The Science Fiction Horror and Fantasy Film Review
In its simplest usage, a fairytale is a story for children. Most modern fairytales originated from the interpretations by The Brothers Grimm, Hans Christian Andersen and others like Charles Perrault, although all of these draw from earlier folk tales that have origins in oral tradition. It should also be noted that many of these, especially the Grimm Brothers originals, often have darker elements that are usually sanitised by modern child-friendly tellings.
Few fairytales actually feature Fairies. Most fairytales concern adolescents or innocents – children, orphans, princesses, while antagonists are figures like evil stepmothers or wicked witches. The story frequently requires a journey – often through The Woods – and the innocent undergoing peril to find rescue (often from a prince) and arrive at a place where they receive the gift of true love whereupon comes the refrain “… and they lived happily ever after.” The fantastic enters in the form of magic, talking animals and witches.
There have been a great many fairytale adaptations since the early days of cinema. For a time, Disney produced a series of classic animated versions and there have been a great many other works produced both animated and live-action, all drawing from classic and familiar tales. A number of these are musical and/or ballet interpretations.
There is also body of deconstructed fairytales where the elements of familiar stories are put to very different usages. The most common of these is seeing the fairytale updated into modern surroundings often with comical or less-than-innocent results, or of stories where Little Red Riding Hood encounters werewolves or Hansel and Gretel’s witch is a cannibal. Other versions posit the idea that characters from classic fairytales inhabit shared worlds.
From the producers of the ABCs of Death films, a further horror anthology where nine directors from around the world deliver eight episodes based on the folklore of their region
Disney’s sequel to Fantasia comes weighted with a sense of its own self-importance – the first theatrical release of the new millennium. However, it fails to produce much that has the stature of the original
Witty and very charming retelling of Cinderella that strips out all of the fantasy elements and substitutes a pseudo-historical realism. The cast positively shine.
Disney film where an animated fairytale princess emerges into the real world to become Amy Adams. This becomes the opportunity to wittily puncture the unreal world of the Disney fairytale
One of the shabby fairytales produced by Cannon Films. Here the clear and simple moral sting of the Hans Christian Andersen original disappears under buffoonish comedy
Excruciatingly awful take on Cinderella, which overruns the fairytale with hip contemporary in-jokes and pop culture references, shredding any suspension of disbelief in its desire to appeal to a modern teen cool
Eccentric French fairytale filled with appealingly absurdist and surreal touches and with visuals that remind of the extravagance of a Barbarella. Charming and visually engaging
Enchanted in which Amy Adams played an animated fairytale princess entering the real world was a reasonable hit. This is the long-planned sequel that reunites the principals but feels like a joke that belabours in the retelling
Horror anthology with the novelty where all of the stories are horror versions of fairytales. Particularly amusing is the second episode, a modernised version of Little Red Riding Hood
This offers the promising idea of Sleeping Beauty reworked as a horror film (and set in the modern day). Never as interesting as it sounds in synopsis, this becomes more a Sleeping Beauty-themed haunted house ride
An early film from Francois Ozon, this offers a modernisation of Hansel and Gretel where the two are teenage lovers on the run before the story turns into a remarkable gay coming out parable
In his first film, Neil Jordan adapts an Angela Carter story that retells Little Red Riding Hood as a werewolf film that becomes a fascinating swim of fairytale and sexual allegory
The popular fairytale has the sexes reversed and is reworked as a comedy vehicle for Jerry Lewis, although the upshot of this is that we get a Cinderella who is now a near-imbecilic Beverly Hills stepchild
A horror version of Cinderella where she gets to stab people with the glass slipper. This also features several modernisms where instead of a pumpkin coach, the fairy godmother conjures up Elon Musk to drive Cinderella to the ball in a Tesla
From the people behind the Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey films, a horror version of Cinderella. And yes, the glass slipper is used to stab people
A contemporary take on Cinderella that relocates the story to a modern high school with a downtrodden Hillary Duff trying to make it to the prom
This claims to adapt a Chinese fairytale that was the basis for Cinderella. Nicely made but what you get is a cultural portrait with occasional Magical Realist elements more than anything like the traditional fairytale
Live-action remake of the Disney animated film. This varies little from the well-worn elements of the story to the point of over-familiarity but director Kenneth Branagh manages a lush and beautifully staged effort
One of the earliest films from Charles Band who has since become a prolific producer/director of low-budget films. Here Band offers a very adult take on the Cinderella fairytale
