![]() Is the Jim Henson Company producing a 'reboot' of, a sequel to, or a continuation of, 1986's 'Labyrinth'? The answer is unclear. Photo gallery, tagline, plot summary, cast list, trivia, quotes, user reviews, and a message board. Guillermo del Toro's "Pan's Labyrinth" is one of the cinema's great fantasies, rich with darkness and wonder. It's a fairy tale of such potency and awesome beauty. Would you also like to receive exclusive deals from the Mental Floss store and save 15% on your first order? Fairy Tale Movies Too Scary For Kids. Fairy tales are for kids, right? Well, not always. A fairy tale by definition is “a children’s story about magical and imaginary beings and lands.” However, when the Brothers Grimm collected and compiled many of the beloved fairy tales that we now know from Disney films (Cinderella, Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, among others) those same stories were far darker and scarier than the stories we remember. In the original Snow White, the evil Queen is forced to dance in red hot metal shoes as a punishment for her vanity, and Cinderella’s evil stepsisters have their eyes gouged from their faces by doves sent from God. On first viewing, it is challenging to. ![]() The “happy endings” in these fairy tales tend to be a bit more complicated than their Disney counterparts. In other cases, filmmakers were inspired by the dark, imaginative stories of folklore. Here are Screen Rant’s 1. Fairy Tale Movies Too Scary For Kids. Some of these films are based on old folk tales, while others are merely inspired by their ideas and the imagination behind them. Return to Oz (1. 98. One could easily show Return to Ozto their children by accident, thinking that they would be introducing them to a magical land of innocent fun. The classic 1. 93. The Wizard of Oz with Judy Garland certainly has its scary parts, but it’s got nothing on Return to Oz. The film begins with our hero Dorothy (Fairuza Balk), who has been feeling a bit sad since her return from Oz. Dorothy’s parents send her to a psychiatric hospital with a nasty- tempered nurse (Jean Marsh), who wants to perform electroshock therapy on her. ![]() Fortunately for Dorothy, a thunderstorm hits the hospital and the power goes out. She’s able to escape by the nearby river, where she almost drowns. When she wakes up, however, she finds herself back in the magical land of Oz, which has gone to ruin since her last time there. Return to Oz has been praised for being a rather faithful adaptation of L. Frank Baum’s later Wizard of Oz books. Unfortunately, for any small child watching the film, Return to Oz also has a wicked witch (also Jean Marsh) who exchanges her heads like pieces of jewelry. If your child doesn’t have a sleepless night thinking about the hallway of heads in Return to Oz, then surely the wheelers (human- like creatures that have wheels instead of hands and feet) will do the trick. But at least Return to Oz has a happy ending. Labyrinth (1. 98. If you have ever had a nightmare about David Bowie as a child, you most likely saw Labyrinth a bit too early. The protagonist of the film is Sarah (Jennifer Connelly), a regular teenage girl on Earth who wishes her younger brother Toby (Toby Froud) would be taken away. To Sarah’s horror, her wish is granted by Jareth the Goblin King (David Bowie), who steals Toby and hides him away in his castle, located in a fantasy land full of weird and wonderful creatures. Sarah spends much of the rest of the film desperately trying to make her way through the labyrinth that Jareth has set up to keep her out. Having one’s younger brother stolen by a goblin is a rather terrifying premise, but it’ll certainly help a young teenage girl learn a lesson about selfishness. The world of Labyrinth is creepy, and filled with disturbing images such as a scene in which Sarah falls into a hole, where hundreds of hands reach out to grab her. Since Labyrinth was directed by Jim Henson, there are of course creature puppets in the film, some more disturbing than others. Hensons also brought his darkly gothic sensibilities to Dark Crystal, another film which could have easily made this list. Sleepy Hollow (1. Tim Burton’s freaky drama Sleepy Hollow was inspired by the short story “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.” In this classic tale, schoolmaster Ichabod Crane and Abraham Von Brunt are both competing for the hand of Katrina Van Tessel, the daughter of a wealthy landowner. But after his heart is broken, Crane has a terrifying encounter with a headless horseman. The next morning, he has disappeared and no one can figure out where. In Burton’s version of the