C.M. Rosens's Blog, page 16

Cinders in Cinema 1898-2024

Cinderella Adaptations

There are over 300 adaptations of Cinderella in this list, from 1898 to 2024 (the present year) and there’s no way I’m going to be able to cover them all in one post individually! This post is going to be an overview by decade highlighting a few things for each one, and including the noir and horror versions.

Cendrillon (1899) by Georges Méliès is usually hailed as the first adaptation, but that might actually be the lost British film Cinderella and her Fairy Godmother (1898) dir. George Albert Smith.

Film makers started really getting into it; there have been a plethora of adaptations ever since. It was also a story that immediately got modern updates, starting with A Modern Cinderella (1911) dir. J. Searle Dawley, The Cinderella Man (1917) dir. George Loane Tucker, and A Kentucky Cinderella (1917) dir. Rupert Julian. The trend continued with feel-good comedies like Cinderella Cinders (1920) dir. Frederick J. Ireland, and Ella Cinders (1926) dir. Alfred E. Green, and romantic dramas like The Jazz Cinderella (1930) dir. Scott Pembroke. Animations got their fair share of Cinderella action too, as this medium took off.

Adaptations in Europe tended to focus on Aschenputtel, the Grimms collected version of the tale, and so did versions from the USSR, like Золушка/Cinderella (1947) dir. Nadezhda Kosheverova, Mikhail Shapiro. There were also film adaptations of Rossini’s opera version, La Cenerentola. There were also imaginings of the ‘ever after’ after happily ever after, like Cenerentola e il signor Bonaventura/Princess Cinderella (1941) dir. Sergio Tofano.

歌ふ狸御殿/Palace of the Singing Racoon-Dogs (1942) dir. Keigo Kimura is maybe the first Japanese one?

In this Japanese retelling of Cinderella, Okuro (Takayama) is the unfortunate stepdaughter of a family of tanuki: shape-shifting raccoon dogs. She hopes to see the tanuki prince (former Takarazuka star Miyagi) against her stepmother’s wishes; the magical spirit of the willow tree, and a hapless kappa (water goblin) intercede in unexpected ways.

A Chinese adaptation came later, with Yun chang yan hou/Cinderella and her little Angels (1959) dir. Tong Wong, and this was a musical! At the other end of this decade, Spain produced an animated version Érase una vez…/Once Upon A Time (1950) dirs. José Escobar, Alexandre Cirici Pellicer, one of the first Spanish animations.

We get a live action Greek version, Σταχτοπούτα (1960), but I’m not sure if this is the first one for Greece – definitely one of the first.

In the 60s, we get more than romance and animations; we also get French noir, like Piège pour Cendrillon/A Trap for Cinderella (1965) dir. André Cayatte, which can be watched here: https://ok.ru/video/4009018526266. This was remade as Trap for Cinderella (2013) dir. Iain Softley.

Cinderella remained popular in Anglophonic cinema too, especially as romantic comedy material, and this is the year of Cinderfella (1960) dir. Frank Tashlin, a genderbent version where poor Fella is trapped with his stepmother and stepbrothers, and needs a visit from his fairy godfather to win the Princess.

Romance and comedy are still the primary genres of course, and in 1978 we have Cindy, dir. William A. Graham, filmed with an all-Black cast and set in Harlem in WWII. Cindy is a country bumpkin who moves from South Carolina to live with her father and his new family. When her stepmother and two stepsisters refuse to take her to the Sugar Hill Ball, her draft-dodging, chauffeur neighbour whips up a little “magic” and at the ball she catches the eye of the richest man in Harlem.

The 1970s also produced the porn/erotic versions, obviously, and even sexed-up comedy Sci-Fi like Cinderella 2000 (1977) dir. Al Adamson, set in the year 2047 where sex is forbidden (so one plucky girl rebels, presumably full of spunk). Still plausible.

The 80s came upon us, and went in several directions. There was the big hair and power dressing of Working Girl (1980) dir. Mike Nichols, dreamy Italian lads on scooters in Cinderella ’80 (1984) dir.  Roberto Malenotti – even then, the Yanks had weird European monarchy fascinations – and Malenotti also made Cinderella ’87 (1987), a musical.

It also went the weird way – Cinderella (1986) is a short film with a 28 min runtime, dir. Ericka Beckman.

“CINDERELLA is a musical treatment of the fairy tale. I have broken apart the story and set it as a mechanical game with a series of repetitions where CINDERELLA is projected back and forth like a ping-pong ball between the hearth and the castle. She never succeeds in satisfying the requirements of the ‘Cinderella Game’. The film was shot MOS, the dialogue is lip-synched, and along with the out-front score and effects track magnifies the film’s sense of alienation.” — E.B. 1984 – Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2017.

The 90s wasn’t so experimental; there was a plethora of film adaptations of this story around the world, though, in Asian, European and American cinema, and it produced an adaptation of the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical (starring Whitney Houston and a multi-racial cast), Cinderella (1997) dir. Robert Iscove, and Ever After (1998) dir. Andy Tennant.

It also brought us proto-Cinders plots in romance, like Pretty Woman (1990) dir. Garry Marshall, which is probably one of the most well-known rags-to-riches romances of the 90s but isn’t on the Cinderella master list.

Fantasy The 10th Kingdom (2000) dirs. Herbert Wise, David Carson played with Cinderella as one of the tales it weaved into its plot, and kickstarted the new millenium in its continued Cinderella craze.

Thankfully, the torture porn years swooped in to take us back to the dark side – Japan came in hard with anime シンデレラボーイ/Cinderella Boy (2003), with organised crime and body swap dystopian drama, and Korean cinema took up the challenge with 신데렐라/Cinderella (2006), dir. Bong Man-dae, featuring some gnarly plastic surgery body horror, and girls cutting their own faces off.

But don’t worry – we’ve still got romances galore. Nollywood got in on the game with Super Love (2003) dir. Andy Amenechi, and for gender swap fans, there’s the Malay film Mr. Cinderella (2002) dir. Ahmad Idham. Eastern Europe, Russia, and the rest of Europe were not to be outdone, and there were plenty of romances and comedies. Also, a number of adaptations of Rossini’s La Cenerentola, and Prokofiev’s ballet!

The 2010s produced more adaptations of the opera and ballet, and romances like Nollywood’s Phone Swap (2012) dir. Kunle Afolayan and Flower Girl (2013) dir. Michelle Bello. It also brought us the live action version of Disney’s animation, and a whole host of others!

Shout out to Dominican Republic film Cinderello (2017) dir. Beto Gómez, another gender flipped romantic fantasy, in which Marlon, an insecure and not-so-attractive photographer, is hit with a spell that every night transforms him into Brando, a handsome womanizer. Things will get harder when the spell becomes his biggest obstacle to obtain true love.

There were two adaptations called Aschenputtel – (2010) dir. Susanne Zanke, Austria/Germany, and (2011) dir. Uwe Janson, Germany.

If you’re after something a bit darker, then there’s Thai horror film หนังผี/Ghost: The Cinderella (2011) dir. Sarawut Intaraprom. A movie star has an argument on a film set which leads to his untimely death. His ghost later comes back to seek its revenge.

If you’re after something darker and queerer, then there was also the Portuguese short Boa Noite Cinderela/Goodnight Cinderella (2014) dir. Carlos Conceição. Listed under “romance/horror/crime”, this 32min film features a gay prince and his squire-lover in search of Cinderella to complete the pair of shoes.

Italian crime thriller animation, Gatta Cenerentola/Cinderella the Cat (2014) dirs. Alessandro Rak, Ivan Cappiello, Marino Guarnieri, Dario Sansone, is another imaginative adaptation, where the protagonist wants to escape the shadow and schemes of her stepmother and stepsisters, while living on a docked boat in a dystopian near future.

The live action low budget dark fantasy films, Sinister Squad (2016) dir. Jeremy M. Inman, and his Avengers Grimm films – Avengers Grimm (2015) and Avengers Grimm: Time Wars (2018), are not necessarily recommended, but they exist.

Brazil also dropped a modern, teen version: Cinderella Pop/DJ Cinderella (2019) dir. Bruno Garotti, about a pop music-loving “princess”, Cintia, who goes to live with her aunt after her parents divorce and finds her own love story.

The 2020s, with its horror resurgence in mainstream cinema, has brought us more dark versions and horror adaptations than other decades. This could also be off the back of book trends where retellings are popular, and the lapse of copyright on a number of popular children’s characters (like Winnie the Pooh) resulting in horror versions of multiple stories and concepts.

There are plenty of filmed versions of the operas La Cenerentola (Rossini) and Cendrillon (Massenet), and the usual round of contemporary and fantasy romances aimed at a young adult/younger audience. Contemporary versions include A Cinderella Story: Starstruck (2021) dir. Michelle Johnston, The Royal Treatment (2022) dir. Rick Jacobson, and Sneakerella (2022) dir. Elizabeth Allen Rosenbaum.

India was not to be outdone with a demonic possession version via a cursed Cinderella gown. சிண்ட்ரெல்லா/Cinderella (2021) dir. Vinoo Venketesh is a Tamil language film where Akira and her band go into a forest to research nature sounds and celebrate Akira’s birthday, and it all goes horribly wrong.

Queer versions include the Norwegian fantasy Tre nøtter til Askepott/Three Wishes for Cinderella (2021) dir. Cecilie A. Mosli (m/m), and a short film (16 min runtime) from Panama with a trans woman protagonist, Cindyrella (2021) dirs. Felipe Betancur Villegas, Christian Rios.

Fantasies like Cinderella (2021) dir. Kay Cannon and Disenchanted (2022) dir. Adam Shankman (sequel to Enchanted (2007) dir. Kevin Lima), had mixed (mainly negative) receptions, and Japanese live action fantasy/crime series, 赤ずきん、旅の途中で死体と出会う/Once Upon A Crime (2023) dir. Yuichi Fukuda, was a bit more of a hit for Netflix, but as a series not a feature film (see also the success of Once Upon A Time (2011-2018, 7 seasons)).

Ep 01 of The Grimm Variations is also a great dark Cinderella take! The ‘Cinderella’ character is the antagonist, and the whole story is twisty and fun.

Japanese horror/drama, 哀愁しんでれら/The Cinderella Addiction (2021) dir. Ryohei Watanabe, is a good alternative option to the remakes, musicals and romances if you’re after something darker. Upcoming releases include low budget indie horror films, Cinderella’s Revenge dir. Andy Edwards and Cinderella’s Curse dir. Louisa Warren.

Horror Themes

シンデレラボーイ/Cinderella Boy (2003): Magic Bus anime. Cinderella Boy follows the adventures of impoverished private detective Ranma Hinamatsuri and his thrill-seeking rich girl partner Rella “Cindy” Shirayuki in a futuristic city named “Kirin Town”.

Kirin Town is a lawless European city-state with its own currency with the name of the city being a pun on the English word for “killing”. The two are badly injured when they stumble across an organised crime operation and are put back together into the same body by a mysterious doctor.

Every night the stroke of midnight, their shared body changes both form and identity. Ranma becomes Rella, or vice versa. Neither is aware of any actions or situations their partner is involved in, completely losing consciousness until twenty-four hours later, when the change comes around to them again. 

신데렐라/Cinderella (2006) dir. Bong Man-dae – BEAUTY IS ONLY A CUT-AWAY.

With a renowned plastic surgeon for a mother, Hyun-soo is always surrounded by girls in line for beauty consultations. But her happiness comes to an end as her friends who have received facial surgery from her mother start to commit mysterious suicides by cutting out their faces.

หนังผี/Ghost: The Cinderella (2011) dir. Sarawut Intaraprom – A movie star has an argument on a film set which leads to his untimely death. His ghost later comes back to seek its revenge.

シンデレラゲーム/Cinderella Games (2016) dir. Hayato Kano – Not strictly a Cinderella story, this is actually about an idol group.

Sana Haitani (Kasumi Yamaya) is a member of an idol group. She’s following the dreams of her now deceased older sister who always wanted to become a top idol. Unfortunately, Sana’s idol group is disbanded. She is then kidnapped and taken to an uninhabited island. What awaits for her is a card battle. If she wins in the card battle against other kidnapped idol girls, she can become a top idol. But, if Sana loses … she will die.

I’ve been trying to think of Cinderella figures in horror, like cleaners who become final girls and get rewarded at the end with a better situation in life, and came up with One Must Fall (2018) dir. Antonio Pantoja.

The sleazy office boss is the evil stepmother role, I guess?

A horror-comedy slasher set in the ’80s about a woman wrongfully fired from her office job and forced to take on a temporary job on a crime scene clean-up crew. With a maniacal serial killer on the loose leaving them lots of work, did he ever leave the scene of the crime?

I guess also Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier is a kind of Cinderella story gone wrong too. You have the nameless protagonist plucked from comparative obscurity by a rich man after a whirlwind romance, and then… the After after Happily Ever After kicks in with a vengeance.

There are a number of film adaptations of this, from 1940 noir to 2020 Gothic romance. As in the Bluebeard post, I can only find about 5 versions of Rebecca on Letterboxd, although I wasn’t looking too hard. There’s Hitchcock’s classic version (1940), Simon Langton’s version (1979), Jim O’Brien’s version with Charles Dance (1997), Francesca Zambella’s version which sticks pretty closely to the original novel (2006), and Ben Wheatley’s most recent version for Netflix (2020).

I think we can also add Jane Eyre to this list, as she has the evil aunt and cousins in place of the stepmother and step-sisters. The graphic above links to another Letterboxd list.

சிண்ட்ரெல்லா/Cinderella (2021) dir. Vinoo Venketesh – Akira and her band as they go into the dense forest to research on the sounds of nature. Akira celebrates her birthday there with her band mates and receives a gift of a beautiful Cinderella gown. But when she wears the gown, her behavior starts to change, as if she has been possessed.

哀愁しんでれら/The Cinderella Addiction (2021) dir. Ryohei Watanabe – Fukuura Koharu works at a child welfare office and plunges into despair overnight. Then she meets Daigo, a private-practice doctor raising his 8-year-old daughter on his own. She resolves to build a happy household, but things don’t go as expected.

I think we can reprise Ile Owo / House of Money (2022) dir. Dare Olaitan as having Cinderella rags-to-riches vibes, with Busola’s rise from nurse to fiancée of a billionaire, but this is much more suited to Bluebeard.

Busola has forever been unlucky with love. Pressured by society and her parents to tie the knot as a means to lift her family out of poverty, she finally meets Tunji – the perfect man. At first, Busola struggles to understand why a billionaire would choose to marry her, but after she accepts his proposal of marriage, a series of increasingly disturbing discoveries lead her to a truth she could never have imagined.

Cinderella’s Curse (2024) dir. Louisa Warren – CINDERELLA GOES ON A MASSACRE AT THE BALL.

Desperate Cinderella summons her fairy godmother from an ancient flesh-bound book, seeking revenge on her evil stepmother and stepsisters who abuse and torment her daily.

Cinderella’s Revenge (2024) dir. Andy Edwards – Cinderella finds freedom from her wicked stepmother with the help of her fairy godmother. Only this time, they unleash a plan of bloody vengeance.

If you can think of more, drop them in the comments!

THE CROWS: Re-Release Final Countdown

It’s the final countdown! Dadalaaada dada la da daaa

UK Preorder/Order Link: https://www.canelo.co/books/the-crows-c-m-rosens/

US Preorder/Order Link: https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/The-Crows/C-M-Rosens/Pagham-on-Sea/9781667207285

THE CROWS began life in 2013, with an attempt at writing a murder mystery with a B-plot romance. It did actually work out that way but I pantsed it completely, and it ended up a paranormal romance with a love triangle between Carrie, the house’s “Jack” avatar, and Guy Bishop.

The rewrite included Ricky, a throwaway addition who became the second MC, the murder mystery took a backseat, and it became more about the development of a platonic/queerplatonic relationship between Carrie and Ricky, and the erotic side of things was the unconsummated sparks between Carrie and the house. I was interviewed about it on The Left Page podcast, and more interviews with me can be found here.

To read more on the inspiration behind Fairwood House and Ricky Porter you can check out the linked posts! The Crows has its own page on this website, too, where you can find review links and reader advisory notes.

I was pleasantly surprised by the reception this book had as a self-published title, and the love for my whole series of Pagham-on-Sea novels so far, the shorts and related fiction, and the membership of my Ko-Fi for additional material and various rewards. To make it all as accessible as possible I recorded the audio for my podcast, Eldritch Girl, and you can listen to the full novels and short stories for free there.

(If you would like to support me for that, there’s an appreciation Ko-Fi tier of £1.00 per month that also gives you access to all bonus fiction from 2021-2023.)

I really didn’t expect to be contacted by a commissioning editor for Canelo Horror a little while ago, and to be able to tell you that I’ve sold the rights to The Crows and Thirteenth. That was really surprising. I have really enjoyed working with Canelo so far, and I’m doing a little countdown to 09 May 2024 (the release date for the UK) on social media. Since the timeline of The Crows covers the release day, I thought I’d do an OTD style countdown with a line or two from the novel that relates to each day.

I deeply appreciate everyone’s support so far!

