZLE] Once upon a time there was a girl, but she was also a woman, a virgin and a whore, Madonna’s unblemished womb and the depraved discharge of Babylon the Great. She was an adult, but she was also having her first period, and she was very confused, and because her father was a leering drunkard who had been locked up in the village clink, snip snap, [START TO FADE] she lived all alone with her mother, who loved her very much.
FINISH FADE.
SCENE 2--INT. COTTAGE
FADE IN KITCHEN AMBIENCE (SOUP BUBBLING, FIRE CRACKLING).
LITTLE RED: Mother! I’ve finished preening myself in the mirror. Look, I did my own makeup!
MOTHER: Good girl. You know no one loves you more than me, right?
LITTLE RED: Not even grandmother?
MOTHER: Well, now, that’s not fair, she is a window to a gentle fantasy and I am your jailer, I keep you in at night and discipline you from socks to locks, and all you do with your grandmother is eat cake and butter. Incidentally, because your grandmother is very ill of late, I must ask a task of you which may prove the end of your innocence. I want you to take something to her.
LITTLE RED: (AT THE SAME TIME AS MOTHER BELOW) A cake and a little pot of butter?
MOTHER: A cake and a little pot of butter.
TOLKIEN: (V/O) Oh! Oh! Cake! That sounds like foreshadowing for a feast!
LEWIS: (V/O) Is the cake sugar-topped? Oh, but you can’t forget the sardines and toast! What a wonderful little feast it will be.
CARTER: (V/O) It’s the middle of the bloody vagina, I mean forest, why would there be sardines?
LITTLE RED: I’ll be happy to deliver them.
MOTHER: Good. If you’re wondering why the cake is sloshing, it’s because I’ve baked a bottle of cherry cordial into it. If I know your grandmother, she’s going to want to get sloshed the second she sees your slattern’s mask.
LITTLE RED: What’s a slattern?
MOTHER: A very pretty kind of girl.
LITTLE RED: (GIGGLING DEMURELY)
OBJECTS PASSED HAND TO HAND, CLOTH RUSTLING
MOTHER: Now then, here’s your little yellow basket. If you lose it, I’ll slap the teeth out of your mouth. Here’s your red shroud. Try not to let it get perforated. Take the path through the forest and do NOT stray.
LITTLE RED: What a lot of rules. Can’t we just post her the cake and butter?
MOTHER: Do you want to get tipsy with grandmama or not?
LITTLE RED: Yes, mother!
FOOTSTEPS ACROSS A WOODEN FLOOR. DOOR OPENS AND CLOSES
MOTHER: Thank fuck she’s finally gone, now I can rub one out.
FADE.
CUT TO: CAMPFIRE AMBIENCE (FIRE CRACKLE, WIND IN TREES, CRICKETS. WOLF HOWL.)
LEWIS: Wow, Frank, great howl.
LONG: (MUFFLED) That wasn’t me. Wolves go uwu. They have big bappy paws and can’t hold anything without magnets.
KOONTZ: Oh no, that means there are real wolves out there!
KING: Relax, Dean. Wolves are just... big friendly dogs. Why don’t you give Frank a hug? Frank, why don’t you tell Dean your fursona’s name?
LONG: (MUFFLED) Tindalos! He has one devil wing and one angel wing, and he lives in a different dimension, where he mostly sits around with his cock out.
LEWIS: Fascinating! Can I get a photograph with you? Here, sit on my lap and pretend to be naughty.
LONG: (MUFFLED) Sure![CLOTHES SHIFTING AROUND] Like this?
LEWIS: Mary, will you snap our photograph?
SHELLEY: I’ll snap your neck if you ask me again.
TOLKIEN: Give me that brownie camera. Alright. Say ‘Silmarillion!’
LONG: (MUFFLED, SIMULTANEOUS WITH LEWIS BELOW) Silmarillion!
LEWIS: Silmarillion!
[CAMERA SNAPPING]
CARTER: Back to the story, the plump virgin who was also a well-trod whore suppurating with diseases set off from her mother’s house down the road toward her grandmother. The forest is an animal all its own, and its nightly hunger was scraping in around her. There were phallic trees thrusting from the sour earth in every corner of her vision.
