Director: Jason Brooks
Year: 2025
Country: USA
Alternate Titles: N/A
Genre: Witchcraft
Plot:
Living in a desolate community, a woman learns that she has royal blood when the Queen turns her attention to her to continue looking youthful so she can enact a diabolical plan to rule the kingdom, forcing her into the forest and banding together with a group of dwarves to fight back against her.
Review:
Overall, this was a rather enjoyable take on the fairy tale. Among the better aspects of this one tends to incorporate its own unique spin on the typical mythology of the story by changing around a lot of the usual elements of the story. Rather than deal with the usual setup of the story offering the kind of traditional low-rent peasant community that Snow White is involved in while the Queen looks on jealous of everything she has despite her poor state of life is a solid way of going about trying to get back to the throne’s power by trying to accumulate her beauty into her own for own gain. It manages to bring about the kind of connection to the original feature, especially once the decision to flee the kingdom and live with the dwarves is put into place, which provides this with some intriguing connections to the fabled story.
When matched against the new elements of the story involving the more gruesome attempts at showcasing the brutality inherent in the story and how it would all play out, there’s a lot to like here. The general state of the Queen adopting a more vampiric attitude to her beauty by torturing and removing parts of their body so that their body parts can be served to keep her beauty more youthful until her plan comes into focus serves everything rather nicely, especially when it starts moving away from the peasants she’s rounded up and onto her inner circle which gives this some solid attempts at body horror. That carries over into the finale, where the different forces come together to deliver on the quest to stop the Queen’s plans, leading to some solid action along the way, and with some fine nudity, manage to give this a lot to like.
There are some issues here that hold this one down. The main issue here is that it tends to follow more of a dark fantasy route than an overly generic feel, making it appropriate for more adventurous fans, while others may be somewhat more turned off by the atmosphere created here. The idea and concept of the film is built more on the idea of going through their quest littered with perils, magic creatures, and disloyal allegiances that all point to a different genre atmosphere that only becomes far more obvious when it plays out. There’s nothing genuinely wrong with it, but it becomes a big part of the film to have to get over as the fairy tale roots it tries to honor are kept in check enough for it to be a factor here as a means of personal preference, despite being the only real issue.
Overview: ***.5/5
A rather solid quasi-genre take on the subject matter, there’s a lot to like here that manages to hold it up enough to counteract the main issue in how little it crosses over into the genre outright. Those who are curious about the subject matter, are intrigued by the take on the material, or are more dark fantasy fans will have the most to like here, as most others should heed caution with it.
Comments
Post a Comment