In the past year or so, Hollywood has entered a trend of dark interpretation of fairy tales aimed primarily at a teen audience such as this year's Beastly and Red Riding Hood and the long list of upcoming projects. But not so long ago, less than ten years actually, the trend was towards modern, light-hearted interpretations of fairy tales. There were A Cinderella Story, Sydney White and Aquamarine as the most memorable. And, of course, watching these reminds me of Splash, another Little Mermaid riff from 27 years ago.
To be frank, these types of movies are more my style than the straight or wanna be horror films. We've established long ago that I am not a horror van--especially not visually--and I find those films overall remove the hope and humor that can be found in fairy tales. On the other hand, while I am not rushing out to see these other ones either, I often end up enjoying them on the guilty pleasures level. Sydney White certainly qualified for that. I was amused with the ways the fairy tale was interpreted onto a modern college campus, dorks/dwarfs included. It offered a light-hearted Sunday night family viewing to many of my family members when I first saw it.
That said, I do find many of the made-for-tv versions to be nearly unwatchable. The Frog Prince has inspired a few tv movies in recent years and I couldn't sit through any of them without a finger on the fast forward button. Just not for me. Same thing with the SyFy/SciFi Channel films. They were painful for me and could only have been improved with a group of friends giving them the old MST3K treatment.
So what are your guilty pleasure fairy tale film interpretations? I know for most readers/lurkers it will be Disney, but are there others?
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