LEWIS: And then she met a wolf?
CARTER: Yes. And then Little Red Riding Hood met (SLOWLY) a big, bad wolf.
FADE
SCENE 3--EXT. FOREST
FADE IN FOREST AMBIENCE (TREES RUSTLING AND CREAKING, DISTANT OWL HOOTING)
WOLF: (DOG SNIFFING, THEN, WITH A RANDY GROWL) Well now, what is a pretty little maiden like you doing out here alone in the middle of the night? [LICKING CHOPS]
LITTLE RED: Um... walking?
CARTER (V/O) The wolf is named sexism, and he brands wayward young girls with the red letter of his attentions.
LITTLE RED: I’m bringing my grandmother some cake and butter. I guess she’s going to butter the cake and then eat it?
WOLF: And where does this voluptuous GILF live?
LITTLE RED: Not far. Just beyond the forest and past the mill, at the edge of a tiny little village.
WOLF: (TO HIMSELF) God, she’s so naïve, I can barely contain myself. (LOUDER NOW) I suppose I’ll go and see her too! How about a race. You go high and I’ll go low, and we’ll see who penetrates that cabin door first, shall we?
LITTLE RED: Girls mature faster than boys.
WOLF: Uhhh, hang on, you’re an adult right? It’s unclear. I’ve seen a lot of saucy retellings where you’re five foot eleven with huge knockers.
LITTLE RED: In every woman is a maiden, a mother, and a crone navigating ceaseless contretemps about menarches and c-sections and wrinkles.
WOLF: Uhhhh. Okay. Whatever you say, cutie. Right then, I’m off!
WOLF’S PAWS BOUNDING OFF DOWN THE PATH
LITTLE RED: What a nice man.
FADE
CUT TO: CAMPFIRE AMBIENCE (FIRE CRACKLE, WIND IN TREES, CRICKETS.)
SHELLEY: When does Fevvers show up? I love the fucking circus. Is she going to do a flip and kick the wolf’s head off?
CARTER: You’re a fan of my work?
SHELLEY: Fuckin’-a-right I am. I like when you put hot young men lost amid ever-shifting geometric planes of self-replicating unreality in your stories. And bearded tree guys who fuck like stallions.
KOONTZ: I fed a horse a carrot once.
ANDERSEN: I don’t know, this story isn’t the version I heard. For one thing, I thought she was supposed to bring her grandmother wine.
TOLKIEN: It’s always wine o’clock.
ANDERSEN: And for another thing, isn’t the wolf supposed to go flower picking with Little Red Riding Hood?
CARTER: I thought I’d cool it with the flower plucking metaphors. Dean looks quite confused.
BARKER: Dean’s not great with metaphor.
DEAN: What’s a... plower f--
ANDERSEN: Don’t get me wrong, I’m hopelessly in love with the idea of the wolf and Little Red Riding Hood, and that’s why both of them must die in some contrived fashion to make the story as melancholy as possible.
KOONTZ: (BRIMMING WITH EXCITEMENT) Did you say collie? Like Lassie?
POE: Dean
BARKER: I don’t have to listen to this crap, I made a video game for fuck’s sake.
SHELLEY: Rare nerd moment for you, Clive.
CARTER: Do you want to tell the story, Hans? Isn’t that what you men like? Biding your time with a febrile urgency whenever a woman is speaking, waiting until it’s your turn again, because GOD what interminable nonsense this bird is spouting, is that right?
ANDERSEN: No! I’m not like that! I’m one of the good ones! It’s just that you’re taking some license with the story, but your words are so big and pretty and your sentences are so long I guess it’s okay.
CARTER: It’s a fairy story, Hans. The details are irrelevant. It lives inside us eternally as part of our shared cultural memory. Besides, how many of your stories were your own and how many were based on folktales you heard as a child?
ANDERSEN: It’s different when a man does it.
LEWIS: That’s right! Man inherited the world from Jesus Christ, who is a lion, and women are things like witches, but no witch is so strong that Jesus can’t beat her up.
SHELLEY: I’m going to throw the lot of you into my stewpot and use your fat to make flying unguents if you don’t let Angela continue.
BARKER: I’m gonna make some sweet stew, let me tell you.
POE: Clive, what does that even mean?
