Top 10 Fairy Tale Movies That Left Out The Craziest Part
#10: “Frozen” (2013)
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While the film is inspired by Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tale “The Snow Queen,” it is quite different from its source material. In the original tale, the devil creates a magic mirror to show only the ugly aspects of its viewer. The mirror shatters, and one of its shards gets stuck in the eye of a boy named Kai, causing his heart to freeze and making him cruel. Kai is whisked away by the Snow Queen, and his best friend Gerda sets out on a journey to save him. Echoes of the original tale, such as the quest to thaw a frozen heart, are found in the Disney version, but the Snow Queen’s villainy and the entire cursed mirror plot are gone.
#9: “The Juniper Tree” (1990)
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With elements such as abuse and cannibalism, both the film and the original fairy tale are deeply disturbing. The film, however, omits some of the most graphic imagery of its source material. In the fairy tale, a wicked woman abuses her stepson, culminating in her decapitating him and putting his head back on his body. She then tricks her daughter into pushing off the boy’s head, terrifying the young girl. Thankfully, the wicked stepmother is destroyed, and the boy comes back to life to live happily ever after with his sister and father, but the journey to that ending is rough.
#8: “Red Riding Hood” (2011)
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This movie is pretty crazy in its own right, but the source material is just plain out there. In the original fairy tale, Little Red Riding Hood is a child who is delivering food to her grandmother’s house. On her way, she meets a wolf who tricks her into straying off the path. When she finally arrives at her grandmother’s house, the wolf has eaten her grandmother, and he then eats Little Red Riding Hood. Yeah, the protagonist is literally eaten by a wild animal dressed in a nightgown. In later versions, she and her grandmother survive after a hunter saves them. While the movie version of the titular character has to deal with werewolves, at least she isn’t intimately familiar with their digestive tracts.
#7: “The Swan Princess” (1994)
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“Swan Lake,” the ballet that loosely inspired this film, is based on a mixture of fairy tales from around Europe, and they combine to make one tragic story. The ballet and the film both tell the tale of beautiful Princess Odette who has been cursed by an evil sorcerer to become a swan during the day and only retain her human form at night. Of course, a heroic prince is determined to break her spell, but he is bamboozled into declaring his love for another. In the film, the prince corrects his mistake, and he and Odette live happily ever after to make a ridiculous amount of sequel films. The original version of the ballet, however, ends with Odette and her prince ending their lives and ascending to Heaven together.
#6: “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” (1937)
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At only fourteen years old, Snow White is the youngest of the Disney Princesses, but her original counterpart is exactly half her age. Yep, in the fairy tale, the Evil Queen tries to end a seven-year-old for being too pretty. Another major change is how the story concludes. While the queen meets a memorable end in the film, her punishment in the original version is absolutely horrifying. After failing to destroy her stepdaughter, the evil queen attends Snow White and the prince’s wedding. When Snow White recognizes her, the queen is forced to dance in a pair of blazing hot iron slippers until she collapses to her demise.
#5: “Cinderella” (1950)
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This classic fairy tale has been adapted countless times, including the gorgeously costumed “Ever After,” (xref)* but the Disney animated film is the most well-known. In this version, the worst thing that happens to Cinderella’s evil stepsisters is that they are humiliated when they do not fit in the famous glass slippers. Stepsister Anastasia even gets a happy ending in the sequels. The Brothers Grimm version, of course, involves more gore. The stepsisters mutilate their feet to try to fit into the slippers. When that doesn’t work, the stepsisters’ eyes are pecked out by birds at Cinderella and the prince’s wedding. Not quite as much fun as twisting time.
#4: “The Little Mermaid” (1989)
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This colorful movie kicked off the Disney Renaissance with its extraordinary soundtrack and gorgeous animation. Its source material, however, doesn’t match the upbeat tone of the film whatsoever. In the original tale, the mermaid is subjected to agonizing pain every time she walks or dances. Because of her love for the prince, however, she dances to make him happy. Despite this, the prince ends up marrying someone else, and their marriage spells the end for the mermaid. Her sisters give her a chance to return to the sea if she ends the prince, but her love is too great, so she sacrifices herself and becomes a daughter of the air. It’s definitely more bittersweet than the wedding-cake-flavored ending of the Disney film.
#3: “The Red Shoes” (1948)
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This film gets meta by featuring a ballet based on the fairy tale and making the supernatural elements more ambiguous. The movie’s protagonist Vicky has a tragic story, which ends when the possibly enchanted red shoes take her off a balcony and in front of a train. While this is undoubtedly horrifying, Karen, the anti-heroine of the original fairy tale, has an even more gruesome journey. Karen’s shoes are cursed to have a will of their own and never come off her feet. She begs the town executioner to cut off her feet and free her from the power of the shoes. Once he does so, her feet, still in the red shoes, continue to dance of their own accord. Karen’s ending is more peaceful than Vicky’s, but the road there is paved with severed feet.
#2: “Tangled” (2010)
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This film deviates quite a bit from the source material, but its biggest changes definitely make the story more palatable. In the original tale, Rapunzel stays in her tower and uses her hair to help her prince visit her. When her captor finds out about the visits and Rapunzel’s resulting pregnancy, she cuts off Rapunzel’s hair and casts her into the wilderness. The prince returns, but the witch tricks him into climbing the tower and pushes him out, causing him to go blind. He eventually finds his love and their twins, and his sight is restored. Mother Gothel stabbing Eugene is pretty shocking, but it’s tame compared to the original version.
#1: “Sleeping Beauty” (1959)
Prince Phillip is kind of creepy in the film, but he’s infinitely better than the man featured in one of the original versions of the tale. In this version, the sleeping beauty named Talia still falls into a deep slumber due to a splinter from a spinning wheel. Here, however, her story takes an even more horrifying turn. A king enters Talia’s house and assaults her as she sleeps, leaving her pregnant with twins. Talia gives birth, and her infant daughter saves the day by suckling her finger and pulling out the cursed splinter, breaking the spell and waking Talia. After the king’s wife finds out about his adultery, she tries to have Talia and the children destroyed, but she ends up being thrown into a fire instead, leaving the king to marry the woman he assaulted.