Cinders and Glass (Book Edition)

Fairytale and Folklore

Catch up on the whole series of these here. There are A LOT of retellings and reimaginings of Cinderella. The tale is essentially a wish-fulfillment rags-to-riches story that gives poor, downtrodden people the hope that they might be raised above their station and find a measure of affluence and good fortune and love. You can see why it’s captured a lot of people’s imagination.

This tale’s basic themes and plot appears in so many cultures and translates well across so many different times and places. More than 500 versions of this tale appear in Europe alone. L. D. Ashliman has a list of 23 of these under the Aarne-Thompson type 510A.

One of the oldest known recorded versions is a 9thC Chinese story, Yeh-Shen. There is this open access article on the influence of Yeh-Shen on the evolving images of Cinderella in the West: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41599-023-02375-6. An English-language retelling for children by Ai-Ling Louie can be found here, free to read.

There are also indigenous folktale variants, like The Turkey Girl (a Zuni tale), which doesn’t deal with marriage – she wants to go to a ceremonial dance – but instead deals with the consequences of breaking a promise, and The Rough-Face Girl (Algonquin), which is a section of a longer story.

There are several versions of this story from across the African continent, including a Zimbabwean folktale, Nyasha, retold by author John Steptoe as Mufaro’s Beautiful Daughters.

Other tales from around the world include Sodewa Bai from Southern India, and Nagami, retold in the English-language children’s book, Anklet for a Princess.

Even more can be found listed briefly here, and here. Definitely check out the second link for a wide list of children’s books retelling the story from different cultures.

Let’s dig into some of the less wholesome European ones, shall we? Before we go any further, CWs apply for the usual folktale themes – particularly cannibalism, father-daughter incest, murder, and self-mutilation.

We probably all know about the stepsisters mutilating their own feet to fit the slipper in the Grimm version, Aschenputtel, and the prince being alerted by birds cooing, there’s blood on the shoe, then pecking out the stepsisters’ eyes on the way to the church for Cinders’ wedding. This – minus the gore, for some reason – is the one that is usually retold in film. It’s a good one, but there are more versions with gore and twisted morals if we go a bit further back.

Basile’s 17thC version, The Cat Cinderella, features Zezolla as the protagonist, a sweet little child who finds herself with a stepmother she dislikes (and it’s mutual). She conspires with her governess to murder the stepmother, and the governess then takes her place as Zezolla’s stepmother #2 – except she also treats Zezolla badly. There’s a fairy, and sisters, and so on – but I absolutely love the whole set up to this.

We are lacking in cannibalism though, despite the murder, and I know you’re disappointed. So here’s the cannibal one! It’s Greek this time, and it’s ‘Little Saddleslut‘/Σαμαροκουτσουλού.

An audio version can be found here on The Folktale Project’s YouTube Channel.

There were once three sisters spinning flax, and they said, “Whosever spindle falls, let us kill her and eat her.”
The mother’s spindle fell, and they left her alone.
Again they sat down to spin, and again the mother’s spindle fell, and again and yet again.
“Ah, well!” said they, “let us eat her now!”

The youngest doesn’t want to eat her mum, weirdly, and so she gets bullied by her two older sisters who call her little saddleslut. The story then progresses in its usual rags-to-riches manner, with magic and some shenanigans with a magical cabin the forest.

In a few of these there’s an item of clothing that helps the prince find his bride, usually a shoe, which can be made of various improbable materials, including fur and glass. Speaking of fur… that brings us to the other type of tale (Aarne-Thompson 510B, as opposed to 510A). Furs and skins play a bigger part in these, as we shall see.

If you’re wondering where the weird sex, assault and/or incest plots come in, or if they do – you bet they do. In 510B type tales, the cause of the girl’s poverty and marginalisation prior to meeting and marrying her prince is… trying to avoid marrying her wicked, incestuous father.

These are tales like Donkey-Skin, as recorded by Perrault, which can also be a pigskin (Ukraine), bearskin (Basile again) or a horse’s skin (Portugal), and more besides, where the skins and furs are the girl’s protective disguise, a kind of grotesque counterpart to the glamorous disguise her fairy godmother puts on her to meet the prince in other types of tale. There are also variants like Doralice (recorded by Straparola), where the daughter’s ability to wear her mother’s ring is used against her in her father’s plot, causing her to run away and find a powerful man to marry to whom she is not related.

In England, the story Cat-Skin is not about incest, but the father’s mistreatment of his daughter stems from the system of patrilineal primogeniture (inheritance going to the male heirs of the father in a strict order, a man’s sons before a man’s brothers, etc), and the fact she is not a male heir. I like this as an alternative to women punishing women for having more perceived social currency!

I think a tale where Cinderella is tormented by her bitter father and his second wife for not being good enough as an heir, so she schemes her way to kill her stepmother and install her sympathetic governess as mistress of the house and avenge herself, would be a brilliant Gothic horror alternative retelling while still being totally faithful to the plots of several folktale variations. There’s so much going on there.

Let’s Not Forget Buttons

Cinderella wasn’t my favourite panto, although the stepsisters were usually the best dames. I only liked it if the prince was a Principal Boy (played by a girl), and I was always so so so sorry for Buttons.

So, if you don’t know, Buttons is a pantomime character who first appeared in a British 19thC play adaptation of Rossini’s opera La Cenerentola as a foil for Dandini, the prince’s assistant, and has since become a staple in most panto versions of Cinderella. (If you’re unfamiliar with the opera, it’s on YouTube!) Buttons was written into the play version (performed at The Strand, London, 1860) to be Cinderella’s ally in the way Dandini was the Prince’s, and his unrequited love for her added pathos to the story.

His costume has a lot of buttons down the front, and that’s where he gets his name. He is Cinderella’s best friend but is in love with her. He spends the whole pantomime pining while she’s like, “I love you like a brother, like a friend” (which is actually a really good dynamic to teach kids how to behave WELL in those situations – one party asserts their boundaries clearly, and then the other party respects them).

Buttons often helps them get together and shows his true colours by supporting Cinderella’s dreams even if they don’t include him (they never do), and rarely gets a conclusion of his own arc beyond ‘sidekick’. He’s always genuinely happy for Cinderella and there’s a note of optimism that now she’s married off he’s going to make his own life with someone else, or do something for himself, but they’ll always be friends. He’s basically the working class chivalric addition to add a bit of pathos and emotional depth to the story, I think?

Anyway, it’s not my favourite story, and I always wished we could see Buttons being successful and having a fully resolved arc at the end of the pantos I saw.

The last time I saw a Cinderella panto was pre-pandemic!!! And it was this one!Book Recommendations & TBR

Pretty much most of these from the 30 Must-Read Queer Retellings from Book Riot, which also has a ‘best of the best’ list, but also Reactor Mag has six retellings here, the Orangutan Librarian has a list here, Shepherd showcases an author of a Cinderella-in-space reimagining who has another list of her top picks, SheReads offers some queer and gender flipped retellings here, and K. M. Shea has a list here. Not too mention the many many lists on GoodReads for this fairytale! There are 308 books on this list alone…

Fury: A Cinderella Story by David Allen – When Cindy Tremaine showed up to the office work meeting Monday morning, no one was surprised given her legendary work ethic. Except for Cooper Washington, who’d killed her three nights earlier.

Cindy Tremaine is the best employee Cleaning California has, and helped turn it from an idea to a regional powerhouse. She and her best friends, the stepsisters Anna and Jay Hildebrand, are elated when they find out they are going to be merging with Royal Crown industries, a global leader in technology and architecture, founded by Gable Washington.

At a ball to celebrate the merger, she meets Cooper Washington, the unbelievably handsome and charismatic son of Gable, and heir to the company. Along with his two friends, Ronnie and Emery, he uses his prince charming persona to lead Cindy into a night out, in which she ends up drugged and dies as a result. The three men panic and hide her body and put a plan together to get away with the crime. A plan which didn’t account for Cindy arriving back at work. Cindy, along with the stepsisters, now vow vengeance as the men try to figure out a way to stop her.

Cinderella is Dead by Kalynn Bayron – This was one of my favourite reads of 2021 and I really enjoyed this take on it. The worldbuilding was great and it’s one of the books I think about randomly from time to time because scenes really stuck with me. You can read Bayron’s article on this book and the need for Black characters in retellings of classic tales (and characters of intersectional and other underrepresented identities) for Reactor Mag here.

It’s 200 years after Cinderella found her prince, but the fairy tale is over. Teen girls are now required to appear at the Annual Ball, where the men of the kingdom select wives based on a girl’s display of finery. If a suitable match is not found, the girls not chosen are never heard from again.

Sixteen-year-old Sophia would much rather marry Erin, her childhood best friend, than parade in front of suitors. At the ball, Sophia makes the desperate decision to flee, and finds herself hiding in Cinderella’s mausoleum. There, she meets Constance, the last known descendant of Cinderella and her step sisters. Together they vow to bring down the king once and for all–and in the process, they learn that there’s more to Cinderella’s story than they ever knew . . .

This fresh take on a classic story will make readers question the tales they’ve been told, and root for girls to break down the constructs of the world around them.

Sloth: A Cinderella Retelling by A. J. Blackburn – Marrying the man of her dreams had always been exactly what Ivy Cinders wanted. So, when she found her Prince Charming, who got on his knee with a ring, she instantly said yes. Five years after saying yes, Ivy’s still waiting for her wedding day.

But her Prince Charming has turned into a lazy Sloth of a boyfriend. When the hell had her life gone so wrong?

Deciding she can no longer make dinner and wash dishes, she heads out to change her life. Making life decisions while running on a treadmill might not be the way forward, but when two unbelievably hot and sexy men walk into the gym, Ivy can’t help the drool.

Well, life decisions on a treadmill might not be so bad after all. Will she let herself trust these men completely? Because their orders aren’t the usual, make dinner and wash dishes.

Sloth is a standalone ménage contemporary dark romance containing BDSM, and is the second book of the Sinners Fairytale Retellings series. Each installment can be read on its own and each retelling is intended for mature audiences, since it may contain triggers. Every author contributing to this series guarantees a HEA.

Angel by C. Bottas – First time a Wattpad serial has been recommended! This one is m/m Cinderella X Dracula story, and the author also has a Rapunzel tale.

Abused terribly since he was a boy, Kylo dreams of freedom. When his wicked stepsisters get invited to the handsome Lord Vincent’s masquerade ball, the women believe they are going as potential brides. Forbidden to go by his evil stepmother, Kylo sneaks to the elegant manor to get a look at the mysterious lord. When he’s captured for trespassing, Kylo fears a whipping yet the lord takes mercy upon him and invites him to the ball as his guest.

As the night progresses, Kylo finds himself falling for the bewitching lord. Upon the stroke of midnight, Kylo flees from the ball, losing one of his gloves in his haste.

When the lord searches the homes wanting to return the glove, he finds Kylo badly beaten. Realizing he is being abused, Lord Vincent returns that night to rescue the young man.

Soon Kylo is pulled into a world of darkness, blood, and vampires.

A Princess in Theory by Alyssa Cole – From acclaimed author Alyssa Cole comes the tale of a city Cinderella and her Prince Charming in disguise . . .

Between grad school and multiple jobs, Naledi Smith doesn’t have time for fairy tales…or patience for the constant e-mails claiming she’s betrothed to an African prince. Sure. Right. Delete! As a former foster kid, she’s learned that the only things she can depend on are herself and the scientific method, and a silly e-mail won’t convince her otherwise.

Prince Thabiso is the sole heir to the throne of Thesolo, shouldering the hopes of his parents and his people. At the top of their list? His marriage. Ever dutiful, he tracks down his missing betrothed. When Naledi mistakes the prince for a pauper, Thabiso can’t resist the chance to experience life—and love—without the burden of his crown.

The chemistry between them is instant and irresistible, and flirty friendship quickly evolves into passionate nights. But when the truth is revealed, can a princess in theory become a princess ever after?

Selected as one of the New York Times 100 Notable Books of 2018!

The Sleeper and the Spindle by Neil Gaiman – Young Adult

A thrillingly reimagined fairy tale from the truly magical combination of author Neil Gaiman and illustrator Chris Riddell – weaving together a sort-of Snow White and an almost Sleeping Beauty with a thread of dark magic, which will hold readers spellbound from start to finish.

On the eve of her wedding, a young queen sets out to rescue a princess from an enchantment. She casts aside her fine wedding clothes, takes her chain mail and her sword and follows her brave dwarf retainers into the tunnels under the mountain towards the sleeping kingdom. This queen will decide her own future – and the princess who needs rescuing is not quite what she seems. Twisting together the familiar and the new, this perfectly delicious, captivating and darkly funny tale shows its creators at the peak of their talents.

Lavishly produced, packed with glorious Chris Riddell illustrations enhanced with metallic ink, this is a spectacular and magical gift.

The Other Cinderella: A Play by Nicholas Stuart Grey – Am I going to recommend a Nicholas Stuart Gray play or novel every time? Trans man and proto-furry icon whose cat characters were the self-inserts? Probably yes, and nobody can stop me. If you’re new, you should check out Nicholas Stuart Grey in general, his fiction is hard to get hold of, but worth it.

A refreshingly alternative version of the classic tale – Cinderella may be pretty, but she is incredibly precocious and bad tempered, and her step-sisters are neither ugly or cruel but loving and gentle. With the intervention of the meddlesome Demon, the Fairy sets out to put things right and return the story of Cinderella back to its original form, with disastrous and hilarious results.

Just Ella by Margaret Peterson Haddix – Being a princess isn’t all that…

You’ve heard the fairy tale: a glass slipper, Prince Charming, happily ever after…

Welcome to reality: royal genealogy lessons, needlepoint, acting like “a proper lady,” and—worst of all—a prince who is not the least bit interesting, and certainly not charming.

As soon-to-be princess Ella deals with her new-found status, she comes to realize she is not “your majesty” material. But breaking off a royal engagement is no easy feat, especially when you’re crushing on another boy in the palace… For Ella to escape, it will take intelligence, determination, and spunk—and no ladylike behavior allowed.

The Shadow in the Glass by JJA Harwood – “Cinderella” meets Faustian bargain in Harwood’s dark Gothic twist on the tale.

Eleanor was taken in as Mrs. Pembroke’s ward when she was a child, but when the mistress of the household dies, she finds herself relegated to housemaid by the master, treated as a lowly servant to be used however he sees fit.

As her situation grows increasingly dire, she makes a desperate bargain with a fairy godmother who is rather less than benevolent. Each wish Eleanor makes comes at a terrible price, and as her life spirals out of control, Eleanor has to decide just what she’s willing to sacrifice to keep her dreams from dying.

Vicious as they come, this retelling examines how both circumstances and spirit shape our choices in life.

“Midnight at the Glass Slipper” in Fairy Tale Horrorshow by Ruthann Jagge – Once upon a time, you may have read a story about a wooden puppet who dreamed of being a real boy, or about Alice’s trip down the rabbit hole. I bet you can even recall one about a trickster that promised to spin straw into gold, or one about a girl being stalked in the woods while on her way to Grandma’s house… Well, you won’t quite find those stories within these pages.

What you will find is a collection of new horrific takes of classic fairy tales. Ten indie authors from around the world have come together to twist your childhood memories into dark retellings that are sure to give you nightmares. Sit back, turn down the lights, and enjoy the show.

From the minds of RJ Roles, Jason Myers, Lance Dale, Ruthann Jagge, Natasha Sinclair, M Ennenbach, Kevin J. Kennedy, Tara Losacano, Matthew A. Clarke, and Denise Crimson Pinnacle Press presents Fairy Tale Horrorshow.

PREORDER (as of April 2024)

Court of Lies & Cinder: A Dark Cinderella Retelling by A. R. Kaufer – After losing her father when a baby, Luella became the ward of the Countess Clara, her late father’s wife. She and her two daughters treat Luella as their maid, nothing more than an inconvenience. They play court games while she sweeps the chimney.

When they receive an invitation to the royal ball to celebrate the prince’s 21st birthday, then the games really begin.

Kindle Edition: Expected publication October 6, 2024

Phoenix and Ashes by Mercedes Lackey – Mercedes Lackey’s magical Elemental Masters series recasts familiar fairy tales in a richly-imagined alternate Victorian world

Eleanor Robinson’s life had shattered when Father volunteered for the Great War, leaving her alone with a woman he had just married. Then the letter came that told of her father’s death in the trenches and though Eleanor thought things couldn’t get any worse, her life took an even more bizarre turn.

Dragged to the hearth by her stepmother Alison, Eleanor was forced to endure a painful and frightening ritual during which the smallest finger of her left hand was severed and buried beneath a hearthstone. For her stepmother was an Elemental Master of Earth who practiced the darker blood-fueled arts. Alison had bound Eleanor to the hearth with a spell that prevented her from leaving home, caused her to fade from people’s memories, and made her into a virtual slave.

Months faded into years for Eleanor, and still the war raged. There were times she felt she was losing her mind—times she seemed to see faces in the hearth fire.

Reginald Fenyx was a pilot. He lived to fly, and whenever he returned home on break from Oxford, the youngsters of the town would turn out to see him lift his aeroplane—a frail ship of canvas and sticks—into the sky and soar through the clouds.