A Disney animated film whose classic stature has been overrated. The fairytale is too familiar to hold much interest, while the cutsie talking animals get to take over proceedings
Another cheap Disney made-for-video-release sequel. This at least offers the novelty of an alternate retelling of Cinderella but everything transpires predictably
Head-scratching animated oddity from Disney that adapts the talking animal fairytale only to throw in a series of bizarre plot elements that end up as an alien invasion story
There is potential to the premise here – a dark horror riff of sorts on The Little Mermaid in a 1930s Depression era setting – but it is squandered by an unimaginative script and direction
Probably the least satisfying of Terry Gilliam’s films that turns the real-life fairytale authors into scam ghost hunters in an adventure. Purportedly the subject of behind the scenes troubles, the film never quite comes to life on screen
Catherine Breillat, a director known for her full-on explorations of sexuality, takes on an adaptation of the French fairytale about a multiple wife murderer
The fairytale about a multiple wife murderer is given the lavish costume drama treatment. Featuring Richard Burton at the height of his Bad Actor period in a series of increasingly absurd softcore romps
A ghastly fairytale adaptation. Classic Hollywood director George Cukor took several stars to shoot in the Soviet Union and the results look like a badly choreographed amateur pantomime, lacking in any essential whimsy
With the success of The Wizard of Oz, 20th Century sought to capture the same by casting Shirley Temple in this appallingly schmaltzy fairytale about two children on a quest for the Blue Bird of Happiness
A beautiful anime from Momoru Hosoda that retells Beauty and the Beast and spins it in SF terms as tale about a girl who finds fame as a singer in Virtual Reality
This live-action remake of the Disney animated film is mounted with a lavishness. On the other hand, the romance at the centre never fully warms up, while the human characters have the show stolen from under by the cutlery and furnishings
Adaptation of the fairytale that takes place in an exquisitely dreamy sumptuousness – a stunningly designed, costumed and photographed world that has a genuine magic. However, the motion-capture animated Beast looks far too much like a CGI effect
Cheaply made attempt to turn the fairytale into a fantasy adventure where Beauty becomes a kick-ass heroine who joins the Beast in defeating an evil lord and witch
The start of the 90s renaissance of Disney animation, a beautifully made adaptation of the fairytale that hearkens back to the Disney Golden Age. The only animated film nominated for an Academy Award Best Picture
One of the cheap fairytale adaptations produced by Cannon Films. John Savage and Rebecca De Mornay star in the titles. One of the Cannon fairytales that emerges slightly better than the others
Largely forgotten version of the fairytale that is too rudimentary and pedestrian to find much flight of fantasy compared to other classic versions
Jean Cocteau makes one of the greatest of all fantasy films and the finest of all fairytale adaptations, elaborating the original story out with a visual magic that still manages to dazzle audiences today
A quite enjoyable attempt to modernise the story of Beauty and the Beast with Martin Clunes as a disfigured reclusive aristocrat and Sienna Guillory as a plumber who connects with him
The interesting idea of the fairytale Beauty and the Beast retold in a modern high school setting. Despite itself, the film manages to wring a reasonable sincerity out of the premise
An exquisitely dreamlike erotic fairytale from cult director Walerian Borowczyk, a variant on Beauty and the Beast involving the liaison between a girl and a beast.
A low-budget children’s film produced by Charles Band, this modernises the story of Jack and the Beanstalk. A sense of humour often proves the film’s saving grace among the tattiness.
Another animated Barbie film, this appropriate the name of the Hans Christian Andersen’s fairytale and makes it now about a fairy who preaches conservation. As these films go, this is one of the better made and comes with quite a degree of colour
The third animated film based on the popular girl’s doll Barbie. This places Barbie into Tchaikovsky’s ballet Swan Lake in an okay telling, if one that suffers from the usual limited animation of Mainframe’s early films
The first in a long series of animated films based on Mattel’s girl’s doll Barbie. This casts Barbie as a lead in an adaptation of The Nutcracker ballet
Here the Barbie films turn to Mark Twain’s classic (non-fantasy) tale of rags and riches and spins it as a fairytale This has the same blank, plastic style of the early Barbie films and is otherwise bland
The second of the animated Barbie films, this casts her as the title character in the popular Brothers Grimm fairytale, which has been considerably embellished. This suffers the glassy plasticity of the early Mainframe films
The Disney musical version of a story that takes place among the denizens of fairytale. Some visual nonsense but the film dies a slow lumbering death amid the sugary sentiment
Released at the same time as Avengers: Infinity War, this was a mockbuster from The Asylum involving a team-up between fairytale characters. The third in their Avengers Grimm series
The Asylum’s response to Avengers: Age of Ultron. Not having their own superheroes, they have ingeniously created an adventure involving various fairytale princesses – a great idea that befalls miserable execution