tale, Crane (Johnny Depp) is a constable sent to Sleepy Hollow to investigate the decapitations of three local residents. The citizens of Sleepy Hollow are convinced a headless horseman is responsible for these horrific crimes. There is also, of course, a love triangle between Crane, Brom (Casper Van Dien) and Katrina (Christina Ricci) which involves Brom pranking the jittery Crane – a similar storyline to the original tale. The Hessian Horseman (Christopher Walken) is truly terrifying in the flashback scenes that reveal the origin of the headless horseman terrorizing Sleepy Hollow. With razor sharp teeth and hair standing on end, Walken looks part vampire and part zombie. Like all of Burton’s films, Sleepy Hollow is both funny and quirky as it spins its tale. But as this tale involves numerous decapitations and trees that ooze blood, it’s best to keep it away from the kids. The Company of Wolves (1. Neil Jordan’s 1. 98. The Company of Wolves is not suitable for children, unless you think the image of a man pulling the skin from his face is acceptable kid- viewing material. The Company of Wolves is a dark, gothic fantasy film that loosely follows the story of Little Red Riding Hood. The Company of Wolves also weaves in a variety of tales about werewolves throughout the film for some added horror. But The Company of Wolves is not strictly a horror film, it also looks at the dangerous sexual desires which can sometimes pepper themselves throughout fairy tales. By structuring the film as several mini- tales within the larger framework of the Red Riding Hood story, the film mimics a dreamlike state for audiences who aren’t sure what is real and what is fantasy. The scene where the Huntsman (Micha Bergese) tries to seduce the young girl Rosaleen (Sarah Patterson) after eating her grandmother (Angela Lansbury) might be enough to traumatize a child, or at least give them a bad example of what courtship looks like. Pan’s Labyrinth (2. Roger Ebert probably said it best when he described Guillermo del Toro’s film Pan’s Labyrinth as a “fairy tale for grownups.” Fairy tales, like any good stories, are largely an escape from reality. Pan’s Labyrinth stars a child, but it is decidedly not a children’s movie. The film includes scenes of brutality from the human characters, and creatures that could easily frighten or disturb young viewers. In Pan’s Labyrinth, Ofelia (Ivana Baquero) travels with her pregnant mother Carmen (Ariadna Gil) to meet her new stepfather, Captain Vidal (Sergi L. Vidal is a cruel man who hunts down Communist rebels in civil war Spain, torturing and killing those who cross his path. Vidal is exactly the kind of adult a child would seek refuge from, and in Pan’s Labyrinth, Ofelia discovers a hidden labyrinth that introduces her to many mysterious and magical creatures. Pan’s Labyrinth is a wondrously original and beautiful film, but also one so dark in its subject matter that it should be enjoyed by adults only. Freeway (1. 99. 6)Little Red Riding Hood has inspired several films over the years, from the musical Into the Woodsto the disturbing drama Hard Candy, but the 1. Freeway is one of the most entertaining and twisted versions of this classic fairy tale. In the original fairy tale, a young girl is stalked by a wolf on her way to bring food to her grandmother’s house. Depending on which version you were exposed to as a child, grandma and Red Riding Hood both end up in the wolf’s stomach, or a helpful woodcutter saves them by cutting them out. In Freeway, our Red Hiding Hood is young teenager Vanessa Lutz (Reese Witherspoon), whose mother is sent to jail at the beginning of the film. Vanessa ends up on her way to her grandmother’s house, not to bring her some food, but to escape her social worker. The wolf in Freeway is a Bob Wolverton (get it? Anyway, he’s played by Kiefer Sutherland) who stalks and kills girls on freeways rather than forest trails. It’s a violent, contemporary twist on the original fairy tale, but that only makes it scarier and more disturbing. Black Swan (2. 01. The 2. 01. 0 ballet drama/thriller Black Swan, directed by Darren Aronofsky, is a little bit of Swan Lake mixed with an awful lot of psychological horror. Ballet is a beautiful and captivating art form. But there’s a dark side to the perfection needed by a ballet dancer that makes it a prime candidate for a darker tale (Powell and Pressburger’s The Red Shoes also explores this dark side of ballet). In Black Swan, talented ballerina Nina Sayers (Natalie Portman) struggles to prove to her director Thomas Leroy (Vincent Cassel) that she is capable of playing both the innocent white swan and the seductive, evil black swan in her company’s upcoming production of Swan Lake. In the original Swan Lake, a young girl under a magical spell is a swan by day and a maiden at night. The maiden has an evil doppelganger, who tricks a prince into professing his love to her, which destroys the young girl. The pressure on Nina to perfectly embody both the light and dark sides of herself leads to a series of disturbing hallucinations and escalating anxiety for both Portman’s character and the audience. And similar to the ending of Swan Lake, Black Swan’s heroine has a dramatic and tragic ending. Suspiria (1. 