BARKER: I’m just saying, I can do some pretty witchy stuff myself.
KOONTZ: You’re not a witch. Witches are girls.
BARKER: Some are men.
FADE
SCENE 4--EXT: FOREST (FOREST AMBIENCE)
PACKAGE OPENING, LIGHTER FLICKING, CIGARETTE SIZZLING
CARTER: (V/O) Now, the sedulous old wolf knew grandmothers were easy pickings, so he loped through the forest like a hand up a leg. At the same time, Little Red Riding Hood was capering about with moths and gathering berries and flowers and looking at the moon and pondering the thread of her chastity unraveling faster and faster.
(FADE)
LITTLE RED: (SINGING) A flower for me, a flower for you, a berry for blood, and flesh for a stew.
RACING THROUGH LEAVES AND BUSHES, DOG PANTING
WOLF: I’m making great time, but I’m working up quite an appetite.
CARTER: (V/O) The wolf finally came to a cozy little cottage and, with a conqueror’s mien he took to the door and puffed himself up and said:
WOLF: (SINGSONG) Little Pig, Little Pig, let me in!
GRANDMOTHER: Who’s theeeere?
WOLF: Oh, shit, right, this is the one with the grandmother. And I was really craving some pulled pork. (CLEARS THROAT, FAKE GIRL VOICE) Why it’s me, grandmama, your perfect pretty Little Red Riding Hood, and I’ve brought you (TALKING TO HIMSELF) damn, what was it? uhhhh (LOUDER, BUT UNCERTAIN) a little cake and a pot of butter, which mother made?
GRANDMOTHER: Truth accepted. Pull the bobbin, and the latch will go up.
FIDDLING WITH A LOCK
WOLF: Oh no, without my magnets I’m having some real trouble with this lock.
CUT TO: CAMPFIRE AMBIENCE (FIRE CRACKLE, WIND IN TREES, CRICKETS.)
SHELLEY: The house represents a vagina, right? That tall, yonic roof...
LOVECRAFT: If it was me, I would simply not let the wolf into my no-no place. Hey, where’s my cake? I’m going to eat some of Tolkien’s lembas.
SCRABBLING, RAT-LIKE EATING AND NIBBLING
TOLKIEN: No, wait! Those are like a million calories!
LOVECRAFT: My girlfriend says I can eat all the cake I want.
BARKER: That’s ’cause she and Aleister Crowley are fattening you up to eat you.
LOVECRAFT: What?
LONG: (MUFFLED) This is just like my Robin Hood weight gain fanfic.
LOVECRAFT: (BELCHES) Guys, I have to vomit, but I’m scared. (GROAN)
KING: Take a deep breath, Howard. Drink some water.
CARTER: The wolf’s affection for sin is realized through gluttony, and in his rapacious consumption of flesh he is also a rapist, and also a Sadeian who craves the kiss of a whip across his back and to fondle a woman’s firm, round buttocks.
(MORE LOCK FIDDLING)
WOLF: Almost... (CLICK) got it! (DOOR OPENING)
GRANDMOTHER: Oh, fuck me!
(FIENDISH GROWL, ENDING IN A ROAR)
(GRANDMOTHER SCREAMING)
(A TUSSLE WHICH CONTINUES DURING THE NEXT FEW LINES)
CARTER: (V/O) And with great gouts of gore flying like ribbons through the comely chamber, the wolf gobbled the old woman up. He burned her hair in the fireplace, and spent a while in the mirror admiring the girth of his carnivorous success.
LONG: (V/O) (MUFFLED) Vore! This story has everything? How big did the wolf get? Like, how fat?
CARTER: (V/O) Oh, I don’t know. Pretty fat, I suppose?
LONG: (V/O) Details!
CARTER: (V/O) He became an ungainly carriage of his own greed, a well-stocked larder of rippling flesh. [CIGARETTE SIZZLING]
LONG: (V/O) (MUFFLED) Oh, god, yes, that’s the stuff.
BELCH
WOLF: What a meal! I suppose I could leave, maybe go crash a wedding and eat the bride, but that little girl is coming and I would be remiss if I didn’t strip her... to the bones.
