Snow White: A Tale of Terror
Short description
When Lillian's mother dies giving birth to her, her father, Lord Friedrich, eventually remarries. His new wife, Lady Claudia, is beautiful but cold, and her stepdaughter becomes the target of her jealousy. Claudia consults a magic mirror and schemes to remove the girl so she can bear an heir and become queen. Lillian survives an attempt on her life and flees into a dark forest, where she encounters a band of vagabonds. The film is a darker retelling of the Brothers Grimm tale of Snow White, aimed at an adult audience rather than children, and it includes horror elements alongside its fantasy setting.
Michael Cohn directed the film from a screenplay by Tom Szollosi and Deborah Serra, with Tom Engelman producing. Sigourney Weaver plays Lady Claudia and Sam Neill appears as Lord Friedrich, while Monica Keena takes the role of Lilliana. Gil Bellows, Brian Glover and David Conrad are also in the cast.
Released in July 1997, the film had a budget of 26 million US dollars. On IMDb it holds a rating of 6.1 out of 10 from around 12,000 votes, and on TMDB it also stands at 6.1 out of 10, from roughly 299 votes. A critics' rating of 5.9 out of 10 from 12 reviews places it close to the audience scores, suggesting broadly similar assessments from both groups. The film runs 100 minutes.
What's left behind the scenes
- Lillian's condition after eating the poisoned apple is referred to as "locked-in syndrome" or "pseudocoma," in which she is as if "locked" in her own body; consciousness and sensitivity are fully preserved, and communication with others is only possible by blinking or moving her eyes vertically.
- According to Sigourney Weaver, one of the reasons she wanted to play the Evil Queen was to understand how the king could have been so foolish as to marry such a cruel woman, and one willing to commit murder, so she wanted to show that the stepmother had the best intentions.
- The role of Lillian, or Snow White, was originally written for Alicia Silverstone.
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