poolandrews Review of Snow White: A Tale of Terror

Snow White: A Tale of Terror (1997)

OK adult Gothic retelling of the classic fairy tale.

[5/10 · 5 March 2005]

Snow White: A Tale of Terror begins in a thick snow covered forest. A horse drawn carriage speeds along narrow mud paths. The coach crashes and rolls down a steep embankment. The horses and the driver are attacked and killed by wolves as passenger Friedrich Hoffman (Sam Neill) attends to his badly injured and pregnant wife Lilliana (Joanna Roth). Lilliana begs Freidrich to save their baby and hands him a knife. Friedrich takes it and soon after the snow is reddened with Lilliana's blood. Several years later. Friedrich has a young daughter who he named Lilliana (Taryn Davis) after his late wife, and is about to marry Claudia (Sigourney Weaver). Lilliana, called Lilli for short, takes an instant dislike to Claudia. Friedrich and Claudia marry regardless. Nine years later and Claudia is pregnant with her's and Friedrich's first child. Lilli (Monica Keena), now a beautiful young woman, still dislikes Claudia and has a boyfriend named Peter Gutenberg (David Conrad) who happens to be a Doctor. Claudia and Friedrich's son is still born and Claudia will be unable to conceive another child. After some guidance, comfort and influence from her magical mirror Claudia sees Lilli as an enemy and tells her mute brother Gustav (Miroslav Taborsky) to kill her. Gustav attacks Lilli in the forest but loses her. Lilli becomes lost but discovers an abandoned Church and a group of roughneck miners including future prince charming Will (Gil Bellows), whom she befriends. Claudia eventually finds out that Lilli is still alive and begins to use evil spells to finish the job. Claudia manipulates Friedrich and isolates him, gets rid of all the servants and begins to exert her evil over the castle. Eventually Lilli decides she must seek her Father out and put an end to her wicked step mothers ways. Directed by Micheal Cohn, based on the Grimm Brother's fairy tale, I thought this was a reasonable film that was neither brilliant or particularly bad. The script by Thomas Szollosi and Debrah Serra is simply too slow at times. This needed to be paced a little better and have a few more things going on to maintain the viewers interest, it's over half an hour of somewhat dull character development before Claudia starts to talk to her magical mirror and becomes the wicked step mother proper, for instance. Szollosi & Serra keep well know elements from the story intact, magical mirrors, apples, miners and the wicked step mother. Shot on location in various castles in the Czech Republic and the Czech countryside itself the photography by Mike Southon captures the scenery very well and overall this is a gorgeous looking film. The period costumes are also impressive and as a whole the film has good production values throughout, Snow White: A Tale of Terror also features the coolest glass multi-coloured coffin I've ever seen that probably wouldn't look out of place in an art show. There isn't much blood or gore, but there is a cut out heart and another couple of dark moments. Acting is variable, Weaver is great, Neill is given virtually nothing to do and doesn't seem that interested, Keena is OK as Lilli but everyone else is forgettable & don't really stand out. The name Snow White is not mentioned once during the film, which may or may not be strange to you as I admit that it was to me. Generally speaking it's a good film overall but it was just to sedate & slow to get my blood pumping that much and I don't think I would be in any hurry to see it again, in fact I'll probably have forgotten about it by next week. Certainly worth a watch, but nothing that's going to knock your socks off.