CARTER: (V/O) The wolf lurched toward the old woman’s boudoir and found a fetching little corselet. Of course, he was a real tub at this point, so he had some difficulty squeezing himself into it. But in the end the pretty garment made a fine figure of him and he dragged his swollen shape into the bed where he had devoured the old woman.
WOLF: Ahhh, all snuggled up in bed wearing lady garments waiting for my second course. What a fine evening.
[KNOCKING ON THE DOOR]
WOLF: (OFF) (GROWLING) Who the hell is that!
LITTLE RED: (CALLING THROUGH THE DOOR) It’s me, grandmother! Little Red Riding Hood! I’m here with your delivery of hard liquor from mother!
WOLF: (OFF) (GROWLING) Hard what?
LITTLE RED: (QUIETLY) My goodness, she must be hoarse with syphilis. (OUT LOUD) Liquor!
WOLF: (OFF) (TO HIMSELF) I intend to. (GRANNY VOICE) Why hello, granddaughter! Pull the bobbin, and the latch will go up.
[LOCK FUMBLING, DOOR OPENING AND CLOSING]
CABIN AMBIENCE (CLOCK TICKING, WOODEN BOARDS CREAKING OCCASIONALLY, FIREPLACE BURNING)
CARTER: (V/O) Despite the fact that the floor was a slaughter’s shadow of bits of blood and bone and teeth, Little Red Riding Hood assumed nothing was awry when, really, everything was. Women are taught never to be a problem, and so always keep their mouths shut. The foolish girl lowered her defenses and mislaid her trust directly in the wolf’s slavering jaws.
WOLF: (GRANNY VOICE) Toss that red cloak into the fireplace, my pet, you won’t need it anymore.
LITTLE RED: Yeah, okay.
(CLOTH RUSTLING, FIRE FLARING)
SHELLEY: (V/O) That’s one less virginity in the world.
LEWIS: (V/O) What? She only burned her cloak. Weren’t you listening? Silly woman.
LONG: (V/O) (MUFFLED) I’m really heating up here.
ANDERSEN: (V/O) [HASTILY FLIPPING THROUGH PAGES] (PANICKED) No, no, no, this is all wrong...
WOLF: (GRANNY VOICE) Come over here, my love. Let us have a look at you. My, my. Be a dear and eat the cake and butter, won’t you? Before you come and join your sweet granny in bed.
CARTER: (V/O) The wolf called from his place in the bed, with the covers pulled up to obscure his nose, and one of granny’s lice-ridden blonde wigs to hide his ears. For some reason, he had also slathered himself in lipstick and liner. Little Red Riding Hood obeyed, eating the cake and licking up the pot of butter like a pussycat.
LOVECRAFT: (V/O) Eww. Is this, like, symbolic?
BARKER: (V/O) Clearly.
LOVECRAFT: (V/O) What of?
BARKER: (V/O) I am not the resident expert on this one, Howard.
CARTER: (V/O) She placed the bottle of cordial aside and approached the bed.
[LIGHT, SLOW STEPS ON WOODEN FLOOR]
LITTLE RED: Why did I have to eat what I brought you? I’m going to get plump.
WOLF: (GRANNY VOICE) You just answered your own question.
LITTLE RED: Why, grandmother, you seem so different.
CUT TO: CAMPFIRE AMBIENCE (FIRE CRACKLE, WIND IN TREES, CRICKETS.)
TOLKIEN: I like this warg story.
LEWIS: No no, John, it’s a wolf, like Maugrim.
TOLKIEN: You mean like Draugluin, or Carcharoth.
LOVECRAFT: Are you guys speaking Welsh or something?
KING: It’s Quenya, right? I love references. My Dark Tower books are riddled with references to your work, JRR Tolkien... or... can I call you “Jrrt”?
SHELLEY: Somebody shut these nerds up.
ANDERSEN: (BREATHY) I have a question, can I ask a question?
CARTER: This had better be good.
ANDERSEN: Well, uh, um, you see, I was thumbing through my notes and, well, are you doing Charles Perrault’s version or the Brothers’ Grimm? Because in the Brothers’ Grimm there’s a lot of differences, mainly in act three, when--
SHELLEY: Yeah like, when are we going to get to the sausages?