During the war, Reggie had become an acclaimed air ace, for he was an Elemental Master of Air. His Air Elementals had protected him until the fateful day when he had met another of his kind aloft, and nearly died. When he returned home, Reggie was a broken man plagued by shell shock, his Elemental powers vanished.

Eleanor and Reginald were two souls scourged by war and evil magic. Could they find the strength to help one another rise from the ashes of their destruction?

‘When the Clock Strikes‘ in Red as Blood by Tanith Lee – How would it be if Snow White were the real villain & the wicked queen just a sadly maligned innocent? What if awakening the Sleeping Beauty should be the mistake of a lifetime–of several lifetimes? What if the famous folk tales were retold with an eye to more horrific possibilities?

Only Tanith Lee could do justice to it. In RED AS BLOOD, she displays her soaring imagination at its most fantastically mischievous. Not for nothing was the title story named as a Nebula nominee. Not for nothing was the author of THE BIRTHGRAVE & THE STORM LORD called by New York’s Village Voice, “Goddess-Empress of the Hot Read.”

Here are the world-famous tales of such as the Brothers Grimm as they might have been retold by the Sisters Grimmer! Fairy tales for children? Not on your life!

Contents:
Paid Piper (1981)
Red as Blood (1979)
Thorns (1972)
When the Clock Strikes (1980)
The Golden Rope (1983)
The Princess and Her Future (1983)
Wolfland (1980)
Black as Ink (1983)
Beauty (1983)

Ella Enchanted by Gail Carson Levine – At birth, Ella is inadvertently cursed by an imprudent young fairy named Lucinda, who bestows on her the “gift” of obedience. Anything anyone tells her to do, Ella must obey. Another girl might have been cowed by this affliction, but not feisty Ella: “Instead of making me docile, Lucinda’s curse made a rebel of me. Or perhaps I was that way naturally.”

When her beloved mother dies, leaving her in the care of a mostly absent and avaricious father, and later, a loathsome stepmother and two treacherous stepsisters, Ella’s life and well-being seem to be in grave peril. But her intelligence and saucy nature keep her in good stead as she sets out on a quest for freedom and self-discovery as she tries to track down Lucinda to undo the curse, fending off ogres, befriending elves, and falling in love with a prince along the way. Yes, there is a pumpkin coach, a glass slipper, and a happily ever after, but this is the most remarkable, delightful, and profound version of Cinderella you’ll ever read.

Gail Carson Levine’s examination of traditional female roles in fairy tales takes some satisfying twists and deviations from the original. Ella is bound by obedience against her will, and takes matters in her own hands with ambition and verve. Her relationship with the prince is balanced and based on humor and mutual respect; in fact, it is she who ultimately rescues him. Ella Enchanted has won many well-deserved awards, including a Newbery Honor.

Cinderellis and the Glass Hill by Gail Carson Levine – For younger readers (Middle Grade)

Ralph said, “Rain tomorrow.”
Burt said, “Barley needs it. You’re covered with cinders, Ellis.”
Ralph thought that was funny. “That’s funny.” He laughed. “That’s what we should call him– Cinderellis.”
Burt guffawed.

In this unusual spin on an old favorite, Cinderella is a boy! He’s Cinderellis, and he has two unfriendly brothers and no fairy godmother to help him out. Luckily, he does have magical powders, and he intends to use them to win the hand of his Princess Charming– that is, Marigold. The only problem is– Marigold thinks Cinderellis is a monster!

Gail Carson Levine is the author of Ella Enchanted, a spirited retelling of the “real” Cinderella fairy tale and a 1998 Newberry Honor Book. In this fourth of her Princess Tales, Levine brings new life and new fun into a little-known tale and proves that determination, imagination, and kindness can carry the day.

The Ugly Stepsister by Aya Ling – When Kat accidentally rips apart an old picture book, she’s magically transported into the world of Cinderella–as Katriona, one of the ugly stepsisters!

Life turns upside down now that she’s a highborn lady and must learn how to survive the social season, including how to get through the door in a huge metal hoop skirt.

To get back, she’ll have to complete the story, right to the end of happily ever after. But the odds are huge: the other stepsister is drop-dead gorgeous, the fairy godmother is nowhere to be found, and the prince, despite being insanely hot, openly dislikes balls. Can she ever return to the modern world?

Ash by Malinda Lo – Cinderella retold

In the wake of her father’s death, Ash is left at the mercy of her cruel stepmother. Consumed with grief, her only joy comes by the light of the dying hearth fire, rereading the fairy tales her mother once told her. In her dreams, someday the fairies will steal her away, as they are said to do. When she meets the dark and dangerous fairy Sidhean, she believes that her wish may be granted.

The day that Ash meets Kaisa, the King’s Huntress, her heart begins to change. Instead of chasing fairies, Ash learns to hunt with Kaisa. Though their friendship is as delicate as a new bloom, it reawakens Ash’s capacity for love-and her desire to live. But Sidhean has already claimed Ash for his own, and she must make a choice between fairy tale dreams and true love.

Entrancing, empowering, and romantic, Ash is about the connection between life and love, and solitude and death, where transformation can come from even the deepest grief.

Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister by Gregory Maguire – I own a few of Gregory Maguire’s books, and I’ve read Wicked but not its sequel, Son of a Witch, and I have started on Confessions but it didn’t grip me enough to propel me through the book. As for Wicked, I prefered the stage musical to the book. I think I will finish this one day but it languishes on my shelf until I pick it back up.

We have all heard the story of Cinderella, the beautiful child cast out to slave among the ashes. But what of her stepsisters, the homely pair exiled into ignominy by the fame of their lovely sibling? What fate befell those untouched by beauty … and what curses accompanied Cinderella’s looks?

Set against the backdrop of seventeenth-century Holland, Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister tells the story of Iris, an unlikely heroine who finds herself swept from the lowly streets of Haarlem to a strange world of wealth, artifice, and ambition. Iris’s path quickly becomes intertwined with that of Clara, the mysterious and unnaturally beautiful girl destined to become her sister. While Clara retreats to the cinders of the family hearth, Iris seeks out the shadowy secrets of her new household — and the treacherous truth of her former life.

‘Ashes to Ashes‘ in Not Your Grandma’s Fairy Tales by Pamela Morris – In this twisted collection of retold fairy tales, you won’t find helpless maidens in distress for long and knights in shining armor aren’t going be coming to the rescue, at least not in the typical way.

Instead, you’ll walk the streets of futuristic dystopias, wander into a seemingly normal small town diner, and spend some time in a lunar penitentiary.

Populated with vengeful ghosts, hungry cannibals, devilish baked goods and, okay, maybe an evil witch, too, the seven stories in Not Your Grandma’s Fairy Tales promise to spin a web of chilling threads that will stick to your dark imagination long after the story is told and the lights are turned out.

If the Shoe Fits by Julie Murphy – If the shoe doesn’t fit, maybe it’s time to design your own.

Cindy loves shoes. A well-placed bow or a chic stacked heel is her form of self-expression. As a fashion-obsessed plus-size woman, she can never find designer clothes that work on her body, but a special pair of shoes always fits just right.

With a shiny new design degree but no job in sight, Cindy moves back in with her stepmother, Erica Tremaine, the executive producer of the world’s biggest dating reality show. When a contestant on Before Midnight bows out at the last minute, Cindy is thrust into the spotlight. Showcasing her killer shoe collection on network TV seems like a great way to jump-start her career. And, while she’s at it, why not go on a few lavish dates with an eligible suitor?

But being the first and only fat contestant on Before Midnight turns her into a viral sensation–and a body-positivity icon–overnight. Even harder to believe? She can actually see herself falling for this Prince Charming. To make it to the end, despite the fans, the haters, and a house full of fellow contestants she’s not sure she can trust, Cindy will have to take a leap of faith and hope her heels– and her heart–don’t break in the process.

Best-selling author Julie Murphy’s reimagining of a beloved fairy tale is an enchanting story of self-love and believing in the happy ending each and every one of us deserves.

The Grimrose Girls by Laura Pohl – Four friends, one murder, and a dark fate that may leave them all doomed …

After the mysterious death of their best friend, Ella, Yuki, and Rory are the talk of their elite school, Grimrose Académie. The police ruled Ariane’s death as a suicide, but the trio is determined to find out what really happened.

When Nani Eszes arrives as their newest roommate, it sets into motion a series of events that no one could have predicted. As the girls retrace their friend’s final days, they discover a dark secret about Grimrose–Ariane wasn’t the first dead girl.

They soon learn that all the past murders are connected to ancient fairy-tale curses … and that their own fates are tied to the stories, dooming the girls to brutal and gruesome endings unless they can break the cycle for good.

Witches Abroad by Terry Pratchett – I tried Wyrd Sisters in Primary School and it was too old for me, I didn’t get any of the jokes, and I’d never heard of Macbeth. I gave him another try with Carpet People and loved that so much that I decided to try another Discworld book, because WS had really put me off. I found this when I was about 14 in my High School library (you begin High School/Comprehensive School aged 11 in the UK), and thought it was the funniest thing ever written in the history of the world. I read every Discworld book since, and of course now I can see some of the more problematic things/things that didn’t age well, but they remain my favourite fantasy series.

Be careful what you wish for…

Once upon a time there was a fairy godmother named Desiderata who had a good heart, a wise head, and poor planning skills—which unfortunately left the Princess Emberella in the care of her other (not quite so good and wise) godmother when DEATH came for Desiderata. So now it’s up to Magrat Garlick, Granny Weatherwax, and Nanny Ogg to hop on broomsticks and make for far-distant Genua to ensure the servant girl doesn’t marry the Prince.

But the road to Genua is bumpy, and along the way the trio of witches encounters the occasional vampire, werewolf, and falling house (well this is a fairy tale, after all). The trouble really begins once these reluctant foster-godmothers arrive in Genua and must outwit their power-hungry counterpart who’ll stop at nothing to achieve a proper “happy ending”—even if it means destroying a kingdom.

Her Princess at Midnight by Erica Ridley – What if Cinderella fell for the handsome prince’s… sister?

Cynthia lives a life of drudgery, toiling for her stepmother and stepsisters without receiving gratitude or pay. Every day is the same… until a royal retinue sweeps into town, inviting every unwed maiden to vie for the hand of the visiting prince.

The moment she lays eyes on the prince’s beautiful sister, Cynthia is smitten. She’s never been to a ball, and she’s determined not to miss this one. But when her family refuses to allow her to attend—not that Cynthia even has a gown to wear—it will take a miracle to escape the attic and catch the eye of the princess who holds the key to her heart!

Zolushka: Midwinter Nights by Mark Runte – short story, submitted by the author as having Cinderella vibes.

She died a victim of the Black Death and only love, or her idea of it will give her back the life she lost. If she can do it within three nights of her existence.

Mufaro’s Beautiful Daughters by John Steptoe – For younger readers.

A Caldecott Honor and Reading Rainbow book, this memorable retelling of Cinderella is perfect for introducing children to the fairy tale as well as the history, culture, and geography of the African nation of Zimbabwe.

Inspired by a traditional African folktale, this is the story of Mufaro, who is proud of his two beautiful daughters. Nyasha is kind and considerate, but everyone—except Mufaro—knows that Manyara is selfish and bad-tempered.

When the Great King decides to take a wife and invites the most worthy and beautiful daughters in the land to appear before him, Mufaro brings both of his daughters—but only one can be queen. Who will the king choose?

Award-winning artist John Steptoe’s rich cultural imagery of Africa earned him the Coretta Scott King Award for Mufaro’s Beautiful Daughters. The book also went on to win the Boston Globe-Horn Book Award. This stunning story is a timeless treasure that readers will enjoy for generations.

Awards:
– Coretta Scott King Award for Illustration
– Caledcott Honor
– Reading Rainbow Book
– Boston Globe-Horn Book

Next Time:

Next post is the last in this series for now: Cinderella in Cinema!

Films To Know Me… 2020s Edition

Just a fun post while I’m researching Cinderella stories for the final part of the series!

I picked 4 films to know me (2020s) on Bluesky and realised they were all from 2020, and none from other years this decade, so I’ve decided to pick 5 for each year so far because I’m indecisive. 2024 hasn’t had much out that I’ve actually seen, so I’ll throw in ones I’m excited for that are meant to be out this year.

Top Films of the Decade (so far…)

Underwater (2020) dir. William Eubank – Deep sea action-adventure horror bringing Cthulhu and the Deep Ones into what is already a horrifying situation. Definitely one of my top picks of the decade so far.

Gwledd/The Feast (2021) dir. Lee Haven Jones – I’d honestly say this is the best Welsh horror I’ve seen since Apostle. Stunning. Loved it. Eco-horror, family dysfunction, and some really meaty (lol) themes. It is a very slow burn dark adult fairytale.

Nope (2022) dir. Jordan Peele – 2022 had some absolute bangers, but this is the one I’ve rewatched the most times, so it takes the crown from this year. I’ll do a 2022 appreciation post. I’m not sure which is my favourite Jordan Peele films, but this one is up there for me!

Meg 2: The Trench (2023) dir. Ben Wheatley – A lot of the horror I watched from 2023 was about catharsis and grief/trauma processing, especially with the distance from the pandemic. This film was the most enjoyable one of the lot, and so it’s on the top picks list from this year. Otherwise, it would be a toss up between Renfield and The Sacrifice Game for very different reasons and I can’t decide. I don’t class Renfield as horror, though, really? Action comedy with Dracula, sure. But that’s also one of my favourite 2023 movies.

I haven’t actually seen any films released this year yet!

If I break it down by year, it looks a bit different. There are just so many good ones.

2020

According to Letterboxd, I’ve watched/remembered to log 33 films released in the year 2020. I didn’t give all of them ratings. I actually really enjoyed a lot of them.

Top 5 Horror Picks Underwater dir. William Eubank – Deep sea action-adventure horror bringing Cthulhu and the Deep Ones into what is already a horrifying situation. Definitely one of my top picks of the decade so far. His House dir. Remi Weekes – This one is a tough watch, it’s emotional, there’s so much grief and trauma going on under the surface, and it’s also a glimpse at the UK asylum system and how difficult, bureaucratic and dehumanising the process is for people. Relic dir. Natalie Erika James – Tough watch, family-centred horror with strong dementia/alzheimer’s metaphor throughout. The kind of thing Hereditary sounded like it was going to be about and would probably have been a much better film it had been. There, I said it. Gretel & Hansel dir. Osgood Perkins – arty in the way Green Knight is arty, at least to me, and I didn’t mind that. I like fairytale retellings, and cannibalism. I have simple tastes and needs. Il Legame/The Binding dir. Domenico Emanuele de Feudis – can you see where this is going? Of course. But also, no. Is it a lot of fun to get there? Sure. Some lovely folk horror stuff in this. Top 5 Horror Runners-Up Caveat dir. Damien McCarthy – I liked this a lot more than I expected to, and the conceits were really intriguing. I liked the premise, the execution was more or less fine, and that bloody bunny creeped me out just by existing. The Babysitter: Killer Queen dir. McG – I love the first one too. Really enjoyed this sequel. Mainly, just a massive Max fan. Live your dreams, buddy. Becky dirs. Cary Murnion, Jonathan Milott – Lots going on here, and I liked the complete spiral of the titular teen character, especially as she devolved through the film. It was fun to read it as a villain origin story, or massively dark antiheroine origin story, so I’m hoping to find the sequel and get around to that. The Night House dir. David Bruckner – Spousal bereavement and supernatural-centred. I enjoyed the slow reveals and the lore. Bloodthirsty dir. Amelia Moses – genuinely a decent werewolf film that does a lot more with the tropes than I expected. It’s sapphic and a bit gory, but didn’t quite hit for me enough to make it to my top 5. I think it deserves an honorary mention though. It was a toss up between this one and The Block Island Sound dirs. Kevin McManus, Matthew McManus, but werewolves narrowly won out.Really Good Horror-Adjacents I Would Have Put In Horror Nneka the Pretty Serpent dir. Tosin Igho – I haven’t seen the 1994 original (dir. Zeb Ijiro), but would really like to. It’s a slowburn drama with supernatural elements, and an example of where genre isn’t that helpful to classify it. It’s listed as horror, but it’s more a contemporary drama meets dark mythological fantasy. There are morality play echoes in it, and it has a lot going on. I really liked the storytelling.
Psycho Goreman dir. Steven Kostanski – honestly, this is just a lot of fun, it’s not even horror to me, it’s more gory action SciFi (he’s an alien) and feels like a more bloodthirsty version of the kids-befriend-aliens type films of the 1980s and early 1990s. It’s definitely on the lighter end of horror-comedy. Horror for kids. It’s great.2021

I watched a lot of films from 2021, 32 of which were horror. There were some really good ones! I picked Gwledd/The Feast as my ‘film of the decade’ pick from this year, but here are my top 5 picks from this year alone:

Top 5 Horror Picks Gwledd/The Feast dir. Lee Haven Jones – I’d honestly say this is the best Welsh horror I’ve seen since Apostle. Stunning. Loved it. Eco-horror, family dysfunction, and some really meaty (lol) themes. Candyman dir. Nia DaCosta – I loved this. I especially enjoyed that it’s a sequel rather than a reboot, and it stands on its own. I loved the original, too, and this worked really well. Vampir dir. Branko Tomović – Gorgeously slow, stylish descent into the dark side of Serbian folklore. The lack of subtitles on the Serbian worked for me as I don’t speak it either, but I could pick up a little, so I got the disorientation of the protagonist. This has been me in so many situations where I’m trying to learn a language but I’m the only one who doesn’t know what’s going on, especially as a kid living abroad, so I really liked it for capturing that disequilibrium Willy’s Wonderland dir. Kevin Lewis – I have so many questions about this whole plot. Can the townspeople seriously not gang up on these mascots???? They all get taken out by this one guy. Come on, people. And yet. Strangely the most perfect Nic Cage film ever to star Nic Cage. It’s not in my top 5 because it’s a great film, it’s here because I’ve had so many hours of pure entertainment from it, and will have many more.Top 5 Horror Runners-Up Paranormal Activity: Next of Kin dir. William Eubank – This one gives me Incantation vibes, and I liked it for that. I was debating between this one, Le Calendrier/The Advent Calendar dir. Patrick Ridremont, and the Fear Street films (1666 and 1978) but decided Fear Street is more of a complete series, so I wouldn’t count the films individually as each installment adds to the overall arc, and out of this one vs The Advent Calendar, I’d most likely rewatch this one. El Páramo/The Wasteland dir. David Casademunt – war trauma to the max. Folk horror family-centred horror in an alternative Spain, claustrophobic and visceral. Mad God dir. Phil Tippett – Amazing stop motion, absolutely off the wall. Loved this. Every time I rewatch, I see something new, but I can’t rewatch it very often because of the feel, the score, etc. Slapface dir. Jeremiah Kipp – I can’t stop thinking about this. It’s just a really bleak family disintegration drama with a kid protagonist, trapped in a rural nightmare of bullying and every adult in his life – including and especially the supernatural ‘adult’ figure – making it 100x worse. Gaia dir. Jaco Bouwer – Great South African jungle sporror that beat out In The Earth to make the top 5 of these. 2022

What a year this was. So hard to choose from, as I really enjoyed the majority of things I watched from this year. I remembered to log 49 films from 2022, and I enjoyed so many of them! 2022 gave us some bangers. Of the ones I saw, 36 of these were horror, so here are my top picks.