97. 7)Ballet stories and fairy tales seem to easily go hand in hand. What better heroine could you find than a beautiful and talented young dancer? In Suspiria, young dancer Suzy Bannion (Jessica Harper) joins a new ballet company which is revealed to be a front for a sinister witch coven. It is a fairy tale that is also truly a horror film. While Suspiria is not directly related to a fairy tale, there are elements of the story that parallel Snow White. At one point in the movie Suzy is drugged by the witches, just as Snow White is poisoned by an apple. The twisted storylines in both films involve an older queen who plans to destroy the younger innocent she perceives as a threat. Top Ten Contemporary Gothic Movies. I Love a good Gothic Movie, but most of them were filmed in the 3. After searching my Dvd collection and looking around on the internet, I have come up with an interesting list. But, for now I will have to include the 9. The most interesting thing about some of these movies is that my Non- Horror friends have seen most of them, which makes me think they have a bigger audience than most Horror films do. I remember talking to a friend about movies recently, She said that she had never seen any Horror movies because they would give her nightmares. I thought ok, we’ll talk about other genres then. It soon came out that she loved Bram Stoker’s Dracula, Interview with a Vampire, and the new Fright Night. I said really? Interestingly, she had never thought of them that way. I don’t think I convinced her to watch anything scarier right then, but maybe she will warm up to them in the future? There is just something about a period film that Women love. We all adore a good love story, even if it is about an evil blood sucking Vampire! And no I don’t mean Vampires that sparkle. Jonathan Harker travels to Transylvania to conduct a business transaction with Count Dracula. The Count sees a picture of Harker’s fiance, Mina, and believes she is the reincarnation of his true love. Dracula travels from Transylvania aboard a ship to London to find Mina. When he arrives, he seduces and bites Lucy, Mina’s friend. Lucy starts to fall ill and her fiance summons Dr. Van Helsing to help. Van Helsing easily figures out that Lucy has been bitten by a Vampire, and they try to prevent her from being attacked again. Bram Stoker’s Dracula is a beautifully romantic Vampire movie. Winona is lovely in her gothic dresses and the sets are amazing. Gary Oldman plays Dracula very dramatically and effectively. This version is not very scary, but I love it for the visual feast that it is. Interview with the Vampire (1. The Vampire Lestat seduces Louis, a young plantation owner, into becoming a Vampire. They are forced to flee the plantation when the slaves become aware of what Monsters they are. Louis and Lestat flee to New Orleans where they find and turn a young girl named Claudia into a Vampire. Louis is tortured by his guilt of killing people for blood. Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise are undeniably sexy as Vampires, but the real star of the movie was Kirsten Dunst as little Claudia. This is one of those movies I enjoy watching over and over again. Even though Interview With A Vampire isn’t very scary or gory, it is very entertaining none the less. Sleepy Hollow (1. Ichabod Crane travels to the small Hamlet of Sleepy Hollow to investigate a series of murders. The villagers seem to be turning up headless all over the place. Ichabod arrives with his bag of strange instruments and goes to work at solving the murders. He seems to be a little squeamish for a Coroner though. The townspeople tell him there is a Demon hunting them but he doesn’t believe them until he sees the Headless Horseman for himself. Sleepy Hollow is directed by Tim Burton and is wonderfully Gothic. He has his usual line up of quirky characters for the villagers from Sleepy Hollow. Johnny Depp is charming as Ichabod Crane and Christopher Walken is really frightening as the Headless Horseman. I always enjoy the sets on Burton’s movies, because he uses a lot of detail to set up the atmosphere. Even the carved pumpkins have his trademark look to them. Corpse Bride (2. 