The Death of Snow White Review: Jason Brooks Brings a Knowingly Violent B-Movie Vibe to the Age-Old Snow White Story
The Death of Snow White arrives just in the right timing to wash off the rotten memory of Disney’s live-action fiasco Snow White. That movie was an abomination of hideous-looking CGI dwarves, Gal Gadot’s Razzie-worthy Evil Queen performance and many others. Whereas Marc Webb’s so-called re-imagining cost a whopping US$270 million, The Death of Snow White, being an indie production, means it doesn’t have the same monetary luxury. It’s significantly smaller in cost with no-name actors and, unlike the Disney version, The Death of Snow White leans closer to the Brothers Grimm’s darker fairy-tale vibe rather than a sanitized, every-family-and-kids-can-enjoy version.
But don’t expect this to be faithful to the source material either, since Jason Brooks, who also co-wrote the screenplay with Naomi Mechem-Miller, offers an adult-skewed, yet gleefully violent B-movie style that mixes fairy tale, horror, romance and comedy. In other words, it’s made for the grown-ups and especially for those who don’t mind watching an established IP that undergoes a lot of creative liberties. Not to worry, though, as the core storytelling which defines a Snow White story remains intact.
The movie quickly gets down to business right from the start with a bleak prologue, where the heavily pregnant Queen (Kelly Tappan) ends up dead, but her newborn, Snow White, is saved. The latter has since grown up to be a lovely princess (Sanae Loutsis), who is known for her angelic beauty and kindness. She also falls in love with the Prince (Tristan Nokes), and her life being all peachy doesn’t sit well with her wicked stepmother and also the evil queen currently oversees the kingdom (Chelsea Edmundson, whose over-the-top antagonist role is a mile better than Gadot’s version).
The Evil Queen, who is also responsible for murdering Snow White’s parents, except that Snow White doesn’t know it yet, can’t stand seeing her being so popular among many people. So, she enlists Huntsman Gunnar (the multi-hyphenate Jason Brooks also shows up in front of the camera) to kill Snow White, but just can’t bear to see himself fulfilling such an act. Instead, he let her go, resulting in Snow White fleeing into the dark forest.
From there, she gradually meets the dwarves, but not the chirpy and lighthearted ones that you have grown accustomed to. The good news is that you will find no uncanny valley, CGI dwarves here since Brooks only enlists the actual little people (thank god for the proper representation!) to play the characters. These dwarf characters don’t break out in songs but are rather depicted as warriors.
The Death of Snow White doesn’t skimp on the violence and gore as Brooks, who is no stranger to handling special effects, insists on ratcheting up the horror department by going practical. At one point, one of the Evil Queen’s huntsmen ends up with his face completely bashed in like an exploding watermelon from the result of a sledgehammer blow. And in a slow-motion too, giving us — particularly the gorehound — the pleasure of witnessing how the (fake) blood splatters from such a swinging impact.
Brooks continues to push the limits of how much he can do with practical effects in a measly budget, with numerous gory moments from chopping limbs to spilling guts and a literal bloodbath. Recurring scenes of the Evil Queen demanding her handmaidens to feed her with human flesh and body parts to stay eternally young allow Brooks plenty of room to showcase his side for extreme horror.
As much as I enjoy The Death of Snow White for what it is, I still can’t help but feel the movie’s nearly two-hour length could have used a tighter edit. Some scenes tend to meander too long, while the comedy is a hit-or-miss affair with a few awkwardly misplaced moments. The romance angle between Snow White and the Prince is strictly vanilla, even though Sanae Loutsis still deserves praise for her committed performance playing the titular character.