Top 5 Horror Picks Nope (2022) dir. Jordan Peele – 2022 had some absolute bangers, but this is the one I’ve rewatched the most times, so it takes the crown from this year. I’ll do a 2022 appreciation post. I’m not sure which is my favourite Jordan Peele films, but this one is up there for me! X dir. Ti West – Mia Goth is outstanding in this film, and there are some absolutely brilliant moments of tension in it. It was also really emotional, and Pearl was a deeply affecting character. Talk To Me dirs. Michael Philippou, Danny Philippou – Absolute banger of Australian horror, and exactly the kind of thing a group of teens would do with a hand like that. It got me in the feels, too. Harum Malam/Blood Flower dir. Dain Said – I really loved this one, there’s a lot going on, and there’s a good revenge plot (but CW for incest/rape, infanticide). This came up in my posts on #100HorrorMoviesin92Days and I think was one of my favourites of that challenge. 咒/Incantation dir. Kevin Ko – The concept really got to me and I loved the reveal at the end, the journey, the footage style, the communal aspect, just, everything. Again, a deeply sad one, but one I would revisit and even though I know the twists, I think I’d still really enjoy it.Top 5 Horror Runners-Up Halloween Ends dir. David Gordon Green – I liked the way the franchise was concluded, and the performances were great. I debated between this one, Hellraiser, Scream, Smile, M3gan, Barbarian, Umma, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Enys Men… so many great ones. But out of them all, I think this one is the one I most enjoyed.Pahanhautoja/Hatching dir. Hanna Bergholm – I really liked the way this was a story about the burgeoning monstrosity of a tween girl, and its development into coherence and selfhood, as a different take on development and puberty. I really liked the way this was done, and the central, toxic, maternal figure. Das Privileg – Die Auserwählten/The Privilege dirs. Felix Fuchssteiner, Katharina Schöde – I thought this was a solid YA German sporror, CW for adoption. It was a fun ride. The Harbinger, dir. Andy Mitton – God, this is pure pandemic trauma. I had to sit with this one a while. I debated between this, Christmas Bloody Christmas, and the two Poe films Raven’s Hollow and The Pale Blue Eye, but it has to be The Harbinger. So much trauma to unpack, and the sense of dread is so heavy throughout it. Glorious dir. Rebekah McKendry – I like this purely because I enjoyed Ryan Kwanten’s performance, but it was painfully straight. Painfully straight. I loved the mythos concept, the claustrophobic one-man-show vibes, and fact it’s about a selfish arsehole called Wes who would rather end the world than stop it ending because his relationship has broken down (no spoilers, but… hmmm). I watched this while revising The Day We Ate Grandad, which is also about a selfish arsehole called Wes who would prefer the end of the world to going through a break-up. If I had a penny I’d have 2 pennies, etc etc. 2023

I logged 24 films from 2023 up to now, and it was hard to whittle them down, too. My favourite was Meg 2, because it was my very first time in an Everyman Cinema, and I had such a fun time. I loved how it was half Underwater, half Jurassic World, tied together with a megalodon and a giant squid. Why not. So it made its way onto the top picks for the decade so far!

Top 5 Horror PicksMeg 2: The Trench dir. Ben Wheatley – A lot of the horror I watched from 2023 was about catharsis and grief/trauma processing, especially with the distance from the pandemic. This film was the most enjoyable one of the lot, and so it’s on the top picks list from this year. Renfield dir. Chris McKay – The natural double-bill with Barbie, for the relationship 101 dynamics. I really loved this, the relationships, the dynamics, and Nic Cage. It was my preferred balance of action and comedy, with Dracula. Cuando acecha la maldad/When Evil Lurks dir. Demián Rugna – After the terrifying ride of Atterados/Terrified, I wanted to watch more Rugna films. This didn’t disappoint me. It’s set in an alternative Argentina, where demon possessions are an accepted hazard of life, even if nobody really knows how to handle them. It features my least favourite thing: creepy fucking children. Literally drop kick the little fuckers, they’re tiny. Argh. The Sacrifice Game dir. Jenn Wexler – Just a fun boarding school romp with demons and dark magic. I liked this a lot! Supernatural/occult slasher fun and games in the ’70s. It has so many issues, but I enjoyed the premise, the characters. Suitable Flesh dir. Joe Lynch – A really fun update to Lovecraft’s The Thing on the Doorstep, and definitely in my top 5 picks. Twisted and enjoyable, I would never hire her as a therapist but I’d watch this again.Top 5 Horror Runners-UpEl club de los lectores criminales/Killer Book Club dir. Carlos Alonso-Ojea – Derivative plot, and literally a Point Horror reveal, I’m not sure if this actually was based on one?? I had a lot of fun with it though. Totally Killer dir. Nahnatchka Khan – I really had fun with this and its Back to the Future vibes; it would make a great double bill with It’s A Wonderful Knife. So much campy Point Horror love this year. Loving life. It’s A Wonderful Knife dir. Tyler MacIntyre – I love Point Horror and this felt like a nostalgic romp through a Point Horror plot, but with timey-wimey stuff, fun aesthetics. I liked the references to Clarence / It’s A Wonderful Life, and it was so silly and fun. I think this is the one with sapphic endgame, and I loved that. I get this confused with Totally Killer in my head, which I loved also, and is another timey-wimey slasher. Older Gods dir. David A. Roberts – Set in Wales but not Welsh horror per se, this one is a grim Lovecraftian horror full of suicide and dark deeds, stalkers in the countryside, grief, loneliness, guilt, and a whole host of things. Konferensen/The Conference dir. Patrik Eklund – Team-building is my idea of hell, so this one as a survival horror-comedy worked for me. Murderous mascots, office drama, victims hoisted up a flagpole, deadly zip wires, it’s got it all. Sweden has some great comedies and dramas and loads of genres, and we seem to just get all the really fucked up stuff, but I’m ok with it.2024

I haven’t seen anything that’s out this year yet! I’ve got my eye on a few films in this list, especially Abigail, Arcadian, Baghead, Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice, Lisa Frankenstein, MaXXXine, Nosferatu, Stiletto, Stopmotion, They Follow, and Your Monster.

I might do another decade of my fave films later, and really try to whittle it down, but that’s the 2020s for me so far!

Rapunzel in Cinema 1897-2024

I was hoping to find some silent film versions of this fairytale, and very curious as to how they might have staged it. The first filmed version seems to be Oskar Messter’s short film in 1897, and although I can’t find it online, there’s a German documentary (in German) on the director, here.

It’s been animated a lot, including as part of an American (USA) television animated anthology series, Happily Ever After: Fairy Tales for Every Child (1995-2000), which was done with a full African-American cast and set in New Orleans. This series took classic European/Western fairytales and folktales and set them in different countries and cultures for a US American audience.

So here’s a list of some Rapunzel adaptations, and the films I think arguably have the same sort of themes as the fairytale – protagonist is trapped in and has their horizons expanded by another character, who helps them to escape. I think there are a lot of films that have these themes metaphorically!

Rapunzel Adaptations Rapunzel (1897) dir. Oskar Messter The Story of Rapunzel (1951) dir. Ray Harryhausen – a stop motion short. Der Turm (1974) dir. Franz Winzentsen – animation Rapunzel, Let Down Your Hair (1978) dirs. Francine Winham, Esther Ronay, Susan Shapiro – a mix of live action and animation (the opening sequence), made by the London Women’s Film Group, exploring the tale through a contemporary feminist lens. Rapunzel, Rapunzel (1979) dir. Tom Davenport – live action and part of Brothers Grimm series Rapunzel (1983) dir. Gilbert Cates – fantasy romance with Shelley Duvall and Jeff BridgesRapunzel oder Der Zauber der Tränen/Rapunzel, or the Magic of Tears (1988) dir. Ursula Schmenger – East German TV fantasy adaptation. There’s a version with English subtitles here, the same one that very briefly found some TikTok fame. This film combines Rapunzel with the lesser-known Grimm’s fairytale, Maid Maleen .Rapunzel (1990) dir. Don Lusk – animated Hallmark adaptation. Rapunzel (1992) dir. Timothy Forder – animation from Bevanfield films ‘Tell Me A Story’ series, released on DVD by the Daily Mail. Rapunzel (1992) dir. Juliet Belmas – 10min short Canadian live action film, in which a prisoner narrates this fantastical tale of two young sisters whose lives are changed at the strike of a match when they mistake an imprisoned Doukhobor for Rapunzel.Rapunzel (1995) dir. Bruce W. Smith – the Happily Ever After series, animation, with all African-American cast. Oh, Rapunzel (1996) dir. Cecilia Condit – deep consideration of the mother/daughter bond with fairytale imagery, also looking at themes of bodily autonomy and self-determination as we age. Rapunzel (1998) dir. Paul O. Zelinsky – 14min short retold and illustrated by Paul O. Zelinskyコワイ童話「ラプンツェル」/ Scary Fairy Tales: Rapunzel (1999) dir. Shunichi Hirano, Takashi Fujio – This is a horror film for adults that takes as its subject matter fairy tales from the East and West, and brings to life their brutality, bizarre nature, and obscenity. Barbie as Rapunzel (2002) dir. Owen Hurley – I think this one has a magical paintbrush in it, so it’s referenced by Tangled (2010) where she’s painting all the time as a hobby? The Paul Mesner Puppets: Rapunzel (2006) – puppet film version! Rapunzel (2009) dir. Bodo Fürneisen – German family film live action fantasy adaptation Rapunzel (2010) dir. Tolga Karaçelik – Turkish 17min short film Tangled (2010) dirs. Byron Howard, Nathan Greno – the Disney film version. Tangled: Ever After (2012) was directed by the same directors and is the 6min short of the wedding of Rapunzel and Flynn/Eugene. Tangled: Before Ever After (2017) dirs. Stephen Sandoval, Tom Caulfield is the longer sequel film at around 55mins runtime. Rapunzel de Musical (2016) dir. Bas Groenenberg – Dutch live action musical version. Rapunzel (2018) dir. Hans Stjernswärd – 4min short contemporary-set horror available on YouTube here. Rapunzel (2019) dir. Juan Pablo Machado – 3min short animation. Knights climb the tower to find Princess Rapunzel and deliver her from a monster.Joga as Tranças, Rapunzel/Let Your Braids Down, Rapunzel (2015) dir. Matheus da Rocha Pereira – 15min short Brazilian film. Telma and Luisa decide to shoot a videodance.Il racconto dei racconti/Tale of Tales (2015) dir. Matteo Garrone – a fantasy horror anthology film about obsession, primarily in Russian and English, that retells Rapunzel, Cinderella, and Sleeping Beauty. It’s inspired by the versions of the tales written by Giambattista Basile. Rapunzel: A Princess Frozen in Time (2019) dir. Steven Salgado – In this modern adaptation of Rapunzel, a young girl who has lived her entire life in a room catered by her mother, the infamous scientist Dr. Gothen, must come to terms with her reality in order to expand her horizons. Rapunzels Fluch/The Curse of Rapunzel (2020) dir. David Brückner – German horror film involving demon possession. Its sequel, Rapunzels Fluch 2 , was released in 2023.Historien om Rapunsel/The Story of Rapunzel (2021) dirs. Noah Visted, Herman Thorsen – 8mins Norwegian short film. The Extended Cut was released in 2024 and is 10mins long. Rapunzel und die Rückkehr der Falken (2023) dir. Christof Heimer – German family fantasy live action adaptation.Rapunzel, El Perro y El Brujo/Rapunzel, The Dog and The Warlock (2024) dir. Andres Roa – Colombian asusto/mystery/thriller film. El Perro, a kidnapped soldier, takes advantage of a confrontation between his captors and the paramilitaries to escape. In his escape, he takes refuge in the house of a peasant family that keeps a dark secret that he must solve to be free. Rapunzel’s Revenge (in pre-production as of March 2024) dir. Jason Wright – low budget UK horror film from indie film production company, Silent Studios. A woman is stuck in prison for many years and whilst there plots her revenge on the ones that put her there. Rapunzel Themes

A list of horror films loosely inspired by fairytales is here. I’ve struggled to find/be recommended ones for this tale, so here is the short list of ones I do have!

Démoni 2/Demons 2 (1986) dir. Lamberto Bava – A group of tenants and visitors are trapped in a 10-story high-rise apartment building infested with demons who proceed to hunt the dwindling humans down.

The main character we follow through this is pregnant, like Rapunzel in the tower, and attempts to escape.

The Village (2004) dir. M. Night Shyamalan – (The “tower” is the village, in this case!) When a willful young man tries to venture beyond his sequestered Pennsylvania hamlet, his actions set off a chain of chilling incidents that will alter the community forever.

Tau (2018) dir. Federico D’Alessandro – Held captive in a futuristic smart house, a woman hopes to escape by befriending the A.I. program that controls the house, called Tau (voiced by Gary Oldman). Tau doesn’t know anything about the world outside, and also doesn’t know that its programmer/owner, Alex (Ed Skrein), is a bad man, until Julia (Maika Monroe) helps Tau towards self-actualisation and freedom.

The Princess (2022) dir. Le Van Kiet – A beautiful, strong-willed young royal refuses to wed the cruel sociopath to whom she is betrothed and is kidnapped and locked in a remote tower of her father’s castle. With her scorned, vindictive suitor intent on taking her father’s throne, the princess must protect her family and save the kingdom.

Next Time:

Cinderella is the last tale in this series! Catch up on the whole list here.

(Books about) Escaping the Tower

Rapunzel Stories

I was so excited to see how the Italians get cannibalism into this story, and I was not disappointed. The witch in ‘Angiola’ is going to eat the girl who steals from her garden, and of course gets the thief’s firstborn child instead as compensation (which she also threatens to eat). Yay!

I also wasn’t expecting the dog-headed moment in that story (for escaping, Angiola is cursed by the witch and given a dog’s face, so the prince can’t marry her). That was a surprise. I love learning things. It’s not the same thing as cynocephaly, exactly, but I fell into that rabbit hole recently when looking for some inspiration for werewolf-related stuff, although they are not themselves werewolves.

But now, I’m thinking about how cool it would be to have a Rapunzel story where she gets a werewolf curse because she chose life outside the tower.

I hadn’t really read many Rapunzel versions, but they are a lot of fun. Here’s the Grimm brothers’ versions side by side, 1812 and 1857 – this is the version most people know, and the one Tangled is based on. But in the Grimms’ version, the witch sends Rapunzel (pregnant by the prince) out into the wilderness alone, and tells the prince that he’ll never see her again. The prince despairs, throws himself out of the tower window and is blinded by the thorns at the tower base. Blinded, he wanders the wilderness and eventually finds Rapunzel and her twin babies (his) living miserably together. Rapunzel’s tears fall on his eyes, and heal him.

Rapunzel, or rampion, is not the only salad plant that the protagonist’s mother craves. There’s parsley, too, and fruit – and the child is not always named after what’s been stolen. So if you want a retelling that isn’t constrained by salad, there are plenty of options.

