A young girl named Rosaleen dreams that she lives in a fairytale forest during the late 18th century with her parents and sister Alice.

The superstitious old woman gives Rosaleen an ominous warning, "Never stray from the path, never eat a windfall apple, and never trust a man whose eyebrows meet."

Rosaleen later takes a basket of goods through the woods to her grandmother's cottage; but on her way, she encounters an attractive huntsman whose eyebrows meet.

A deeply remorseful Rosaleen apologizes and takes pity on the wounded beast, musing that his pack could leave him behind in his state.

Rosaleen awakes with a scream as one leaps in through the window and sends her toys crashing to the floor, symbolizing the end of her childhood innocence.

The two met in Dublin in 1982 to discuss expanding Carter's radio drama, which Jordan called "too short for a feature film".

[5] Carter's original screenplay of The Company of Wolves (as posthumously published in the 1996 anthology The Curious Room) featured an additional story being told by the huntsman, a very different final tale by Rosaleen (reminiscent of Carter's "Peter and the Wolf" from her collection Black Venus), and a scene set in a church with an animal congregation.

Sarah Patterson made her screen debut, despite being much younger than the kind of actress the casting director had been looking for, and likely too young to understand some of the film's more adult concepts.

Jordan worked for several weeks in pre-production with artist filmmakers Nichola Bruce and Michael Coulson to create hundreds of detailed storyboard drawings.

Due to budgetary constraints and other factors such as cast safety, most of the 'wolves' shown in the film are in fact evidently Belgian Shepherd Dogs, mainly Tervuerens and Groenendaels, whose fur was specially dyed.

In the DVD commentary for the film, Jordan notes the bravery of young star Sarah Patterson when acting amongst the genuine wolves.

Jordan claimed that the limited technology of the time prevented the production of such a sequence, whereas later computer-generated imagery effects would in fact make it quite simple.

This special edition came in a metal case and included an audio commentary by director Neil Jordan, stills galleries, the film's theatrical trailer and a printed "Behind the Scenes Dossier".

[14] Colin Greenland reviewed The Company of Wolves for Imagine magazine, and stated that "It's a Freudian fairytale with deliciously gruesome transformation scenes and deep, vigorous imagery, but not without twee patches.

Maggie Anwell decried The Company of Wolves for what she perceived as an over-emphasis on bloody werewolf special effects,[17] while Charlotte Crofts argued the film is a sensitive adaptation of Carter's reworking of Charles Perrault's Little Red Riding Hood fairy tale.

[18][19] In 2010 Louise Watson, writing for BFI Screenonline, said Neil Jordan "evokes an eerie, dreamlike atmosphere for the film's heightened reality.

Its otherworldly scenery and costumes seem to have been inspired by fairytale illustrations, mixed with the studio-bound visual style of Hammer horror.

The Hammer-like theatrical forest creates a sense of brooding claustrophobia where no sunlight can reach, accentuating Rosaleen's trapped existence.

A soundtrack album, featuring the George Fenton score from the film, was released in 1985 on Varèse Sarabande Records.