Released March 13th, 2012
On this edition of Direct to DVD Dissection comes a classic fairy tale retold by the Mockbuster masters themselves, The Asylum, as we look at “Grimm’s Snow White”.
The Story
The Queen of the land decides to make a power play to seize control after she has her husband & King killed. She tries to marry a prince, Prince Alexander, from a neighboring country, only for the prince to fall in love with the Queen’s stepdaughter, Snow White. The Queen then orders Snow White killed by her Huntsman, but things go wrong and Snow White finds herself under the watch of mythical creatures in the woods. With both the Prince and the Queen in pursuit, only time will tell who succeeds to get to her first.
The Cast
- Eliza Bennett as Snow White, daughter of the King who is driven away from her kingdom due to the evil stepmother, the Queen. She worked in previous mythical movies like “Inkheart” and “Nanny McPhee”, along with dealing with princes in “The Prince & Me”.
- Jane March as the Queen, who has taken over the kingdom and is trying to marry the prince and murder Snow White. She worked in the 90’s in films like “The Lover” & “The Color of Night” and was in the recent “Clash of the Titans” remake as Hestia
- Jamie Thomas King as Prince Alexander, the “prince charming” of the film, who falls in love with snow White and seeks to find her out after news of her “death” by the Huntsman. Working in recent movies like “Tinker Tailer Soldier Spy”, and “Like Crazy”.
- Alan Burgon as Orlando, the head of the elf group who run into Snow White. This is his first role, so there’s nothing to draw on, experience wise. There should be a mention of an elf character with a bow who calls himself “Orlando”, though.
The Dissection
Jane March as The Queen
With the upcoming big budget movies based on Snow White, “Mirror Mirror” and “Snow White & The Huntsman”, Asylum has seen fit to release their own version of the classic tale first. This one takes the outline of the original tale and fleshed it out or changed things around, some more jarring than other. You have the Huntsman who fails to kill Snow White, but this time it’s due to cowardice instead of refusal to kill someone in cold blood. The Queen comes go to Snow White in disguise as the old crone, but gives her a ring instead of the apple. Most notable in all this is the people that find Snow White in the woods are not dwarfs this time around. They’re elves, with pointy ears and bow and arrows. However, it does give the main story, and goes into different territory during the final act, which was needed to answer some of the questions from the book.
Story wise, the movie doesn’t start off well. The second you press play, you get bombarded with some exposition that tells you about the beginning and history of this world, before the title screen or opening credits. However, it only last a minute or so, and when the movie kicks in officially, it does deal with information and story points much better. Also, the dialog itself is spoken in “ye olde English” style, and it does come off goofy at times, mostly by the minor characters. However, the main cast don’t have much trouble with the dialog and thus it gets kind of engrossing at times. So, don’t let the intro throw you off, because it does get better off soon after.
Eliza Bennett As Snow White
A lot of the good points I should mention come from the acting. Jane March does a great work as the evil Queen, and delivers a memorable performance as the villain. The other main actors, meanwhile, each deliver some good performances of their own. Eliza Bennett and Jamie King especially have some interesting chemistry during some of their scenes, and Buron works with the serious and stubborn leader of the elves.
One thing to mention is the effects. Now, the Asylum has been known to pull some impressive CG at times, like in their “Sherlock Holmes” movie. In recent films like Asylum’s own “Two-Headed Shark”, though, the effects didn’t look complete, especially when dealing with the human analogs that tend to get eaten or killed by the CG monsters. In “Grimm’s Snow White”, there are CG effects for the dragons and castle monsters, but it’s not as heavily used here. Thus, it’s not really distracting, and it isn’t like you’re watching it for an extended period where you notice the faults of it.
Now, before the verdict, as usual, lets look at the extras. Audio is only English 5.1, or 2.0, and there are no closed captioning or subtitles, unless your DVD player has the built in option. There’s a gag reel and a making of feature included, so its not just the movie. Also, as usual in Asylum DVD releases, it has about 9-10 minutes of trailers from other Asylum films released or coming soon. Most of the Asylum trailers are the same as the ones from other releases in the other reviews of their movies, but there was one new trailer in the line-up that needed to be brought up:
Nazis At the Center of the Earth
If that doesn’t scream “Asylum”, then nothing does.
The Final Verdict
While goofy at times, “Grimm’s Snow White” presents an interesting tale, better set up and easier on the wallet than its theatrical counterparts. It’s not the most original story out there, but it tells it well and gives you something enjoyable. Give it a watch.