Here are a few versions of this tale (type 310), and how it differs across Europe (and the Philippines) – here’s a timeline of when they were all recorded, and here is a list of the tales themselves:

The Brothers’ Grimm versions side by side: 1812 and 1857, for comparison. Parsley/Petrosinella (Italy) – it’s an ogress, not a witch, in this one!The Fair Angiola (Italy) – not only does the witch threaten to eat people, but when the prince rescues Angiola, she turns Angiola’s face into a dog’s face, so the prince can’t marry her or take her home to meet his parents. The witch has a little pet dog she loves, and the dog also loves Angiola – so the dog mediates and the witch lifts the spell. Prunella (Italy) – if you guessed plums, instead of salad, you guessed right! BUT this one has Bensiabel, the son of the witch, and he helps poor Prunella succeed in the tasks the witch, his mother, sets her while she is held hostage. Bensiabel helps her in exchange for a kiss – although Prunella never gives him one, and he helps her anyway – and eventually she gets over the fact he’s the witch’s son and they live happily ever after, I guess?Parsinette (France) – if you read French, it’s here. This seems to be the Brothers’ Grimm version, where she has a craving for parsley that kicks everything off. Parsillette (France) – in this version, Parsillette’s first lover reacts badly when all her gifts from her fairy godmothers are taken away (her ability to speak different languages, her great beauty, her fine clothes etc), so she realises he’s not the one for her, and decides to go back to the tower to say sorry to her fairy godmothers for sneaking off. And the first guy is struck dead immediately. She goes back, but her godmother no longer keeps her locked up as she clearly has more common sense than to stay with worthless, shallow wastrels, and eventually she meets and marries a wealthy prince. Yay. Blond Beauty (France) – another one where her godmother (fairy variety) curses her for her disobedience, and turns her into a frog. She does get her beauty back, and ends up winning half the kingdom. Juan and Clotilde (Philippines) – this one is great, and has fiendish magician who locks the king’s daughter Clotilde in a tower along with three magical horses, so that nobody can get her back. Cue the hero! Recommendations

I didn’t get a lot of these, but here are a handful of some recommended Rapunzel stories! If you’d like to explore more for yourselves, a list of Rapunzel retellings is on GoodReads. Here’s another list! There is an interesting article on Queering “Happily Ever After” by Barbara Curatolo that is free to access here. Book Riot has a wonderful list of diverse retellings of multiple fairytales, which you should check out alongside these! Epic Reads has this great list of YA queer retellings that’s also worth a look.

Wane and Wax by Devan Barlow – NEW RELEASE! It’s free to read online with Electric Spec Volume 19, Issue 1.

CW: disordered eating

Braided: A Lesbian Rapunzel by Elora Bishop – Zelda is cursed to spend her days on a platform in an ancient, holy tree, growing her hair long enough to touch the ground. But it wasn’t her curse to bear: Gray, the witch’s daughter, was meant for that lonely fate. Gray visits Zelda each day, mourning their switched fates, and falling deeper in love with the cursed girl, until one night, at the Not-There Fair, an extraordinary creature outlines a magical plan that could set both of them free. Will Gray’s love for Zelda be strong enough to survive the strange dream world of Chimera, or will Zelda remain a prisoner of the curse forever?

The novella BRAIDED is the lesbian retelling of the classic fairy tale Rapunzel. It is part of the series SAPPHO’S FABLES: LESBIAN FAIRY TALES.

The Uncrossing by Melissa Eastlake – Luke can uncross almost any curse—they unravel themselves for him like no one else. So working for the Kovrovs, one of the families controlling all the magic in New York, is exciting and dangerous, especially when he encounters the first curse he can’t break. And it involves Jeremy, the beloved, sheltered prince of the Kovrov family—the one boy he absolutely shouldn’t be falling for.

Jeremy’s been in love with cocky, talented Luke since they were kids. But from their first kiss, something’s missing. Jeremy’s family keeps generations of deadly secrets, forcing him to choose between love and loyalty. As Luke fights to break the curse, a magical, citywide war starts crackling, and it’s tied to Jeremy.

This might be the one curse Luke can’t uncross. If true love’s kiss fails, what’s left for him and Jeremy?

The Witch and the Vampire by Francesca Flores – A queer Rapunzel retelling where a witch and a vampire who trust no one but themselves must journey together through a cursed forest with danger at every turn. 

Ava and Kaye used to be best friends. Until one night two years ago, vampires broke through the magical barrier protecting their town, and in the ensuing attack, Kaye’s mother was killed, and Ava was turned into a vampire. Since then, Ava has been trapped in her house. Her mother Eugenia needs her: Ava still has her witch powers, and Eugenia must take them in order to hide that she’s a vampire as well. Desperate to escape her confinement and stop her mother’s plans to destroy the town, Ava must break out, flee to the forest, and seek help from the vampires who live there. When there is another attack, she sees her opportunity and escapes. 

Kaye, now at the end of her training as a Flame witch, is ready to fulfill her duty of killing any vampires that threaten the town, including Ava. On the night that Ava escapes, Kaye follows her and convinces her to travel together into the forest, while secretly planning to turn her in. Ava agrees, hoping to rekindle their old friendship, and the romantic feelings she’d started to have for Kaye before that terrible night. 

But with monstrous trees that devour humans whole, vampires who attack from above, and Ava’s stepfather tracking her, the woods are full of danger. As they travel deeper into the forest, Kaye questions everything she thought she knew. The two are each other’s greatest threat—and also their only hope, if they want to make it through the forest unscathed.

Bitter Greens by Kate Forsyth – The amazing power and truth of the Rapunzel fairy tale comes alive for the first time in this breathtaking tale of desire, black magic and the redemptive power of love

French novelist Charlotte-Rose de la Force has been banished from the court of Versailles by the Sun King, Louis XIV, after a series of scandalous love affairs. At the convent, she is comforted by an old nun, Sœur Seraphina, who tells her the tale of a young girl who, a hundred years earlier, is sold by her parents for a handful of bitter greens…

After Margherita’s father steals parsley from the walled garden of the courtesan Selena Leonelli, he is threatened with having both hands cut off, unless he and his wife relinquish their precious little girl. Selena is the famous red-haired muse of the artist Tiziano, first painted by him in 1512 and still inspiring him at the time of his death. She is at the center of Renaissance life in Venice, a world of beauty and danger, seduction and betrayal, love and superstition.

Locked away in a tower, Margherita sings in the hope that someone will hear her. One day, a young man does.

Award-winning author Kate Forsyth braids together the stories of Margherita, Selena, and Charlotte-Rose, the woman who penned Rapunzel as we now know it, to create what is a sumptuous historical novel, an enchanting fairy tale retelling, and a loving tribute to the imagination of one remarkable woman.

The Stone Cage by Nicholas Stuart Grey – A retelling of Rapunzel, told by Tomlyn, the cat, apprentice to Mother Gothel, the witch who kept the maiden in a stone cage at the top of a tall stone tower.

Nicholas Stuart Grey (1912-1981) was an actor, author and playwright who presented as a man from the 1930s and underwent medical transition in 1959 – as an actor, his preferred role was a cat, which was often a self-insert character in his stories. He played the Cat role in Puss in Boots and in adaptations of his own plays.

Rumaysa: A Fairytale by Radiya Hafiza – This funny and empowering story weaves together three classic fairytales into one new adventure with an unusual structural twist: Rumaysa is a Muslim girl who lets her hijab down from a tall tower in order to escape. Set in a magical version of South Asia, Rumaysa explores enchanted forests and dragon lairs, teaming up with Cinderayla and Sleeping Sara along the way to create a strong sense of sisterhood.

Middle Grade story for younger readers, with a sequel: Rumaysa: Ever After.

Lehua by Leialoha Humpherys – “I had to get out of there, because if I didn’t find an escape, then who would?”

Lehua always believed people despised her. It was the only way she could explain why the villagers of Hilo sent her from one home to the next. She never lived in one place, until a powerful mo’o, a woman from the legendary Hawaiian gecko race, trapped her deep in the heights of Waiakea.

When the handsome king of Hilo tries to help her escape, a terrible curse falls upon him. Lehua must escort him to the palace for help, even as she yearns to run away from the Big Island of Hawai‘i.

But as she spends more time with the king, her desire to escape the island begins to fade, and she sees that maybe she was wrong about people all along. Maybe people were better than she thought. When her moment to leave finally arrives, will she follow the new feelings in her heart, or choose the narrative she always believed?

Lehua is inspired by the story of Rapunzel, as well as Hawaiian mythology, folklore, and culture. Fans of clean romance and happily ever afters will be moved by Lehua, the first book in The Enchanted Hawai‘i Collection, a fairy tale retelling series set in ancient Hawaii.

“The Golden Rope” by Tanith Lee, a short story (1983) in the collection Red as Blood, or Tales from Sisters Grimmer.

How would it be if Snow White were the real villain & the wicked queen just a sadly maligned innocent? What if awakening the Sleeping Beauty should be the mistake of a lifetime–of several lifetimes? What if the famous folk tales were retold with an eye to more horrific possibilities?

Only Tanith Lee could do justice to it. In RED AS BLOOD, she displays her soaring imagination at its most fantastically mischievous. Not for nothing was the title story named as a Nebula nominee. Not for nothing was the author of THE BIRTHGRAVE & THE STORM LORD called by New York’s Village Voice, “Goddess-Empress of the Hot Read.”

Here are the world-famous tales of such as the Brothers Grimm as they might have been retold by the Sisters Grimmer! Fairy tales for children? Not on your life!

Another recommended Tanith Lee story is “Open Your Window, Golden Hair”, which is more horror, and found in her collection Redder than Blood.

In her World Fantasy Award-nominated short story collection, Red as Blood, Tanith Lee deconstructed familiar fairy tales, recapturing their original darkness and horror in haunting new interpretations. Behind gilded words and poised princesses, she exposed a sinister world of violence, madness, and dangerous enchantments.

With Redder than Blood, Lee resumes the tradition of twisting tales. Among its nineteen tales, this volume explores unnerving variations of Beauty and the Beast, The Frog Prince, Snow White, and other classics, including three never-before-published stories.

“Erana” by Robin McKinley, in the short story collection A Knot in the Grain and Other Stories. This is based on the Prunella folktale version, I think, where the witch has a son.

1 Lily. She has the power to heal, but no speech – until a mage hears words from her mind.

2 Ruen. The princess was abandoned by her uncle deep in a cave to die at the hands of a stagman – who will surprise fate.

3 Erana. Given as a babe to a witch, raised beside the witch’s troll son, she learns love comes in many forms.

4 Coral. The lovely newcomer consents to marry an older widower who soon wonders why she wants to live at Butter Hill Farm.

5 Annabelle. In the attic of their new house, the teen finds a knot that leads her on a magical mission.

Princess Floralinda and the Forty-Flight Tower by Tamsin Muir – When the witch built the forty-flight tower, she made very sure to do the whole thing properly. Each flight contains a dreadful monster, ranging from a diamond-scaled dragon to a pack of slavering goblins. Should a prince battle his way to the top, he will be rewarded with a golden sword—and the lovely Princess Floralinda.

But no prince has managed to conquer the first flight yet, let alone get to the fortieth.

In fact, the supply of fresh princes seems to have quite dried up.

And winter is closing in on Floralinda…

Next Time:

Rapunzel tales in film!

I think our last tale will be Cinderella, and then I will pause this series!

It’s been a lot of fun and I’m excited for the last one. Catch up on the whole series in the “Essays and Series” page.

Red Riding Hood in Films 1901-2024

Skip to the very bottom of this post to vote for the next tale! I’ll be doing Cinderella, Hansel and Gretel, and Rapunzel – but you tell me the order you want them in.

Hold on to your little red hats, there are a lot of Red Riding Hood films. I don’t usually include all the cartoons, but there seem to be SO MANY that I thought I would, just to show how many there are.

This one seems really popular among filmmakers in the early part of cinematic history and I wonder if it’s because it’s a good one for drama and tension but also has a moral to it that fits with the social mores of the time. “Good Girls don’t talk to Strange Men or Bad Things happen to them” is the easiest moral to draw from the tale, and has been the one emphasised by many storytellers since [at least] Charles Perrault, but as we have seen in the previous post – it’s not the only one. It’s not just about watching Bad Girls get their comeuppance, though. Méliès did not have a tragic end in his 1901 short film, but instead a victorious ending for Red Riding Hood, who is rescued in the nick of time and then shown at the end in the pose of St Michael Fighting the Dragon, skewering the wolf from her position on a pedestal of enormous galettes and butter pots, surrounded by cooking implements.1

I guess it appeals for the ‘damsel in distress’ trope in silent films being rescued from the lecherous cad antagonist by the hero, and also has scope for a bit of feisty heroine action, and can be as titillating as censorship allowed, so it’s a very simple winning formula whether animated or live action. You don’t need many cast members, the set is pretty easy to throw up in a pinch, and it’s not a complicated series of scenes to shoot. So all in all, it’s a winner? Since multiple versions came out almost every single bloody year, it would certainly seem so!

Woefully lacking in the cannibalism department here, though. Tragically underrepresented.

What I do think is interesting here is how the retellings start to diverge – while Western Europe and the USA seem to be predominantly hung up on sexual interpretations, Soviet and Eastern European animations for children/families seem to use this tale as a political allegory, either warning about the ideologies that can devour innocents, or turn it into a narrative of cooperation and coexistence, domesticating the wolf and reducing its capacity for harm. I’m including some of the descriptions here because it’s really interesting to see!

This list is not comprehensive, but here it is:

1900-1920Le Petit Chaperon Rouge/Red Riding Hood (1901) dir. Georges MélièsLittle Red Riding Hood (1911) dir. James Kirkwood, George Loane TuckerRed Riding Hood of the Hills (1914) dir. Gilbert M. Anderson – Gal from New York City heads to the Wild West on a train, gets out when the train stops for water, and it leaves without her. Shenanigans ensue. Little Red Riding Hood (1917) dir. ??? – a shadow play, silhouette acted. Little Red Riding Hood (1918) dir. Otis Thayer – live action, where a girl receives a red cape for Christmas and adopts the name ‘Red Riding Hood’, then has a dream that she is the Red Riding Hood of the folktale. 1921-1940 Little Red Riding Hood (1922) dir. Walt Disney – One of Walt Disney’s first attempts at animation. The wolf is a human cad of a man, and she is rescued by a pilot. Little Red Riding Hood (1922) dir. Anson Dyer – animated film Big Red Ridinghood (1925) dir. Leo McCarey – a caper about a man who is trying to translate the Swedish version of Red Riding Hood for educational purposes, but can’t afford to buy the book, so shenanigans ensue when the book ends up in a car, and the car is stolen. Little Red Riding Hood (1925) dir. ??? – Stop motion version (USA)Le Petit Chaperon Rouge/Little Red Riding Hood (1930) dir. Alberto Cavalcanti – the big bad wolf is a lecherous [human] tramp she meets in the woods.Red Riding Hood (1931) dir. John Foster, Harry Bailey – Animation. Some “jazz tonic” restores Grandma’s youth. When the Big Bad Wolf pays a visit, he and Grandma decide to marry on the spot; but Little Red Riding Hood finds a way to stop the wedding. Dizzy Red Riding Hood (1931) dir. Dave Fleischer – Betty Boop animation. Betty Boop goes to Grandma’s through the woods despite wolf warnings; but Bimbo follows and gives the old story a new twist. The Big Bad Wolf (1934) dir. Burt Gillett – Disney’s animation with Red Riding Hood and the Three Little Pigs. A Modern Red Riding Hood (1935) dir. Paul Terry, Frank Moser – Terrytoons animated ‘modern’ version.Красная шапочка/Little Red Riding Hood (1937) dir. Valentina Brumberg, Zinaida Brumberg – Soviet animation by ‘the grandmothers of Russian animation’, in black and white. 1941-1960 Red Riding Hood Rides Again (1941) dir. Sid Marcus – Satirical cartoon in which the wolf is prevented from eating Red Riding Hood by receiving his draft induction notice [the US had instituted a draft lottery after Pearl Harbor].Red Hot Riding Hood (1943) dir. Tex Avery – Tired of always playing the same roles, Little Red Riding Hood, her Grandmother and the Wolf demand a new version of the tale. The story then plays out in a more contemporary urban environment, with Little Red Riding Hood working as a pin-up girl in a night club.The Story of Little Red Riding Hood (1949) dir. Ray Harryhausen – Animation. Little Red Riding Hood (1950) dir. George Freedland – live action, part of the ‘World’s Greatest Fairy Tales’ series.Crvenkapica/Little Red Riding Hood (1954) dir. Nikola Kostelac – the first colour cartoon and first award-winning cartoon made in Yugoslavia. Little Red Riding Hood (1953) dir. Don Patterson – A cartoon ballet that turns out to be, and I shit you not, a Coca Cola advert?! Red Riding Hoodwinked (1955) dir. Fritz Frelang – Tweety and Sylvester cartoon. Red Riding Hood is bringing Tweety to Granny as a gift – Sylvester wants to eat Tweety, and the wolf wants to ear Red. Red Riding Hoodlum (1957) dir. Paul J. Smith – A Woody Woodpecker cartoon where Granny decides the wolf is a good prospect for matrimony and drags him off to the altar after he’s thoroughly worn out by Woody’s niece and nephew.Петя и Красная Шапочка/Petia and Little Red Riding Hood (1958) dir. Boris Stepantsev, Yevgeni Raykovsky – Soviet cartoon. A boy finds his way into the Little Red Riding Hood cartoon in order to save the girl from the Big Bad Wolf.Caperucita Roja/Little Red Riding Hood (1959) dir. Roberto Rodríguez – Family fantasy adventure, live action.Caperucita y Pulgarcito contra los monstruos/Little Red Riding Hood and Tom Thumb vs the Monsters (1960) dir. Roberto Rodríguez – I think it’s a kind of sequel to the first one, but vs the Witch Queen, a vampire, an ogre, and the wolf. 1961-1980Naše Karkulka/Our Little Red Riding Hood (1961) dir. Jiří Brdečka – Czechoslovakian cartoon version of Little Red Riding Hood. Here, Red Riding Hood’s family finds a way to take care of the wolf. Little Red Riding Hood (1965) dir. Juan Fresan, Miguel Fresan – Venezuelan short version – available here on YouTube (runtime: 16mins) The Dangerous Christmas of Little Red Riding Hood (1965) dir. Sid Smith – Cartoon musical from the wolf’s point of view.Little Red Riding Hood (1965) dir. Jack Chambers – Unreleased (?) Canadian version, filmed with marionettes at the Labatt Marionette Theatre, London, Ontario. Little Red Riding Hood (1969) dir. Rhoda Leyer – Canadian animated family-friendly cartoon.Roodkapje verteld door 160 Nederlanders/Little Red Riding Hood Told by 160 Dutch People (1976) dir. Kees Hin – Residents of the same street in Haarlem, and acquaintances and relatives of Kees Hin, together tell the story of Little Red Riding Hood, each in fifteen words.Про Красную Шапочку/About the Little Red Riding Hood (1977) dir. Leonid Nechayev – USSR fantasy live action sequel to the fairy tale.1981-2000 Little Red Riding Hood and the Wolf (1981) dir. Cassandra Einstein – the erotic version! Even the milkman gets involved! 赤ずきんちゃん/Little Red Riding Hood (1983) dir. Atsutoshi Umezawa – Japanese animation. Little Red Riding Hood (1983) dir. Graeme Clifford – fantasy TV movie in which a sheltered but adventurous young woman finds trouble when she encounters a wolf. Red Riding Hood (1989) dir. Adam Brooks – fantasy adventure, ninth entry in the Cannon Fairy Tales series. Серый волк энд Красная шапочка/The Grey Wolf & Little Red Riding Hood (1990) dir. Garri Bardin – A Soviet claymation short film created by Garri Bardin in 1990 that retells the story of Red Riding Hood while incorporating political metaphors and themes about the USSR’s demise; the wolf representing communism, devouring innocent creatures who have never known him. Red Riding Hood (1992) dir. Virginia Wilkos – children’s animation The Trial of Red Riding Hood (1992) dir. Eric Till – family fantasy adventure on ice, in which Red Riding Hood is tried for the murder of The Wolf. Little Red Riding Hood Saves the Big Bad Wolf (1993) dir. Ted V. Mikels – Short, low budget adaptation of the famed fairytale with a modern ecological twist. Little Red Riding Hood (1994) dir. Masaki Naito – dark fantasy-horror zombie fairy tale for adults with puppets. Little Red Riding Hood (1995) dir. Toshiyuki Hiruma – children’s animation Little Red Riding Hood (1995) dir. Donald Sturrock – Roald Dahl’s version, with fur suits. Watch on YouTube here. Little Red Riding Hood (1997) dir. David Kaplin – starring Christina Ricci, a dark comedy version. Redux Riding Hood (1997) dir. Steve Moore – Disney short animation. Years after failing to catch Little Red Riding Hood, the obsessed Wolf tries again. Le dernier chaperon r o uge/The Last Little Red Riding Hood (1998) dir. Jan Kounen – dark musical short film; an old red riding hood, badly injured after killing a monster many years ago, comes up with a sinister plan to dance again by taking young Red’s legs. Black XXX-Mas (1999) dir. Pieter Van Hees – 12mins – Little Red in the urban jungle, accosted by Wolfgang, a cannibalistic cop.2001-2015 Red Riding Hood Meets Frankenstein (2004) dir. Ricky Lewis Jr. – 12min short live action film. It’s Halloween night in 1947 and foreign exchange student George travels through the fog-filled forest of Transylvania where he meets Red Riding Hood at a remote bus stop. They share tales of the night that brought them there. Tales where they have met Dracula, Frankenstein’s Monster and more of the classic movie monsters. Hoodwinked! (2005) dirs. Cory Edwards, Todd Edwards, Tony Leech – comedy animation retelling. Chief Grizzly and Detective Bill Stork investigate a domestic disturbance at Granny’s cottage, involving a karate-kicking Red Riding Hood, a sarcastic wolf and an oafish Woodsman.Red Riding Hood (2006) dir. Randall Kleiser – a modern retelling of the tale with a framed narrative of a grandmother babysitting a teen girl who would rather go to the mall. Starring Henry Cavill. Big Bad Wolves (2006) dir. Rajneel Singh – Five American mobsters sit in a diner and discuss the sexual politics of the fairytale: “Little Red Riding Hood”.赤ずきんと健康/Little Red Riding Hood and Health (2007) dir. Ryo Inoue – Animation. Graduation Work of Inoue Ryo which won the Toronto Japanese Short Film Festival award in 2011. Little Red Riding Hood is eaten by a wolf and decides to help four fairies that live inside of it cure its disease. Straying Little Red Riding Hood (2008) dir. Miyako Nishio – Animation (short, 5mins runtime) Rotkäppchen: The Blood of Red Riding Hood (2009) dir. Harry Sparks – horror version, modern setting. Crvenkapa/Little Red Riding Hood (2009) dir. Zoran Tairović – A short, 26min Serbian docu-drama that takes the fable of Little Red Riding Hood and turns it into a modern and grotesque fairy tale, the baroque reflection of a dense national history that includes the Roma people; in Romansh, German and Serbian. The Red Hood (2009) dir. Danishka Esterhazy – A dark re-telling of the classic fable ‘Little Red Riding Hood’ set in the Canadian prairies during the Great Depression. Short film – 9mins runtime. Red (S) (2010) dir. Hyunjoo Song – 3mins short film. This story is about a wolf boy who loves Little Red Riding Hood. One day, the girl goes on a trip to deliver a pie to her grandma.Red Riding Hood (2011) dir. Catherine Hardwicke – glossy werewolf fantasy retelling with Amanda Seyfried and Gary Oldman, and Red Riding Hood: The Tale Begins (2011) dir. Ian Kirby – 13min short prequel to the feature film, set in Daggerhorn 20 years before the events of the film. Crvenkapica, još jedna/Little Red Riding Hood, Once More (2012) dir. Ana Horvat – 1min short animation, in which a distracted Little Red Riding Hood loses the food basket on the way to Grandma. Having observed this, the Wolf retrieves the basket, delivers it to Grandma and the two have a good laugh about the event. Little Red Riding Hood (2015) dir. Rene Perez – fantasy horror version of the tale. Little Red Riding Hood & The Big Bad Wolf (2015) – Lyric Theatre production, Ireland. Everyone knows the story of Little Red Riding Hood. But who has ever thought about the real events behind the story? Where Rosie’s dear old Granny lived, for instance, and whether the Big Bad Wolf was really killed by the Woodsman. Certainly not the ramshackle troupe of travelling actors who roll into a town in the middle of nowhere one day to perform their take on the story. Nothing seems to be going right for them, but they have no idea just how bad things are about to get.2016-2022 Lon Po Po: A Red-Riding Hood Story from China (2016) dirs. Ed Mironiuk, Kris Tercek – animation combining ancient Chinese panel art techniques with a contemporary palette of watercolors and pastels to tell the story of Lon Po Po, the wolf pretending to be the children’s grandmother (a variant of ‘The Wolf and the Kids‘ folktale).Червона шапочка/Little Red Riding Hood (2016) dir. Anatolii Surma – short Ukrainian animated film (5mins runtime). Crvenkapica redux/Red Riding Hood Redux (2017) dir. Danijel Žeželj – Croatian short animation in a post-industrial setting. O Červené Karkulce/Little Red Riding Hood (2018) dir. Martina Holcová – short 5min animation in which the wolf tries to trick Red, but she deftly grabs the wolf, introduces it to her grandmother, and soon turns it into a pet. Rotkäppchen/Little Red Riding Hood (2018) dir. Lynn Oona Baur – an 8min short anti-propaganda dystopian film. Year 2032. Ten-year old Luise and her mother Anna live in Germany, a totalitarian state. When a school theatre play, with Luise involved, turns into a brutal propaganda campaign, Anna recognizes the need to protect her daughter. But it might be too late. Red Riding Hood: After Ever After (2022) dir. Tracey Rooney – Fifty years after her legendary brush with the wolf, an adult Red Riding Hood and her granddaughter face a new lupine problem.Красная Шапочка/Red Riding Hood (2022) dir. Artyom Aksenenko, Aleksandr Barshak, Lina Arifulina – modern Russian fantasy retelling: Saving her city from the wolves, Little Red Riding Hood will have to solve the mystery of the disappearance of her father Wolfboy, face her fears in the eyes and find her destiny.More Retellings/Reimaginings

I find the shifts towards ecological allegory, saving/domesticating/coexisting with the wolf really interesting, especially where they pick up steam from the 1990s on. Equally, I like the films with Red Riding Hood vibes, where she’s the one who turns out to be the wolf – very Angela Carter. Speaking of whom, I have not forgotten her, I’ve put The Company of Wolves (1984) down below, in the list of films that aren’t exactly direct adaptations of the films. I don’t think Ginger Snaps really counts, as not all werewolf films are Little Red Riding Hood. Dog Soldiers 100% is though, and I won’t change my mind. Plus – there are so many! So many possibilities.

Punahilkka (1968) dir. Timo Bergholm – Tells the story of young Anja, a teenage girl living in an approved school (otherwise known as a reform school), and the problems she faces in the outside world after running away.

赤頭巾ちゃん気をつけて/Take Care, Red Riding Hood (1970) dir. Shirō Moritani – Japanese social commentary feature film (live action).

A high-schooler involved in turn-of-the-decade student movements works to escape his comfort zone and apply himself.

Red Riding Hood (1973) dir. Joan Kemp-Welch – A repressed junior librarian, frustrated with looking after her sick father, finds herself drawn into a dangerous relationship with the man who might have murdered her mean-spirited grandmother.

Possibly in Michigan (1983) dir. Cecelia Condit – 12mins short film. A musical horror story about two young women who are stalked through a shopping mall by the cannibal named Arthur. He follows them home, and here the victims become the aggressors.

Watch on YouTube.

The Company of Wolves (1984) dir. Neil Jordan – An adaptation of Angela Carter’s fairy tales. Young Rosaleen dreams of a village in the dark woods, where Granny tells her cautionary tales in which innocent maidens are tempted by wolves who are hairy on the inside. As Rosaleen grows into womanhood, will the wolves come for her too?

Bye Bye, Chaperon Rouge/Bye Bye, Red Riding Hood (1989) dir. Márta Mészáros – Fanny lives in the forest with her meteorologist mother. One day on her way across the forest to visit her grandmother and great grandmother, she has three encounters that will change her life forever: an apparently kind and gentle wolf, a city boy and an ornithologist who bears a striking resemblance to the father who long ago abandoned her and her mother.

Freeway (1996) dir. Matthew Bright – A twisted take on “Little Red Riding Hood”, with a teenage juvenile delinquent on the run from a social worker traveling to her grandmother’s house and being hounded by a charming, but sadistic, serial killer and pedophile.

Freeway II: Confessions of a Trickbaby is a loose Hansel and Gretel inspired movie!

人狼 JIN-ROH/Jin-Roh: The Wolf Brigade (1999) dir. Hiroyuki Okiura – A member of an elite paramilitary counter-terrorism unit becomes traumatized after witnessing the suicide bombing of a young girl and is forced to undergo retraining. However, unbeknownst to him, he becomes a key player in a dispute between rival police divisions, as he finds himself increasingly involved with the sister of the girl he saw die.

Promenons-nous dans les bois/Deep in the Woods (2000) dir. Lionel Delplanque – A group of artists, composed of the young actors Wilfried and Matthieu and the actresses Sophie, Mathilde and the dumb Jeanne, is hired by a millionaire, Axel de Fersen, to present a performance of Little Red Riding Hood in his isolated castle to celebrate the birthday of his grandson. Meanwhile, the police advises that a serial killer is raping and killing young women in the woods around that area. During the night, the group feels trapped and threatened in the castle, guessing who is and where might be the killer.

Dog Soldiers (2002) dir. Neil Marshall – Not every werewolf film is Red Riding Hood, but there’s a wood, wolves, and a cottage in this one, so it counts. Plus, it’s my favourite werewolf film – Howl is also up there, but I can’t claim that as a RRH movie I don’t think. Although it’s strangers on a train in a forest. So… maybe.

A squad of British soldiers on training in the lonesome Scottish wilderness find a wounded Special Forces captain and the remains of his team. As they encounter zoologist Megan, it turns out that werewolves are active in the region. They have to prepare for some action as the there will be a full moon tonight…

Red Riding Hood (2003) dir. Giacomo Cimini – A retelling of the classic tale, with Red as a psychotic teenage vigilante.

Little Erin Merryweather (2003) dir. David Morwick – Local golden boy Peter Bloom investigates grisly murders as the stakes grow higher and the body count mounts. Suddenly, Peter’s search becomes a fight for survival in a fairy tale world full of nightmares. A low-budget Red Riding Hood slasher.

Hard Candy (2005) dir. David Slade – STRANGERS SHOULDN’T TALK TO LITTLE GIRLS.

Hayley’s a smart, charming teenage girl. Jeff’s a handsome, smooth fashion photographer. An Internet chat, a coffee shop meet-up, an impromptu fashion shoot back at Jeff’s place. Jeff thinks it’s his lucky night. He’s in for a surprise.

A Wicked Tale (2005) dir. Tzang Merwyn Tong – A Wicked Tale is a 45min thriller based on the story of the Little Red Riding Hood, a tale about manipulation, seduction and innocence lost.

Kdopak by se vlka bál/Who’s Afraid of the Wolf (2008) dir. Maria Procházková – A 6 year-old girl is transfixed by the Little Red Riding Hood story, which her mother dutifully recounts every night. The tale’s themes of identity confusion and betrayal mirror her own story – who her real mother is and a potential love triangle implicating both her parents.

Molina’s Ferozz/Ferozz: The Wild Red Riding Hood (2010) dir. Jorge Molina – Cuban film, Spanish language.

A young, attractive widow is protected from her vicious mother-in-law, by a male relative who practices Satanism, and lusts after the old woman’s sexy adolescent granddaughter.

Red: Werewolf Hunter (2010) dir. Sheldon Wilson – The modern-day descendant of Little Red Riding Hood brings her fiancé home to meet her family and reveal their occupation as werewolf hunters, but after he is bitten by a werewolf, she must protect him from her own family.

本当はエロいグリム童話 レッド・スウォード/Red Sword (2012) dir. Naoyuki Tomomatsu – Sexy sword-fighter Beniko battles a pack of lecherous wolf-men in this “pinku eiga” version of the Little Red Riding Hood fairy tale.

Rauða Hettan/Trials of the Red Hood (2013) dir. Sam Mardon – Based on the Gothic fairytale of Red Riding Hood and Norse mythology, ‘Trials of the Red Hood’ is an Icelandic language, (English subbed), Science Fiction short that follows a young woman on her journey and through her trials to find a way to save her home planet from the Second Ragnarok.

Rotkäppchen: eine Erzählung von Blut und Tod/Little Red Riding Hood: A Tale of Blood and Death (2013) dirs. Martin Czaja, Florian von Bornstädt – When Markus finds a filthy girl in front of his house and takes her into his flat, his wife Annika quickly realizes something must be wrong with her. She does not feel comfortable with the idea of having her in the flat for the night and is proved right. The girl knows details about the couple she could not and should not know and starts an unnatural mind game, which goes far beyond rationality and must come to a bloody conclusion.

A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night (2014) dir. Ana Lily Amirpour – this was suggested as a Red Riding Hood is the Wolf type story, and I see it, so I’ve included it here.

In the Iranian ghost-town Bad City, a place that reeks of death and loneliness, the townspeople are unaware they are being stalked by a lonesome vampire.

Into The Woods (2014) dir. Rob Marshall – Based on the musical.

In a woods filled with magic and fairy tale characters, a baker and his wife set out to end the curse put on them by their neighbor, a spiteful witch.

곡성/The Wailing (2016) dir. Na Hong-jin – This is another suggestion for something preying on children, I’m not sure this fits so well, but I’m including it as a suggestion!

A stranger arrives in a little village and soon after a mysterious sickness starts spreading. A policeman is drawn into the incident and is forced to solve the mystery in order to save his daughter.

