Fairy Tale Friday--Grimm's Snow White (The Asylum, 2012)

Hello and welcome to Fairy Tale Friday. Are you sitting comfortably? Good. Then I’ll begin.

This week we look at a tale of Snow White that is part fairy tale, part Lord of the Rings. It is brought to us by The Asylum whom I have never heard of but a little research showed me they are the ones responsible for the Sharknado series. They are also primarily know for what is referred to in the industry as a “mockbuster.” They look at what big name Hollywood film is coming out and quickly churn out a lower budget similar title such as Transmorphers (Transformers), The Terminators (The Terminator), Snakes on a Train (Snakes on a Plane), Triassic World (Jurassic World)  etc. You get the idea. They also have a lots of films involving bad CGI sharks beyond the Sharknado ones such as Mega Shark vs. Crocosaurus and 3 Headed Shark Attack, so I was thinking this was going to be rubbish, but I was pleasantly surprised.

The first startling thing is that our Snow White is blond. Although the cover of the DVD we bought the photo darkens her hair. I could not find a copy of that cover online, so you will have to settle for the blond version. Her stepmother is the one who has the raven hair. There are decent effects—the magic mirror flows like green water and and the face that speaks to the Queen looks like it is speaking through a waterfall. There are CGI effects that look as though they have stepped out of a video game—vicious dogs with giant heads and several CGI giant lizard-like creatures. They aren’t bad, but they aren’t good either. The costumes have the generic a-sort-of-ye-olde-times vibe. It looks as though they spent all the budget for the top of the costumes as many of the men have a brocade jacket and ruffle-y shirt up top and regular trousers below. Knee high boots were only worn by the main characters so the Prince looks more authentic than his (un) trustworthy assistant. But they get around this by mostly shooting from the thighs up in close up so it it is only noticeable in long shots. Also our blond Snow White wears a pale blue dress that bears an uncanny resemblance to Alice in Wonderland.

Snow White has been sent away to a convent school for many years by her stepmother and returns for her father’s funeral. We see the evil Queen planning to marry a nearby Prince because his land contains the crash site for a meteor which emits a green glow and gives the elves their power—and if she has the power, she will rule the world. Of course he falls in love with Snow White instead of her stepmother, which causes the events you would expect in a Snow White tale to happen: her stepmother sends her out into to the woods to be killed, her heart is to be brought back, Snow White escapes and is rescued by seven (or thereabouts) elves who nurse her back to health, her stepmother disguises herself as an old crone and tries to kill her, she is revived by the Prince and the Queen is destroyed and they live happily ever after. But it all happens in a very Tolkienesque way.

I wasn’t able to find a cohesive summary of this film so have combined the summary from several sources (MOVIE MAVERICKS and HORROR NEWS ) and will add comments in between. 

Grimm’s Snow White is a loose adaptation of the folklore collected by the Brothers Grimm. We begin with a mystical world where a star once fell from the sky and landed with a mighty green and flamey thud on a cliff top.  Soon magical elves and giant lizard-like dragons are fighting over territory and flamey magic. There is some kind of balance though, until the humans come along and mess that all up. Soon they are building kingdoms and getting eaten by the reptiles and treating the elves poorly. The Asylum’s version of the story finds Snow White summoned to the castle by her stepmother Queen Gwendolyn after her father was killed by a giant lizard. Note: We see the mystical green flame on the clifftop and the green crystal amulets that the elves all wear around their necks. They derive their power from the green flame and can do various bits of magic like causing earthquakes, transformation and healing the dying . We see the Queen crying and talking about her grief, but then we see that she is actually rehearsing these lines and practicing her crocodile tears. She touches several of the magic crystal amulets that she has stolen from elves and laid in a bowl on her dressing table. Using their magic she calls upon her magic mirror which also glows with a liquidy green flame.

After doing away with the King, the evil Queen now wants to get rid of Snow, and become the fairest of them all. She orders her to be killed, but Snow escapes into the enchanted forest with the aid of some elves (yes, not dwarfs). Note: These are very Tolkien elves---they all look remarkably like Legolas but with regular short hair as the budget doesn’t stretch to wigs. It does stretch to pointy ears, though. As you would expect, some of the elves are bitter from the way that humans mistreat them, but eventually come around. We have the wise woman elf who will heal Snow White with some herbal potion, and the elf called Runt who everyone thinks is useless but will save the day in the end.

 In a real estate scheme the Queen plans to marry Prince Alexander and take over his part of the enchanted forest (there’s a magic green fire that burns there that she’s after), but the Prince has already fallen for Snow White. The Queen claims Snow is dead, but the Prince doesn’t give up hope in finding her. Unfortunately the Queen is hellbent on getting that prime enchanted forest property (gotta have her green fire), and tries to force the Prince into marriage. Note: We see the Queen forcing her enslaved elf to do her bidding  by transforming her into an old crone who just really looks like she is wearing poorly applied Halloween makeup. She also transforms an ordinary ring into one that looks just like the one the Prince gave to Snow White as a token of his affection and then poisons it. The poison ring idea featured in several of the literary versions of this tale such as Nourie Hadig. We see Snow White trying to contact the elf that works for the Queen that the other elves consider a traitor and she is approached in the market by an old crone who convinces her to take the ring. She puts it on and falls down dead. The elves carry her body and lay it under a low hanging willow tree where they wave a torch around as if they are going to burn her on a funeral pyre. Surely this act of pyromania would best be performed on an open plain rather than beneath a flammable tree? The Prince arrives in the nick of time to save her being burnt alive and takes the ring off her finger (which has now reverted back to its original form) and she miraculously wakes up.

 Now Snow must rally her elven friends to join her battle against the evil Queen, take back her love and generally save the day.  Snow White and the Prince stage some kind of rebellion against the Queen, the elves go to war to carrying mostly bows and arrows and what appears to be sticks and twine. When they finally decide to go to war against the Evil Queen, we are treated to the least impressive motivational speech ever by the surliest of the dwarves … I mean ELVES, sorry … followed by all six of them (no extras must have been hanging out looking for work that day) marching across a field to what I could almost swear is the same music from Lord of the Rings: Return of the King. It was an incredibly underwhelming scene. The elves don’t manage to hold their own very well once the fighting begins (obviously) until, miracle of miracles, they are rescued by … dark elf ninjas. I am not making this up. The dark elves swing into the area on vines (a la Tarzan) in funky black pyjamas and start whacking people with swords. Note: These dark ninja elves are the keepers of the sacred green flame. It looks like all is lost—the Prince is mortally wounded and all the elves and Snow White are captured (being held in not very convincingly tight chokeholds). The Queen gets a priest to come out the forest and perform the wedding RIGHT THERE while the Prince gasps for air. Because if their marriage is until “death do us part” when he dies in a few minutes she will inherit the land with the sacred green flame, defeat the ninja elves and have all the power. Suddenly, Runt the elf that no one thought was useful escapes, rather too easily kills the guard holding Snow White and she takes his sword and kills the Queen. There was some shouting at the telly at this point—me screaming “Do it! Slice off her head! Ooooh! She actually did it!” as the slow motion footage shows Snow White slicing off the Queen’s head in one dramatic blow. Then the green flame is safe, and all the creatures both human and elf can live in harmony with the giant lizards with the Prince and Snow White ruling over them all.

 You can watch the film here:

 That’s all for this week. Stay tuned next week for a tale with another spunky fighting Snow White.