CARTER: I’m doing my version, [CIGARETTE SIZZLE] (NEXT PART SLOWLY) and there’s only one kind of sausage in this story.
BARKER: Hell. Yes.
FADE.
SCENE 5--INT. CABIN
CLOCK TICKING, WOODEN BOARDS CREAKING OCCASIONALLY, FIREPLACE BURNING)
LITTLE RED: Why, grandmother. What a big moist nose you have.
WOLF: (GRANNY VOICE) All the better to snuffle you with.
LITTLE RED: Why, graaaandmother. What big eyes you have, glowing like saucers of Greek fire in a devouring gaze of matchless impiety.
WOLF: (GRANNY VOICE) All the better to (GRANNY VOICE DROPPING SLIGHTLY) trace along your woman’s curves and plunder glances of your naughty knickers.
LITTLE RED: Why, graaandmother. What big squishy paw pads you have!
WOLF: (GROWL) All the better to grab your ruddy tits with.
CARTER: (V/O) Now the wolf sprang from his integument of bedsheets and, shedding all propriety, cracked open his jaws, which dripped with hungry rime, and his member was stiff as a soldier.
LITTLE RED: Why graaaaandmother. What big canine dentition you have! Is that 3-1-4-3?
WOLF: (GROWLING, SNARLING, SNAPPING, ROARING) All the better to eat you with!
ROARING SNARL, TUMBLING ON WOOD
LITTLE RED: (SCREAMING)
WOLF: (SHOUTING) C’mere!
LITTLE RED: (SENSUAL MOAN) Oh!
TUSSLING SOUND EFFECTS, GRUNTS, AND MOANS CONTINUE
CARTER: (V/O) In the orgiastic throes of her dawning womanhood, the girl became the lover and the loved, a banquet of hot flesh, and as the wolf gave her incredible oral, she picked the lice from his blonde wig and fondled his ears like velvet tongues.
LITTLE RED: Oh, god! (MOANING)
WOLF: (GRUNTING SEX NOISES, SLURPING)
CARTER: (V/O) The big bad wolf felt so empowered by donning granny’s bloomers he lifted Little Red aloft beneath her quavering thighs and eased her into granny’s siege d’amour, where he redoubled his efforts to blow her house down.
BARKER: (V/O) Is he eating her, or fucking her?
CARTER: (V/O) Yes.
KOONTZ: (V/O) Oh no, he’s eating her!
SHELLEY: (V/O) He sure is.
FURTHER SEX NOISES, GROWLING
LITTLE RED: Yes! Yes!
WOLF: (GROWLING, MOTORBOATING)
LITTLE RED: (ORGASMIC SCREAM)
WOLF: (LITERAL EATING SOUNDS, GRUNTS, SLURPING)
LITTLE RED: (PAINFUL SCREAM, CUT OFF)
CARTER: (V/O) Greedily the wolf lapped every drop from her bloody chamber and every morsel from her pretty white bones and when he was finished, he was positively creaking, so he collapsed atop the love chair and began to snore.
WOLF: (YAWNING, SNORING)
LEWIS: (V/O) A nap! The natural conclusion of any feast.
FADE BACK TO CAMPFIRE
TOLKIEN: I don’t know... I won’t be convinced until he’s had a bath and sung a song about it.
LONG: (MUFFLED, PANTING, HALTINGLY) Did... did the wolf get fatter?
KING: Frank, you’ve... I think you’ve got a hole in your fursuit.
LONG: (DISTRACTED) Yeah. Took me two hours’ sewing to get the snaps lined up right.
CARTER: He grew fat on the richest quim he ever tasted.
TOLKIEN: What kind of feast is that? Where’s the cheese? Where’s the roast pheasant?
LEWIS: Where’s the Turkish delight?
BARKER: Where’s the pork?
TOLKIEN: (SINGING TO HIMSELF) I’m a wolf in the bath,
I’m a moist hairy beast!
I’m a wolf in the bath,
And I’ve just had a feast!
Tomorrow perhaps I’ll sing about a treeee!
CARTER: The wolf, packed to the gills on cuts of woman, slept deeply, and as he slept, a tall, ruggedly handsome woodsman was strolling along and saw the cabin door hanging open. Because he was a man, he felt entitled to enter any woman’s cottage at any time. Taking it as a tantalizing invitation, he stalked inside and rubbed his bristly chin as he regarded the vast shape of the wolf lying prone upon granny’s custom furniture.
