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This short story by Neil Gaiman can be found in the collection Smoke and Mirrors (which is the only short story collection you will ever need, except for maybe Joe Hill's 20th Century Ghosts. Trust me on this). Combine vampires with "Snow White," and you'll never look at the original tale in quite the same way again...
Gregory Maguire is most well-known for his novel Wicked, which has since become a hit Broadway musical. Before Wicked, though, there was Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister, which takes on "Cinderella." Forget everything you think you know about the story-- this one spins it up, down, and all around.
Written by Bill Willingham, this comic published by DC's Vertigo imprint focuses on the lives of various fairy tale and folklore characters, all of whom have been ousted from their homeland by something called "The Adversary," who conquered the realm. Now they're living in in New York, trying to get by: Bigby "Big Bad" Wolf is a detective, Snow White is a marriage counselor... and there's usually a crime that needs solving. In one word, it's AWESOME.
American McGee's Alice was a video game released for PC in 2000. A twisted take on Alice in Wonderland, the game began with Alice in an asylum, having lost her touch reality after a fire burned down her home, killing her family and leaving her the only survivor. Retreating into her familiar fantasy world, she finds it corrupted by her inner demons. The game itself sees Alice fighting through Wonderland to regain her sanity. While the original Alice may be considered a little old by gaming standards, a sequel, Alice: Madness Returns, is due out on June 14, and I'm rather looking forward to seeing how her world has progressed since the last time we played through it.
The animated film Hoodwinked! approaches "Little Red Riding Hood" from the angle of The Usual Suspects. Red has just discovered that the Wolf is posing as her Granny and the Woodsman bursts through the door with his mighty ax when the police arrive and attempt to sort the whole thing out. The voice cast includes Anne Hathaway as Red, Glenn Close as Granny, and Patrick Warburton as the Wolf, and overall, it's a rather enjoyable little 80-minute flick. A sequel, Hoodwinked Too! Hood vs. Evil was released on April 29. The only question I've got left is: Who is Keyser Soze?
This short story by Neil Gaiman can be found in the collection Smoke and Mirrors (which is the only short story collection you will ever need, except for maybe Joe Hill's 20th Century Ghosts. Trust me on this). Combine vampires with "Snow White," and you'll never look at the original tale in quite the same way again...
We here at Crushable have a fondness for this one. Unlike the happily-ever-after Disney version, this anime from 1975 features the ending of the original tale: Unable to tell her prince that she was the one to save him from drowning, once-mermaid-now-human Marina stands by in painful silent as the prince marries someone else. Her sisters present her with a knife, telling her that if she kills the prince, she'll be able to become a mermaid again, but of course she can't do it and throws herself overboard to become one with the sea foam. The prince does eventually figure it out, but only after she's killed herself (of course). Sob!
Okay, I'll admit that The Brothers Grimm is flawed, but it's still worth a viewing. Although Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm are mostly known for their incredibly German takes on fairy tales, this film, directed by Terry Gilliam, presents Will and Jake as a pair of traveling con artists with a reputation for ridding villages of unwanted strangeness. Trouble is, when they arrive in Marbaden, they find themselves up against a REAL witch. Naturally, this complicates matters. The film is visually stunning-- it IS Terry Gilliam, after all-- and it's just goofy enough to be fun. It's also the first film that I saw Heath Ledger in that made me go, "Hey! The man can act!" (this was pre-Brokeback Mountain, mind you).
John Connolly's novel offers a different look at the coming-of-age tale through the lens of fairy tales. In London during the Second World War, David, a twelve-year-old boy, struggles to come to terms with his mother's death and his father's remarriage when a bomber plane crashes in his garden. The crash leads David to a fantasy land, where he must go questing in search of King Jonathan and his mysterious Book of Lost Things in order to find a way home. Along the way, he encounters a variety of recognizable tales-- "Snow White," "Rumpelstiltskin," the ubiquitous Woodsman, and so on-- though they may not look quite they way you're used to...
Does anyone else remember this one, or is it just me? Return to Oz used to give me nightmares as a kid, and yet somehow, I couldn't stop watching it. After she returned from Oz the first time, Dorothy apparently got a little listless, after which Auntie Em and Uncle Henry sent her to a doctor who wanted to give her electroshock therapy. Happily, she escapes back into Oz, but it's far from a friendly place. I always thought the freakiest parts were the woman who could change her heads and the wheelers. What about you all?
Director Guillermo del Toro is at the helm this reimagining of the tale of the wooden puppet based on the art of Gris Grimly. Now, I already found Pinocchio plenty terrifying-- I think it was the turning kids into donkeys thing that did it-- but thinking of "Pinocchio" combined with Pan's Labyrinth gives me all kinds of deliciously creepy shivers.
