Old Stuff
Snow White (A Tale of Terror, 1997)
Directed by Michael Cohn
This live action, dark re-doing of the Grimm's fairy tale has all the cool ingredients of a children's fable: cannibalism, incest, miscarriage, disease, fear of aging/mortality, rape, sexual discrimination, class struggle, black magic and necrophilia. What more do you want? The only problem is that some key dramatic moments come off surprisingly flat, such as the famous awakening from the poison apple-induced coma. I've heard that the producers demanded major changes in the screenplay to make it more palatable to modern PC-sensibilities but there is still enough nasty shit here to make it a ride. "Alien" queen, Sigourney Weaver, is the witch and "Dead Calm's" Sam Neill is Snow's dad "the duke." Worth a video/DVD rental. -- Rating: $5.50
Tom Graney -- copyright Hollywood Outsider 1998