Little Dead Rotting Hood (2016) dir. Jared Cohn – The residents of a small town discover that something more sinister than killer wolves is lurking in the backwoods: first the wolves start turning up dead…then people.

Roh/Soul (2019) dir. Emir Ezwan – I wasn’t sure about The Wailing, but it made me think of Roh, which I really enjoyed and definitely has the child in the jungle going on, and the hunter/woodcutter character arriving to (maybe) save the day. Malaysian folk horror, slowburn, I thought really worth it.

Cut off from civilisation, a single mother puts her children on high alert when they bring home a young girl caked in clay. She tells of spirits and spirit hunters, but these are not mere superstitions. As more strangers show up on her doorstep, she quickly finds another reason to fear the forest.

Next Time: Vote Below!

I’ll be doing these 3 tales in the poll below and then stopping for a while, so choose which of the following three you fancy next.

Eating Granny (in Print)

Little Red Riding Hood

This tale is a classic ‘stranger danger’ warning, never to stray from the path, not to disobey your elders, or by doing so you imperil yourself and other vulnerable members of your community. But in some versions, apparently, the other danger is – you guessed it – accidental cannibalism.

Who added this in?

If you guessed Italy, Austria and/or France: correct on all three counts. In these versions, Little Red is tricked by the wolf/werewolf/ogre into eating her grandmother’s flesh and drinking her blood, before being devoured herself while naked in bed with the hairy monster. Sometimes she escapes, naked, under the pretext of needing to do her business outside.

These versions are much more interesting to me – and the ‘straying from the path’ element almost completely disappears.

All of these versions are pretty old: the related folktale, ‘The Wolf and the Kids’, was circulating in Europe and the Middle East about 1000 years before the Brothers Grimm recorded their version in 1812, and there are at least 58 versions of this tale/Red Riding Hood identified around the world. The Brothers Grimm recorded a version of The Wolf and the Kids too, and by 1812 it’s hard not to see the racialised aspects of the story with the wolf using flour to whiten his black paw to trick the goats.

When wolves (and bears, and other large predators) were prevalent across Europe in the 9thC, it’s hard to tell how far this is a lunar myth* (as proposed by A. H. Wratislaw in 1889, which is… highly dubious) and how far it’s literally a story to tell your children because THERE ARE ACTUAL FUCKING WOLVES, KIDS. THEY WILL EAT YOU. DO NOT BE STUPID. DO YOU KNOW WHAT THE AVERAGE LIFE EXPECTANCY IS? NOT HIGH. Later, much later, after all the real wolves were far less of a danger to civilised urban society, the tale can take on metaphorical dimensions and moralise about the dangers of young ladies being preyed upon by young men, rather than by actual four-legged predators.

*On it being a lunar myth – this is peak 19thC scholars making wild cross-leaps and assumptions to connect various dots, so take this with several tablespoons of salt, but A. H. Wratislaw attempts to say that as the moon is feminine in some cultures, this is related to an eclipse (red being the colour of the blood moon) and also linking it to Ragnarok. This is a bit of a mess, so here’s the note to show you the full extent of the “slam a load of stuff together and hope for the best” approach of this kind of scholarship, with thanks to the UPenn site linked here.

Note by Wratslaw:”Little Red Hood,” like many folklore tales, is a singular mixture of myth and morality. In Cox’s Comparative Mythology, vol. ii., p. 831, note, Little Redcap, or Little Red Riding Hood, is interpreted as “the evening with her scarlet robe of twilight,” who is swallowed up by the wolf of darkness, the Fenris of the Edda. It appears to me that this explanation may suit the color of her cap or hood, but is at variance with the other incidents of the story. I am inclined to look upon the tale as a lunar legend, although the moon is only actually red during one portion of the year, at the harvest moon in the autumn. Red Hood is represented as wandering, like Io, who is undoubtedly the moon, through trees, the clouds, and flowers, the stars, before she reaches the place where she is intercepted by the wolf. An eclipse to untutored minds would naturally suggest the notion that some evil beast was endeavoring to devour the moon, who is afterwards rescued by the sun, the archer of the heavens, whose bow and arrow are by a common anachronism represented in the story by a gun. Though the moon is masculine in Slavonic, as in German, yet she is a lady, “my lady Luna,” in the Croatian legend no. 53, below [“The Daughter of the King of the Vilas”]. In the Norse mythology, when Loki is let loose at the end of the world, he is to “hurry in the form of a wolf to swallow the moon ” (Cox ii., p. 200). The present masculine Slavonic word for moon, which is also that for month, mesic, or mesec, is a secondary formation, the original word having perished. In Greek and Latin the moon is always feminine.

Got all that? Fantastic. Norse, Greek, Slavonic, all the same thing, no dramas. Moving on.

These cautionary tales appear across a lot of different cultures – anywhere there are dangerous predators, there is a need to instill caution into the young. Dr Jaime Tehrani’s research suggests that they are all evolved versions from ‘The Wolf and the Kids’, as Red Riding Hood is, that got merged with other tales in their respective areas and so developed lives of their own. One of the earliest recorded is an 11thC poem from Belgium, in which a girl in a red baptism cloak encountered a wolf in the forest. In China/Japan/Korea, there are variants of the Tiger Grandmother (another translation of this is here). Taiwan has the story of the Aunt Tiger (and different versions exist of this too!). There are versions across the African continent too, but I’m struggling to find English translations and free to access ones! If you can find them, please let me know and I’ll edit and link.

In the Grimm Brothers’ version, Little Red Cap, there are two endings – one where the woodcutter cuts the wolf open to let the devoured girl and her grandmother escape the belly of the beast, and one where the girl and her grandmother trick the wolf into drowning himself in a trough.

Charles Perrault’s version moralises on the perils awaiting young ladies who take up with strange young men, echoed by Andrew Lang in his Fairy Book series.

But you can always trust Italy for the curveball. Do you remember the cannibalism in Sleeping Beauty? It’s back! In the Italian (and Austrian, so Northern Italy?) versions of this tale, it’s not a wolf, but an ogre, who as we all know, enjoys human flesh. So when Little Red Hat arrives at Granny’s, the ogre has replaced the latch with Granny’s intestines. After letting herself in, despite pulling on something … weirdly soft, Little Red Hat is hungry and thirsty. So the ogre (posing as her grandmother) gives her “rice” (her grandmother’s teeth) and pieces of red meat (her grandmother’s jaws) and “wine” (Granny’s blood). Then the ogre tells her to take her clothes off and get into bed with him…. and then he devours Little Red Hat.

Italy also has the tale of Cattarinetta, who is eaten by a witch, not a wolf, and who is also her own aunt, but thankfully not obliged to eat her own grandmother (the aunt’s mother??) beforehand. Granny isn’t in this story – the girl eats the cake intended for her aunt, so swaps it for a cow pat with a brown crust (lovely) which… is very unwise. She leaves the pan (and cow pat contents) outside her aunt’s house, then runs home and gets eaten anyway when her aunt follows her and gets her in her own bedroom.

The French version, ‘The Grandmother‘, collected around 1870 by folklorist Achille Millien (1838-1927), has a bzou (werewolf), who does the same thing – eats the grandmother and puts her blood in a bottle and her flesh in the pantry, and the girl is tricked into eating and drinking it. In this version a cat says, “For shame! The slut is eating her grandmother’s flesh and drinking her grandmother’s blood.” She doesn’t seem to hear the cat, though, and burns her clothes as she undresses (the bzou tells her to) and gets into bed. She discovers the deception in the usual formulaic call-and-response fashion, and then says she needs to urinate/defecate (it varies). She goes outside to do it, and runs away naked, thus escaping the bzou.

Another version of this tale has her escape with the help of the other women in the village, and the laundresses help her cross the river but trick the bzou into drowning.

This version has the the charming wolf man as its antagonist as opposed to an actual wolf or ogre, but one that is tricked by the girl (and other women) without the aid of a passing (male) hunter or woodcutter.

I find this version the most interesting, unsurprisingly.

Since the queer experience is often about straying from the path as a necessity to finding one’s self and place in the world, retellings and reimaginings have to reckon with this, and consider the tensions between different elements of this story. There are a few queer retellings that subvert the story with this in mind, as well as some feminist retellings where Red gains sexual awakening and retains her agency, and in some (e.g. Angela Carter), becomes the wolf.

But in some versions of the story, it’s not about whether Red stays on the path at all, it’s what happens to her at the end of her journey, and who and what she becomes. In these versions, what’s most interesting about this story is the consumption, and what lies under the grandmother’s disguise.

Retellings don’t have to have anything to do with gender or sexuality, in fact – this is just as much a tale about a young person discovering something monstrous about an adult they trusted, and/or finding out that the same monstrosity lurks within them; that they’ve imbibed it without realising, and now they’re consumed by the same darkness. This, to me, is even more interesting than the sexual readings of the story.

This could instead be a tale of generational trauma and the assimilation (or impending destruction) of future generations by/with their elders – Encanto (2021) dirs. Byron Howard & Jared Bush, arguably has these themes with a hopeful, optimistic end, and they also show up in German sporror Das Privileg – Die Auserwählten/The Privilege (2022) dirs. Felix Fuchssteiner & Katharina Schöde.

Revisioning the lesson of Red Riding Hood is something that Anisha Sen considers in this open access article for the IJCRT (International Journal of Creative Research Thoughts), and it’s worth a read!

Recommendations

This article in Reactor Mag is definitely worth a read! The Goodreads list is here. You can read a few diverse retellings on Corvid Queen here. Epic Reads has a list of 10 YA retellings here.

Here are ones that I’ve got on my TBR, and that have been recommended by you! Again, thanks to everyone who chimed in with suggestions. I’ve found loads of great stories and new authors to read. This list features a whole range of things, from books for younger readers to a NSFW RPG!

Hamra and the Jungle of Memories by Hanna Alkaf – A Malaysian spin on Little Red Riding Hood from the critically acclaimed author of The Girl and the Ghost, Hanna Alkaf.

Courage is the strongest magic there is.

On Hamra’s thirteenth birthday, she receives nothing but endless nagging and yet another errand to run in the Langkawi jungle that looms behind her home.

No one has remembered her special day.

And so, stifled and angry, Hamra ignores something she shouldn’t: the rules of the jungle.

Always ask permission before you enter. Hamra walks boldly in.

Never take what isn’t yours. Hamra finds the most perfect jambu and picks it.

Of course, rules exist for a reason, and soon an enormous weretiger is stalking her dreams, demanding payment for her crimes–and Hamra embarks on a quest deep into the jungle to set things right.

For fans of Ikegna and A Tale Dark and Grimm comes a story of a brave heroine, a beguiling villain, fantastical worlds, magical adventures, and a journey that will remind you that hope, friendship, and love endures all.

Crimson by Brian Augustyn and Humberto Ramos – Recommended as the vampire hunters are kinda Red Riding Hood inspired!

The complete Crimson series, from  Humberto Ramos (Amazing Spider-Man) and Brian Augustyn (Batman: Gotham By Gaslight), collected all together for the first time ever!

Alex Elder isn’t your average teenager. Or at least not anymore.

After being attacked by a gang of vampires, strange powers and abilities have taken over his life. Put in the care of Ekimus, the last of an ancient species pre-dating mankind, Alex must learn to embrace his destiny as “the Chosen One.” Tasked with bringing an end to the vampires, he will find that there are much scarier things that go bump in the night.

Collecting the complete twenty-four issue series by Humberto Ramos (Amazing Spider-Man)  and Brian Augustyn (Batman: Gotham By Gaslight), with Scarlet X: Blood on the Moon and the Crimson SourceBook. In one prestigious hardcover omnibus, this is the book fans have been waiting for.  

“The Red Cloak” by Vanessa Fogg in Truancy Magazine (Issue 6, October 2019). I loved this short story, it’s one of generational trauma and complex family dynamics. I really appreciated these themes and the way the story blends with other fairy tale motifs and images. Really recommend giving this one a read!

Red, The Wolf, and the Woods by Scarlett Gale – A hardworking farmer who moonlights as a dog trainer, Red longs for her brothers to step it up on the family farm so she can get a whole five minutes of uninterrupted time to herself.

When her grandma calls down with a delivery request, Red jumps at the chance to go visit the house in the woods she loves so much. No farm chores and a good hike? It’s basically the perfect day! …right until a wolf walks out of the woods and asks if he can join her.

Sound familiar? Red, the Wolf, and the Woods is a playful, modern take on the classic fairy tale, with a steamy romance at its core. Take some time away from your daily grind to join Red on a flirty, feral adventure!

Red Darkling by L. A. Guettler – Red Darkling’s ship is a weevil-infested piece of junk. Her smuggling business barely brings in enough credits to buy cheap beer. Alien creeps think a blaster can get them favors when their charm fails. Her only company is a glitchy cat and the occasional hook-up.

Her life is dirty, dangerous, and lonely: just how she likes it.

It all takes a turn for the worse when things start going well. A little too well. Partying with movie stars, weekends in paradise, troublesome people turning up dead—it’s maddening.

Who is this anonymous benefactor, and why does he think she needs protecting?

The Girl in Red by Christina Henry – A postapocalyptic take on the perennial classic “Little Red Riding Hood”, about a woman who isn’t as defenseless as she seems.

It’s not safe for anyone alone in the woods. There are predators that come out at night: critters and coyotes, snakes and wolves. But the woman in the red jacket has no choice. Not since the Crisis came, decimated the population, and sent those who survived fleeing into quarantine camps that serve as breeding grounds for death, destruction, and disease. She is just a woman trying not to get killed in a world that doesn’t look anything like the one she grew up in, the one that was perfectly sane and normal and boring until three months ago.

There are worse threats in the woods than the things that stalk their prey at night. Sometimes, there are men. Men with dark desires, weak wills, and evil intents. Men in uniform with classified information, deadly secrets, and unforgiving orders. And sometimes, just sometimes, there’s something worse than all of the horrible people and vicious beasts combined.

Red doesn’t like to think of herself as a killer, but she isn’t about to let herself get eaten up just because she is a woman alone in the woods….

Crimson Bound by Rosamund Hodge – When Rachelle was fifteen she was good—apprenticed to her aunt and in training to protect her village from dark magic. But she was also reckless— straying from the forest path in search of a way to free her world from the threat of eternal darkness. After an illicit meeting goes dreadfully wrong, Rachelle is forced to make a terrible choice that binds her to the very evil she had hoped to defeat.

Three years later, Rachelle has given her life to serving the realm, fighting deadly creatures in an effort to atone. When the king orders her to guard his son Armand—the man she hates most—Rachelle forces Armand to help her find the legendary sword that might save their world. As the two become unexpected allies, they uncover far-reaching conspiracies, hidden magic, and a love that may be their undoing. In a palace built on unbelievable wealth and dangerous secrets, can Rachelle discover the truth and stop the fall of endless night?

“Riding the Red” by Nalo Hopkinson in her collection Skin Folk – Nalo Hopkinson’s retelling is discussed and compared with another Red Riding Hood story of hers, “Red Rider” in this essay (free to access via Open Edition Journals).

Award-winning author Nalo Hopkinson’s first collection is Skin Folk, and its 15 stories are as strong and beautiful as her novels.

“The Glass Bottle Trick” retells the Bluebeard legend in a Caribbean setting and rhythms, for a sharp, chilling examination of love, gender, race, and class. In the myth-tinged “Money Tree,” a Canadian immigrant’s greed sends him back to Jamaica in pursuit of an accursed pirate treasure. In “Slow Cold Chick,” a woman must confront the deadly cockatrice that embodies her suppressed desires. In the postapocalyptic science fantasy “Under Glass,” events in one world affect those in another, and a child’s carelessness may doom them both. The lightest of fantastic imagery touches “Fisherman,” a tropically hot tale of sexual awakening, and one of the five original stories in Skin Folk. –Cynthia Ward

“Red Writing Hood” by Lesh Karan – a poem in Strange Horizons (November 2023)

(I keep getting a “not secure” message for the Strange Horizons site, but it seems to be the correct one. You may want to search for yourself, but the link I have is the direct link to this poem.)

“The Wolf and the Woodsman” by T. Kingfisher, episode 416 of Cast of Wonders. The audio and text is available at the link!

“Lupe” by Kathe Koja in Swan Sister: Fairy Tales Retold, eds. Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling.

Rachel Ayres writes this summary for Reactor Mag: “In this retelling, the grandmother in the woods isn’t Red’s grandma; rather she is Old Blanca, known to be a witch, and Red is Lupe, a young woman whose family is struggling to bear the loss of her little brother Teodoro. Her mother withdraws into grief, and Lupe finds solace in the forest, where she can sit for hours and watch the animals play, avoiding her older brother and her parents’ heavy silence. When her mother bids her go to Old Blanca, Lupe accepts that challenge, no longer frightened by the forest, and although she does meet a kind of wolf as part of this challenge, Old Blanca is pleased by her courage and persistence, and grants their family a healing boon. The encounter changes Lupe and although she sheds some of her childhood innocence along the way, she also grows into a smarter and kinder woman because of her experience.”