CUT BACK TO COTTAGE
DOOR CREAKING, BOOTS THUMPING, SNORING
WOODCUTTER: Hey, I was just passing, and as a man, I must give you my opinion that I don’t appreciate the unkempt thatching on your cottage, Grandmother!
WOLF: (WAKES, GROWLS)
WOODCUTTER: Oh my god, who’d have guessed Little Red Riding Hood’s Grandmother is a werewolf! I never saw that coming!
ANDERSEN: (V/O) No no no! The woodcutter can always see through the disguise! He’s a man, not a stupid girl, he won’t be fooled!
CARTER: (V/O) (SIGH) Very well, Hans.
WOODCUTTER: Why, judging by the circumference of that wolf, I’d wager he’s eaten the old woman. (SNIFFS) And judging by the reek of coitus, she rode his face like a penny farthing. I totally saw that coming!
LONG: (V/O) (MUFFLED) (PANTING) Guys, it’s getting really hot in this suit.
FADE BACK TO CAMPFIRE
KING: So take off the head, Frank.
LEWIS: (ROARING) NO! You can’t just take off your head in front of everyone! They’ll know you aren’t a real wolf! The complicated layers of illusion will dissipate like, like--
ANDERSEN: A lovelorn mermaid?
LEWIS: YES! And the magic will die! Everyone will think you’re just a guy in a costume!
POE: But... everybody knows he’s a guy in a costume.
KOONTZ: Oh no, the doggy is sick! What do we do?
POE: I sit corrected.
LONG: (MUFFLED, GROANING) I don’t feel so good. I think I might have taken one too many disruptor stun hits at the Klingon party.
KING: I think you’ll find Klingon disruptors have no stun setting.
LONG: (GROANING CONTINUES)
START SLOW FADE BACK TO CABIN
CARTER: The woodcutter took up his gleaming axe, which had once struck limbs to be lain like cord during the Thirty Years’ War, and did what men do best: muck everything up.
LEWIS Frank is suffocating and the zipper is stuck! Dear me, what would Aslan do?
LOVECRAFT: (SHOUTING) Frank! Frank, hang in there!
KING: We’ve got to save him!
WOODCUTTER: I’ve got to save her!
SHELLEY: Fuck it, let’s cut him out. (KNIFE SOUND) Got my knife.
TOLKIEN: And my axe!
LONG: (GROANING)
LONG’S GROANING BECOMES SIMULTANEOUS WITH THE WOLF’S AS THE FADE COMPLETES
WOLF: (GROANING)
TOLKIEN:/SHELLEY:/KING:/KOONTZ:/WOODCUTTER: (INDISCRIMINATE CHATTER, USE THE FOLLOWING LINES AND/OR IMPROVISE)
SHELLEY: Fuck’s sake, Frank. Keep STILL!
TOLKIEN: Gently...
SHELLEY: ...violently...
KING: Careful there...
LOVECRAFT: You guys know what you’re doing, right?
TOLKIEN: I have seen this many times. With horses!
SHELLEY: I’m in!
LONG: (LOTS OF MOANS)
CARTER: (V/O) And so, the brave woodsman took his axe and carved open the big misogynist belly of the wolf, revealing the shape of the grandmother and of Little Red Riding Hood, safe and sound.
LITTLE RED: [SIMULTANEOUSLY WITH GRANDMOTHER BELOW] We’re saved!
GRANDMOTHER: Have you seen my pills? I’m supposed to take them whenever I’m eaten by a wolf.
WOODCUTTER: (DEEP-CHESTED LAUGHTER) Ha ha ha ha ha... oh, Grandma!
TOLKIEN: (SHARP AXE-BLADE SOUND) There!
FADE BACK TO CAMPFIRE
LONG: (V/O) (FINALLY UNMUFFLED, GASPING) I’m free! You saved me! [VOMITING] Oh, I wish they covered the forest floor with saran wrap like they did the party floor…
LOVECRAFT: (TEARING UP) Oh, Frank! You’re alright! This is just like a dream I had...
LONG: Wait, let me get a pen.
