Dark Fairytales

Once upon a time Hollywood transformed many fairytales into horrible cinematic scream-fests, trading princesses and happy endings for demonic creatures and nightmarish murders.

Dark fairytales have started popping up since the mid 90’s and it seems they are here to stay. Rumplestiltskin (1995) was about an evil creature tormenting a Los Angeles mother for the possession of her baby; it rated only 3.9/10 with the IMDb website. 

The Tooth fairy (2006) is another gruesome example of a horror movie based on a children’s book. The Tooth fairy would brutally murder numerous kids for their teeth, but was also a cinematic flop with only 4.5/10. Hansel and Gretel (2007) did better with 7/10. The story followed a young boy and girl to a little gingerbread house in the woods, where they were captured by an evil witch and held prisoner with other kids that could never age. In my opinion Hansel and Gretel was written to be more horror than fairytale, I mean you have an evil, cannibalizing witch holding two children captive, plumping them up to later feast on their fleshy goodness, scary even with a happy ending.

This year (2011) Red riding hood was released, played by Amanda Seyfried. This movie also delivered bad ratings, 4.9/10, and I couldn’t agree more. Red riding hood is about a girl who tries to stop the werewolf that terrorizes her gothic village. It is boring, unimaginative and drags on from beginning to end.

Two new Dark fairytales have made themselves known; Hansel and Gretel: Witch hunters and Snow White and the Hunstman; both will be released in 2012. Hansel and Gretel follows the two siblings 15 years after the terrible gingerbread house ordeal. They are now all grown up and hunt witches as a profession. Hansel will be played by Jeremy Renner and Gretel by Gemma Arterton. Snow White (Kirsten Stewart) is about the classic fairytale story; the huntsman is ordered to kill Snow White, but instead releases her, the evil queen (Charlize Theron) follows with murderous intent.

Although both soon to be released movies sound more like action than horror to me, I just hope they do better than the previously mentioned dark fairytales.

What are your opinions of dark fairytales?