Red Riding (2009) is a three-part television adaptation of English author David Peace's Red Riding Quartet (1999–2002). The quartet comprises the novels Nineteen Seventy-Four (1999), Nineteen Seventy-Seven (2000), Nineteen Eighty (2001) and Nineteen Eighty-Three (2002) and the first, third, and fourth of these books became three feature-length television episodes — Red Riding 1974, Red Riding 1980, and Red Riding 1983. They aired in the UK on Channel 4 beginning on 5 March 2009 and were produced by Revolution Films. The three films were released theatrically in the US in February 2010.[2]
Set against a backdrop of serial murders during 1974–1983, including the Yorkshire Ripper killings, the books and films follow several recurring fictional characters through a bleak and violent world of multi-layered police corruption and organised crime. Although real-life crimes are referenced, the plot is fiction rather than a documentary or factual account of events. Both the books and films mix elements of fact, fiction and conspiracy theory – a confection dubbed "Yorkshire Noir" by some critics – and are notable for a chronologically fractured narrative and for defying neat or trite endings and resolutions. (Yorkshire, Britain's largest county, is broken into three administrative areas known as the Ridings — North, East, and West. There is no "Red" Riding, except in the metaphorical sense.)
Sure to be one of the cinematic events of the year, RED RIDING is a mesmerizing neo-noir epic based on factual events and adapted for the screen by Tony Grisoni (FEAR AND LOATHING IN LAS VEGAS) from David Peace's electrifying series of novels. An official selection of the Telluride, New York, Chicago and AFI Festivals, and acclaimed by critics an eminent accomplishment, the trilogy follows several characters in intertwining storylines united by the horror wrought by the "Yorkshire Ripper,"