Sev­en great alter­na­tive fairy tale movies

Disney’s live action Beau­ty and the Beast, star­ring Emma Wat­son and Dan Stevens, brings a time­less sto­ry to life for a new gen­er­a­tion of movie­go­ers. Yet while the film promis­es anoth­er sani­tised ver­sion of this clas­sic fairy tale, the orig­i­nal ver­sion, writ­ten by the 18^th cen­tu­ry French nov­el­ist Gabrielle-Suzanne Bar­bot de Vil­leneuve, is much more grotesque and twist­ed. With that in mind, here are sev­en great alter­na­tive fairy tale movies to watch before you see Disney’s latest.

Adapt­ed from Angela Carter’s short sto­ry of the same name, this Goth­ic fan­ta­sy-hor­ror is a spi­ralling ​‘tale with­in tales’ that delves into the ori­gins ​‘Lit­tle Red Rid­ing Hood’. Ros­aleen (Sarah Pat­ter­son) dreams of liv­ing in a fairy tale world, and encoun­ters mul­ti­ple male fig­ures (“men-who-are-wolves or wolves-who-are-men”) cul­mi­nat­ing in an ambigu­ous, unset­tling con­clu­sion. The film’s cen­tral plot and the fables inter­wo­ven through­out – from a crashed wed­ding recep­tion to the Dev­il chauf­feured in a Rolls-Royce – address and sub­vert the under­pin­nings of female sex­u­al­i­ty and com­ing of age that per­me­ate the orig­i­nal tale. Girls have far more pow­er than they believe, and while men and wolves should be viewed with wary eyes, they are only as dan­ger­ous as they are made to be.

Lit­tle Red Rid­ing Hood ver­sus the Big Bad Wolf – who wins? Can Red be just as bad as the wolf? In Free­way, a young Reese With­er­spoon plays Vanes­sa, a white trash teen who hitch­es a ride with stu­dent coun­sel­lor Bob (Kiefer Suther­land) while try­ing to make her way to her grandmother’s trail­er park. Bob is soon revealed to be a ser­i­al killer who tar­gets young women, yet Vanes­sa is able to gain the upper hand, shoot­ing and dis­fig­ur­ing him while taunt­ing his weak­ness. Although Vanes­sa is ini­tial­ly charged and sent to prison, she and Bob have a final endgame at Grandmother’s House (or rather trail­er), prov­ing that when faced with big bad wolves, girls can be just as mon­strous when faced with those who would do them harm.

The film that kick­start­ed direc­tor David Slade’s career, Hard Can­dy essen­tial­ly reimag­ines Lit­tle Red Rid­ing Hood as a tale of vengeance. Jeff (Patrick Wil­son), a pho­tog­ra­ph­er in his mid-thir­ties, finds the tables turned on him by 14-year-old Hay­ley (Ellen Page), with whom he has devel­oped a preda­to­ry online rela­tion­ship. Hay­ley traps him in his own home and pro­ceeds to tor­ment him for his sup­posed pedophil­i­ac crimes, cul­mi­nat­ing in a dev­as­tat­ing choice. While some­times the worst preda­tors are the bland­est peo­ple, even they fall in the face of stronger, more malev­o­lent forces. For all its dis­turb­ing and grue­some scenes Hard Can­dy, epit­o­mised by Hay­lay and her red hood­ie, is a chill­ing tri­umph for girls and women hunt­ed and devoured by predators.

Arguably Tarsem Singh’s best and most cohe­sive film, The Fall chron­i­cles the tug of war over a shared sto­ry told by stunt­man Roy (Lee Pace) and wide-eyed five-year-old Alexan­dria (Cat­in­ca Untaru) while both are recu­per­at­ing in a hos­pi­tal. The film is not an adap­ta­tion of a fairy tale but rather exhibits the strug­gle in sto­ry­telling between trag­ic and hap­py end­ings. The increas­ing­ly sui­ci­dal Roy manip­u­lates the tale, fea­tur­ing the adven­ture of a ban­dit, his daugh­ter and a host of side­kicks, to favour tragedy. In response, Alexan­dria begins to wres­tle for con­trol of the sto­ry so as to give it a hap­py end­ing. Con­clud­ing with a bit­ter­sweet yet hope­ful dénoue­ment, The Fall shows how great sto­ry­telling can shield and heal us from the cru­el­ties of reality.

The Red Shoes is a push-and-pull tale of artis­tic intrigue and ambi­tion back­dropped by a per­for­mance of the clas­sic Hans Chris­t­ian Ander­son fairy tale of the same name. The film acts as a cau­tion­ary tale of the sin­gu­lar pur­suit of artis­tic per­fec­tion by bal­let impre­sario Boris, com­pos­er Julian and dancer Vic­to­ria ​“Vicky” Page (Moira Shear­er), who in their artis­tic ambi­tion and pet­ti­ness ruin each other’s lives. At its core this a cyn­i­cal fairy tale about the hubris­tic pur­suit of per­fec­tion. The belief that obses­sion rots human­i­ty is man­i­fest­ed in Vicky’s mad­ness and her trag­ic attempt to escape the pres­sures such obses­sion brings.

This is a straight-up hor­ror take on the ​‘Snow White’ fable. It fol­lows the rela­tion­ship between Lil­li Hoff­man (Mon­i­ca Keena), born on a winter’s day by emer­gency cae­sare­an, and her step­moth­er Lady Clau­dia (Sigour­ney Weaver), who are Snow White and the Evil Queen respec­tive­ly. After tragedy befalls Clau­dia, she uses witch­craft to take over her husband’s estate and her para­noia and jeal­ousy of Lil­li lead to mul­ti­ple attempts on her stepdaughter’s life – includ­ing the icon­ic poi­soned apple. While Lilli/​Snow White is the film’s pro­tag­o­nist, both women are por­trayed as flawed, three-dimen­sion­al char­ac­ters liv­ing in a world that pits women against one anoth­er. The real­i­ty of how soci­ety val­ues the female youth only to dis­card women as they grow old­er, lead­ing to the cre­ation of mon­strous fig­ures like Clau­dia, is the true tale of terror.

Dar­ren Aronofsky’s Black Swan is a Red Shoes-esque tragedy updat­ed for mod­ern times. Fairy tale ele­ments per­me­ate this bal­let­ic sto­ry, which focus­es on the psy­cho­sex­u­al sub­text of Swan Lake. High-strung and child­like, bal­let dancer Nina Say­ers (Natal­ie Port­man) lands the lead role of a life­time only for the pres­sure to takes its toll. As the stress and anx­i­ety of per­form­ing as both the Black and White Swan mounts, Nina is increas­ing­ly haunt­ed by hal­lu­ci­na­tions and breaks from real­i­ty, cul­mi­nat­ing in a tri­umphant and trag­ic tour de force per­for­mance. Black Swan reveals that impos­ing the dichoto­my of Madonna/​whore, white swan/​black swan, on women only leads to suf­fer­ing and destruction.