With all the to-ing and fro-ing over the latest Snow White adaptation, I keep thinking back to a film from the late 90s, one that stuck to the traditional themes of the Brothers Grimm – a high body count and a lot of supernatural horror.
Snow White: A Tale of Terror is a 1997 horror rendition of the well-worn tale, starring Sam Neill as the loving father, Monica Keena as the girl-meets-world heroine and the incomparable Sigourney Weaver as the evil stepmother. Filmed in Eastern Europe, the dark, gothic visuals and surprising attention to historical detail really set the tone of the story. But what I love about this film is that it’s not really about Snow White at all. This is the story of the stepmother and her descent into evil.
The film sets out much more of the stepmother’s tale than usual depictions, showing her as a beautiful, proud and slightly menacing woman who is desperate to secure her place at the Lord of the castle’s side. In this version of the story, the stepmother is being egged on by the enchanted mirror, and when miscarries the Lord’s baby, her jealousy over Snow White’s youth and beauty spiral out of control, leading to ever more horrifying and unnatural acts to seek her revenge. By the end of the film, the once haughty and controlled woman becomes the evil witch of legend, clad in black robes and exulting over the curses she has brought down upon the uncaring kingdom that spurned her.
While we all love Sigourney Weaver’s portrayal of the tough, capable Ellen Ripley, Weaver’s performance as the evil stepmother is what has stayed with me all these years. The scene of the weeping stepmother crying and finally shrieking into the mirror after the death of her baby was truly harrowing – so much so that I still couldn’t help but feel a little bit sorry for her when she met her appointed end.
The weakness here is that these brilliant, disturbing scenes of the evil stepmother’s plunge into the black magic leaves Snow White herself with… very little to do. There’s some obligatory class criticism dialogue with the dwarves (in this case, destitute miners), but for the most part her scenes are just reactions to the real plot driver. Sadly, this gives the overall film a slightly disjointed feel. Don’t get me wrong, Monica Keena portrayed Snow White with aplomb but I wonder if we could get a Director’s cut that is just Sigourney Weaver slowly destroying the kingdom and herself.
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