KOONTZ: (CONFUSED) There... was a man... inside the... dog??
FADE BACK TO COTTAGE
CARTER: (V/O) The huntsman offered to fill the wolf up with rocks and toss him into the river, but Little Red cried out.
LITTLE RED: No! You can’t! He’s a fantastic lay!
CARTER: (V/O) The wolf, coming to, saw his belly ripped asunder.
WOLF: (DISTRESSED) I look like a potato skin!
GRANDMOTHER: My slavery to the loom and the needle’s heavy yoke has made my fingers thickly calloused. I’ll suture you up with a bit of cat gut from this lonely old mandolin, but it’s going to pinch like the devil. You’ll need to be piss drunk. Here, drink this bottle of cherry cordial.
BOTTLE BEING OPENED, GLUG GLUG GLUG DRINKING SOUNDS, SEWING
GRANDMOTHER: You can keep the wig, it looks better on you.
WOLF: (IN THE BACKGROUND, PAUSE BETWEEN EACH OW FOR THE STITCHES, CONTINUES UNTIL THE FADE) Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow.
WOODCUTTER: While I’m here, does anyone need anything else chopped?
FADE
SCENE 6--EXT. UNICORN FUCK CLUB
CAMPFIRE AMBIENCE FADES IN
ANDERSEN: That’s your ending? No death? No frozen corpse of a little match girl?
CARTER: Just because it’s feminist doesn’t mean it has to be dark, like when mommy shot Bluebeard. [CIGARETTE SIZZLE]
ANDERSEN: I just cannot deal with these upper endings. Hopepunk will be the death of me!
LOVECRAFT: I was distracted the whole time because I was researching Little Red Riding Hood’s ethnicity. And the wolf, was he, like, a metaphor for an Italian or something?
BARKER: I liked the ending. It was kinda sweet.
SHELLEY: Yeah, like, maybe they’re going to have a four-way or something.
BARKER: Exactly. Something nice like that.
ANDERSEN: The ending needed more dead match girls.
TOLKIEN: That’s all well and good, but I’m more curious about Frank Belknap Long’s fursuit here. This ‘furry’ business seems to have some merit.
LEWIS: I knew you’d see the light, John. Maybe Santa will bring you a fursuit next year.
TOLKIEN: Or he’ll just drop Karhu off on my doorstep.
SHELLEY: Can I have a new switchblade?
POE: Is something wrong with that one?
SHELLEY: No. But you can’t have too many.
LEWIS: NO! Knives are for boys. Girls get potions.
LONG: What kind of animal do you think you’d be, JRRT?
TOLKIEN: Hmmmm. A hobbit.
KING: Uhh, that’s not an animal.
TOLKIEN: I’m sorry, who died and made you the leader of Unicorn Fuck Club?
KING: (CONFUSED) Maybe... you?
TOLKIEN: Hobbits are in the monster manual! So they count!
KING: Well shoot, sorry Jrrt.
BARKER: I had furries in my Imajica stories. See, Angela? We’re both picaresque.
CARTER: Now that’s what I call intersectional.
KOONTZ: The scary wolf hurt the nice lady.
CARTER: If you think wolves are bad, (PAUSE) [CIGARETTE SIZZLE] just wait until you find out about she-wolves.
FADE. ROLL CREDITS
POST-CREDIT SCENE--EXT. UNICORN FUCK CLUB
FADE IN CAMPFIRE AMBIENCE
POE: Angela?
CARTER: Yes, Edgar?
POE: Dean really wants you to say “and they all lived happily ever after.”
CARTER: They almost never do. The seemly livery of alliance is shed as easily as a chrysalid.
BARKER: That was my kind of happy ending. Did the wolf and the woodcutter find comfort in each other’s big hairy chests?
KOONTZ: Is she gonna say it?
POE: Look, he was really well behaved the whole time.
SHELLEY: Yeah, he wasn’t fidgeting as much as usual. He really likes fairy stories. Come on Angela, throw the boy a bone.
LONG SILENCE
CIGARETTE SIZZLE
CARTER: (SLOWLY) And they all lived happily ever after.
FADE.
END.
Script (c) 2025 Nicoletta Giuseffi. No reproduction without permission.