Once Ever After (NSFW) an RPG by Sierra Lee – Everyone knows how the story goes: innocent, 18-year-old Red Riding Hood goes into the woods and is corrupted by the naughty, naughty Big Bad Wolf. Ingrid is the newest Little Red Riding Hood: she doesn’t know what awaits her in the dark woods, but she knows that it seems exciting.

But Ingrid’s world is only one of an infinite number of Tales, and those stories are starting to bleed over into one another. War is coming, and Ingrid doesn’t even know what war is. Nothing will ever be the same, and the only weapon Ingrid has to face the changes is sexy fun.

FeaturesA 20-30 hour RPG across multiple alternate fairy tales.20+ base scenes with 150+ images total.30+ chibi images illustrating cute plot moments.All characters have access to multiple classes and skill trees that can be mixed and matched.Visible enemies instead of random encounters.Modern quality of life features like autosave slots.Quest log to organize required and optional content.Optional post-game challenges leading to second ending.

#NotAllWolves by Kelsi Long – a free to read short story on Corvid Queen.

CONTENT NOTE: discussion of sexual harassment.

Of Snow and Scarlet by Katherine McDonald – A Little Red Riding Hood Retelling.

An outcast with a proclivity for poisons, Andesine De Winter longs for a life outside her closed-minded village. But she’s drawn to the surrounding forests of Thornwood, and the mysterious white wolf that saved her life as a child.

When the wolf reveals himself as the shape-changing Finn, an omega hiding from his former pack, Andesine finds herself in the middle of a conflict that threatens everything she holds dear—her dreams, her family, and the boy she’s given her heart to.

There is more than one way to lose yourself, and more than one kind of wolf in the woods…

NB: This book is suitable for older teens and adults, with some sexual content

“Roja” by Anna-Marie McLemore in All Out, a queer anthology ed. Saundra Mitchell.

Anna-Marie McLemore writes this about her story: ““Roja” began as a reimagining of the story of Leonarda Emilia, better known as La Carambada, the legendary Mexican outlaw who flashed her breasts at the rich men she robbed, so they would know without a doubt that they’d been bested by a woman. But along the way, my imagining of La Carambada wandered, as my stories often do, into the realm of fairy tale. My Emilia became a Mexican version of Little Red Riding Hood. The Wolf emerged as a transgender French soldier who garners his own fierce reputation. The forbidding woods became the hills of Mexico in the 1870s, a country in the aftermath of a brutal war.

Maybe the Frenchman the real Leonarda Emilia loved wasn’t a transgender soldier. Maybe most people don’t think of a Mexican girl when they imagine Little Red Riding Hood. But for the time it took me to write “Roja,” I got to imagine both Red and La Carambada as both queer and Latina. Writing “Roja” made these stories feel like they belonged to girls like me.”

What You Are and the Wolf by Jae Steinbacher – in Lightspeed magazine, Issue 161, Oct 2023.

A really good short story about personal choices, autonomy, and so much more. Really liked this one.

“Little Red” by Jane Yolen and Adam Stemple, in the Cursed anthology ed. Marie O’Regan and Paul Kane.

Rachel Ayres writes this summary for Reactor Mag: “This gut-wrenching contemporary retelling takes place in a psychiatric ward, where our young protagonist, Little Red, turns inward, desperately seeking to escape the abusive horrors of the facility. Wolves and grandmothers are equal threats, and as Red journeys further into her own mind, she finds a wolf at the core of her being…and this wolf is on her side. Told in Yolen’s masterful prose, with imagery and symbolism drawn from the oldest known versions of the story, this one will haunt you.”

Publisher Cover Reveal!

Canelo Books did their cover reveal today for the reissue of The Crows on their social media and it would be great if people could like, share and comment to help boost it on the algorithm!

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Canelo (@canelo_co)

You can find the preorder link here: https://www.canelo.co/books/the-crows-c-m-rosens/

Please link and share it to help boost the pre-order campaign! There is a special pre-order discount price available. I’m hoping that it will reach a lot more people than I was able to reach on my own, and it’s also going to make the print copy more accessible so people can buy it without going via Amazon.

If you know book groups (on social media/online/or irl) or anyone who would be interested in reading:

Gothic horror set in modern England Creepy coastal town with dark, paranormal secretsHaunted house with a mind of its ownAsexual antivillain / doomed, traumatised protagonistCWs & reviews on Storygraph and my site page

then feel free to pass the links on.

Thank you!

CMR

Sleeping Beauty in Cinema 1903-2023

There are A LOT of Sleeping Beauty films, and most of them, unsurprisingly, are French and German. There are also a few horror and drama films that I think might count as related, but I’ve thrown in other films as well, like the adaptations of the Japanese novella The House of Sleeping Beauties (1961) by Yasunari Kawabata, which I didn’t find in time for the previous post.

The concept of this novella honestly makes my skin crawl, but it’s not a horror novella I think? It’s actually esoteric erotica, which is my personal kind of horror, to be honest. As is now tradition, I’ve kept the whole list loose and contentious, so enjoy!

Anyway, here we go. You will find these in the second section of this post, after the list of direct(ish) adaptations of the fairytale 1903-2023, which include filmed versions of the ballet.

Sleeping Beauty Adaptations

Here’s a list of adaptations of the fairytale from 1903, the earliest short silent film I can find, up to a 2023 version of the ballet. This also includes Disney’s live action Maleficent duology and an erotic version. Genuinely surprised that the 1970s didn’t bless us with a million soft porn versions of this tale, but I guess they were busy making all the kids animations? Maybe they did. Again, I’m not looking too hard. The ‘esoteric erotica’ premise of The House of the Sleeping Beauties is still haunting me. Ironically, I actually wrote a scene like this in The Crows, and it remains [for me] the most uncomfortable scene I’ve written.

La Belle au Bois Dormant (1903) dir. Lucien Nonguet and Ferdinand Zecca La Belle au Bois Dormant (1908) dir. Albert Capellani, Lucien Nonguet (early short silent film, watch it on YouTube colourised, here, or here.) Dornröschen (1917) dir. Paul Leni La Belle au Bois Dormant (1922) dir. Stéphane Passet La Belle au Bois Dormant (1935) dir. Alexandre Alexeieff (French stop motion) Dornröschen (1943) dir. Ferdinand Diehl (German stop motion) Prinsessa Ruusunen (1949) dir. Edvin Laine The Sleeping Beauty (1954) dir. Lotte Reininger La Belle au Bois Dormant (1954) dir. Pierre Badel Dornröschen /Sleeping Beauty (1955) dir. Fritz Genschow Sleeping Beauty (1959) dir. Eric Larson, Wolfgang Reitherman, Clyde Geronimi, Les Clark (the Disney animation set, allegedly, in the 14thC) Dornröschen (1965) dir. Fritz Zecha (TV movie) Dornröschen (1968) dir. Katja Georgi (East German stop motion) Dornröschen /Sleeping Beauty (1971) dir. Walter Beck The Sleeping Beauty (1972) – Rudolf Nureyev’s choreography, film of the ballet Jak se budí princezny/How To Wake A Princess (1978) dir. Václav Vorlíček Sleeping Beauty (1981) dir. David Irving (live action musical) Dornröschen /Sleeping Beauty (1990) dir. Stanislav PárnickýSleeping Beauty (1995) dir. Toshiyuki Hiruma, Takashi Masunaga (animation) Dornröschen (1996) dir. Wolfram Seeger (TV movie) Dornröschen (1999) dir. Hannelore Hermsdorf, Dieter SchmidtRudolf Nureyev’s Sleeping Beauty (2000) dir. Hugues R. Gall (filmed version of the ballet) Dornröschen (2008) dir. Arend AgtheDornröschen (2009) dir. Oliver Dieckmann La belle endormie /The Sleeping Beauty (2010) dir. Catherine BreillatDer 7bte Zwerg/The Seventh Dwarf (2014) dir. Boris Aljinovic, Harald Siepermann (animation – yes it’s about Sleeping Beauty/Rose and not about Snow White) Sleeping Beauty (2014) dir. Casper Van Dien Maleficent (2014) dir. Robert Stromberg Sleeping Beauties (2017) dir. Dean McKendrick (the erotic modern retelling where she wakes up and embarks on her sexual adventures with m/f after being asleep for 400yrs)Maleficent: Mistress of Evil (2019) dir. Joachim RønningLa Belle au Bois Dormant: Ballet en un Acte (2023) dir. Isabelle Julien (unsure what this is: going off the title/poster, I think a film version of the ballet for TV)Films with Sleeping Beauty Themes

A lot of these are erotic drama, or dark/horror, or have CWs for rape, or a combination. It’s a ride, friends. There’s definitely a CW for attempted suicide in The Past/Le Passé, and I think it’s best to check doesthedogdie.com for all of them.

Les belles au bois dormantes/Versatile Lovers (1970) dir. Pierre Chenal – I’m not sure that this shares much with the tale except the title; it’s also called Les Libertines, and Les Bellas del Bosque.
Isabelle (Marisa Mell) runs a nursing home for wealthy women who are trying to detox from their various obsessions. Her lover, Serge Belaiev (Robert Hossein), a petty gangster, has pulled off a big hit but his partners have denounced him to the police in order to appropriate his share of the loot. Isabelle takes him in and hides him in an attic of this strange house. In love with Isabelle, Philippe Lansac (Alberto Dalbes), the owner of the place, decides to close the castle…

Some Call It Loving (1973) dir. James B. Harris – A woman who’s been asleep for years is part of a carnival that sells her kisses for a buck. A lonely jazz musician buys her. Once awake, the two of them and his two girlfriends hook up. But sometimes, dreams are better than reality.

眠れる美女/House of the Sleeping Beauties (1995) dir. Hiroto Yokoyama – [Also adapted by Spain and Germany in the 00s, because of course it fucking was] About an establishment where old men pay to sleep besides young girls that had been narcotized and happen to be naked, the sleeping beauties. The old men are expected to take sleeping pills and share the bed for a whole night with a girl without attempting anything of bad taste like putting a finger inside their mouths. [This is the actual description and I’m both deeply intrigued and crawling out of my skin]

This one was remade as Nemureru bijo (2007) dir. Akemi Tachibana.

Sleeping Beauties (1999) dir. Jaime Babbit – YOU MAKE A CORPSE LOOK WARM. A morgue beautician is trying to get over her ex-girlfriend. 13mins short lesbian film.

Bellas Durmientes (2001) dir. Eloy Lozano – [adaptation of the Japanese novella and its 1995 Japanese film version] Lawrence, a renowned writer, comes to Santiago to spend the winter. There, by his colleague Elijah, he finds a very special house on the outskirts of the city, run by a secretive and mysterious woman, Salome. In this house, older men spend the night with young sleeping women, seeking to regain their lost youth.

Jason X (2001) dir. James Isaac – EVIL HAS AN UPGRADE. In the year 2455, Old Earth is now a contaminated planet abandoned for centuries – a brown world of violent storms, toxic landmasses and poisonous seas. Yet humans have returned to the deadly place that they once fled, not to live, but to research the ancient, rusting artifacts of the long-gone civilizations. But it’s not the harmful environment that could prove fatal to the intrepid, young explorers who have just landed on Old Earth. For them, it’s Friday the 13th, and Jason lives!

Hable con ella/Talk To Her (2002) dir. Pedro Almódovar – Two men share an odd friendship while they care for two women who are both in deep comas. (TW: rape, pregnancy from rape)

Kill Bill Vol. I (2003) dir. Quentin Tarantino – An assassin is shot by her ruthless employer, Bill, and other members of their assassination circle – but she lives to plot her vengeance.

Bill is the wicked fairy not invited to the wedding… and so Beatrix “The Bride” Kiddo ends up in a coma after getting shot (a bullet is the spindle in this case). During her coma there is the sexual assault element from the hospital porters – though this fails to wake her. When she does wake, she goes on a rampage of revenge.

Dornröschen (2004) dir. Jochen Taubert – Who says Sleeping Beauty is a girl? We know that it is a male vampire who is just waiting to be awakened by a kiss. Because death is only the beginning…

The Brothers Grimm (2005) dir. Terry Gilliam – This one is a mash up of a lot of Grimm fairytales, and the main antagonist runs on a Sleeping Beauty/Rapunzel plot.

ELIMINATING EVIL SINCE 1812. Folklore collectors and con artists, Jake and Will Grimm, travel from village to village pretending to protect townsfolk from enchanted creatures and performing exorcisms. However, they are put to the test when they encounter a real magical curse in a haunted forest with real magical beings, requiring genuine courage.

Das Haus der schlafenden Schönen/House of the Sleeping Beauties (2006) dir. Vadim Glowna – [German adaptation of the Japanese novella] Edmond, a man in his sixties whose wife has recently passed away, is told about a secret establishment where men can spend an entire night in bed alongside beautiful, sleeping young women, who stretch, roll over and dream, but never awaken. Bedazzled by their seductive yet innocent tenderness, but distressed about the reason for their deep sleep, he delves into the mystery of the house of sleeping beauties.

Dornröschen Erwacht (2006) dir. Elmar Fischer – After three years in a coma, Juliane Maybach suddenly wakes up, but doesn’t remember the last months before the accident that caused her critical condition. The estrangement from her husband Stefan and their daughter Antonia weighs heavily upon her mind and makes her mistrust everyone. Little by little, Juliane tries to uncover the secrets of her past.

Parasomnia (2008) dir. William Malone – WHERE DREAMS END AND NIGHTMARES BEGIN. Laura Baxter is a young woman, literally a “sleeping beauty,” who suffers from a medical condition called “parasomnia.” A childhood accident victim, she is actually sleeping her life away, awakening briefly on rare occasions. Art student Danny Sloan falls in love with her, unaware that her hospital neighbor, a terrifying mass murderer and mesmerist named Byron Volpe, has other, more sinister plans.

Sleeping Beauty (2011) dir. Julia Leigh – Again, not sure much is similar here except the title and the loose image of a sleeping woman in a sexual context? But here it is. I think this might be loosely based on The House of Sleeping Beauties concept.

A haunting portrait of Lucy, a young university student drawn into a mysterious hidden world of unspoken desires. Lucy is a university student who is working a number of jobs. She volunteers at a research lab, works at a coffee shop, and as a photocopy clerk in an office. She responds to an advertisement and embarks on an erotic freelance job in which she is required to sleep in bed alongside paying customers.

Las Bellas Durmientes/The Sleeping Beauties (2012) dir. Marcos Loayza – [IMDB lists this as a Comedy] In a lawless country that no longer cares about the victims or perpetrators, the humble Officer Quispe, faces his superiors in order to find out the truth about the murders of beautiful models.

Le Passé/The Past (2013) dir. Asghar Farhadi – I wasn’t sure about including this one either, but a woman in a coma due to spiteful/dramatic machinations of other women is a plot point, and the cause is untangled slowly as the film progresses.

After four years apart, Ahmad returns to his wife Marie in Paris in order to progress their divorce. During his brief stay, he cannot help noticing the strained relationship between Marie and her daughter Lucie. As he attempts to improve matters between mother and daughter Ahmad unwittingly lifts the lid on a long buried secret…

The Curse of Sleeping Beauty (2016) dir. Pearry Reginald Teo – THE FAIRYTALE WAS ONLY THE BEGINNING. Thomas Kaiser inherits an ancestral mansion that has been in his family for generations — only to learn that he has also inherited an ancient curse stemming back to the Crusades. Forced into his new role as “protector” — the guardian appointed to keep the evil demons in the house at bay — Thomas teams with an ambitious local realtor and paranormal cleric to unravel the mystery of the house, while struggling to awaken the beautiful Briar Rose, held captive in a terrifying netherworld seen previously in his dreams.

Sun, Moon, and Talia (2019) dir. Jan Hernández Marsol – Talia, a young aspiring dancer, is desperate to escape her impoverished home-life. But after accepting the principle role in a ballet production of ‘Sleeping Beauty’, she is drugged and assaulted by the company’s director.

Y Gwledd / The Feast (2021) dir. Lee Haven Jones – You woke her up, and she’s not angry with you, just very disappointed. I loved this. It’s the slowest of slowburns and the tension is stretched right out, but as soon as this chick turns up with wet hair (if you know your Welsh folklore, you’ll know rivers and lakes are entrances to the Otherworld) and the axehead falls off onto the lad’s foot (it’s iron), you’ll be on the edge of your seat, because you will know exactly what’s going on here. She’s been sleeping for a very long time, and she’s not necessarily here for revenge, she is just trying to work out what the world has become in her absence. And it turns out, she doesn’t like it. So she’s going to do what she has to do. I’m including this because the whole premise is that you shouldn’t wake the sleeper in the hill, and this is why. This is why.

WHILE THEY FEAST, SHE WAITS.

A wealthy family hosts a sumptuous dinner, only for a mysterious young server to chillingly unravel their lives with terrifying consequences they could never see coming.

Sleeping Beauties (2023) dir. Stuart Simpson – Cahya gets a job as a maid working in an isolated old mansion. Pregnant and a recent widow, she is desperate to reconnect with her husband, opening a doorway to the spirit world. And in doing so, inadvertently awakens the tormented ghosts of her current employer, the previous maids.

Next Time:

The votes were very close! But it’s Little Red Riding Hood, so I’m excited to see what your recs will be for me… hoping to find a few things I’ve not read/seen!