Very different from the Disney classic. (Snow White: Tale of Terror (DVD))

Member Name: Tara

Product:	Snow White: Tale of Terror (DVD)
Date:	28/12/00 (162 review reads)
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Based on the Brothers Grimm gothic fairytale, this is not a film for family viewing.

It begins with a haunting scene in which a carriage carrying Lord Friedrich (Sam Neill - TV’s ‘Merlin’) and his pregnant wife Lilliana overturns in the forest. She dies and the grieving husband is forced to recover the child from the fresh corpse of his darling wife.

Soon after, Friedrich marries a vain woman named Claudia (Sigourney Weaver – ‘Alien’) and she and the little girl Lily (Monica Keena - ‘While You Were Sleeping’) fast become rivals for her father’s affections.

Nine years later Claudia becomes pregnant with a possible heir, but the child (a boy) dies at birth and Claudia’s sanity begins to deteriorate. She begins to practise black magic and it is around now that her ornate bedroom mirror begins speaking to her, bringing up the query of whether or not it is a supernatural force at work or simply a hallucination as Claudia begins to lose her mind.

Blaming Lily for the death of her son and jealous of her youthful good goods, Claudia sends her brother Gustav (Miroslav Taborsky), a mute, to murder Lily and bring back her heart. But as we know, she escapes into the forest and stumbles upon the hideout of seven miners, only one of whom is a dwarf (Ally McBeal’s Gil Bellow’s), who are anything but the cute, friendly, comical dwarves of the Disney classic. Meanwhile Gustav returns to Claudia with the heart of a pig, which she eats with pleasure.

Sigourney Weaver is magnificent and dignified as the deranged stepmother and Sam Neill does a good performance as her trusting husband.

Faithful to the original version of ‘Snow White’ about female rivalry and the loss of youth, the film is dark and gothic, set in a cruel and savage world and very different from the sugar coated Disney adaptation.

Though not particularly scary or thrilling
, and without a memorable score and script, it is successfully creepy, gothic, gory and a visual treasure.

With scenes of rape and violence, ‘Snow White, Tale of Terror’ is certainly geared towards adults, but would be suitable for the ages of 12 and up.

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