00. The Corpse Bride is an animated movie by Tim Burton. Victor and Victoria are arranged to be married by their parents. The two meet for the first time the day before the wedding. The wedding rehearsal goes badly for Victor and he decides to take a walk through the woods in order to practice his vows. He accidently slips a ring on to the corpse of a bride, thinking her finger was a twig. Victor is immediately whisked away to the land of the dead and he must figure out a way to get back to the living. The magical and macabre worlds that Tim burton comes up with are best done in this stop motion type of animation. The story is wonderful and imaginative with a mystery to solve. The characters are loveable and memorable played by Johnny Depp, Emily Watson, and Helena Bonham Carter. The Woman in Black (2. Hammer Films returns to Gothic Horror movies after 3. Woman in Black. Daniel Radcliffe plays a Lawyer, Arthur Kipp, that goes to settle an estate after the death of a Woman. She lived on a remote Island that has only one road leading to it. The road only appears when the tide is out, so it is easy to get stranded on the Island. Arthur decides it is best to spend the night on the island in order to finish his work quickly. The House is haunted and Arthur starts seeing strange things almost immediately. The Woman in Black has that Gothic Hammer feel to it that fans of the classics will love. It delivers lots of thrills and scares with loads of atmosphere. This movie is in no way a remake of the 1. TV movie, but instead another version of the same story. The film is dark and scary and reminded me most of one of my favorite Ghost stories. The set design really stands out in this film, as the house is really eerie with lots of cobwebs and creepy old toys. From Hell (2. 00. From Hell is set in the Whitechapel area of London during the Jack the Ripper murders. Prostitutes are being killed brutally on the streets of London. Their throats are being slit and then they are disemboweled. Quite often some body parts are missing as well. The murders are extremely savage but precise, leading Detectives to think the Prostitutes are being murdered by a Surgeon. Johnny Depp stars as a Police Inspector who starts to uncover a larger conspiracy surrounding the murders. He starts to fall in love with a prostitute named Mary Kelly and tries to rescue her from the Ripper. There is also a 1. TV version of this movie starring Michael Caine, which it is definitely woth checking out as well. Brotherhood of the Wolf (2. The Province of Gevaudan in rural France is being terrorized by a mysterious Beast. The local peasants are being attacked by the Beast. A knight, Fronsac, and his companion, Mani arrive to try and capture the beast. Mani is a priest from the Iroquois tribe and uses his knowledge to help capture it. The movie is based on the true story of the Beast of Gevaudan that reputedly killed many people in 1. France. Brotherhood of the Wolf has beautiful scenery and sets. For a period film, there are lots of martial arts fights to be enjoyed. Beautiful period costumes and a little bit of romance too. Sweeney Todd (2. 00. Sweeney Todd is set in turn of the century England. A barber, who lost his wife and child, returns to London to seek revenge on the man that took them away. The Barber teams up with a woman who owns a shop that sells meat pies. She comes up with a plan to use corpses for the meat in her pies, and asks the barber to supply them for her. A Musical Horror Movie. Don’t be fooled by the nice musical medleys, at it’s core Sweeney Todd is about a Serial Killer who uses the corpses for Cannibalistic purposes. The movie has a nice mix of humor and the macabre. Wolfman (2. 01. 0)Universal studios tries to bring back one the classic monsters. Benicio Del Toro plays the tortured man, Lawrence, who is bitten and cursed by the Werewolf when he returns home for his brother’s funeral. A police Inspector arrives to investigate the recent murders in Blackmoor and suspects Lawrence is to blame for them. The set design and costumes are really well done. This newest Wolfman is a decent remake and is entertaining but it certainly is not the best version of The Wolfman I’ve seen. I would recommend the 1. Curse of the Werewolf instead. Dario Argento’s Phantom of the Opera (1. The Phantom was abandoned as a child and put into a basket to float into an underground river. The Phantom ends up being raised by Rats instead of Humans and likes to hang out in the Catacombs under the Opera. He hears Christine sing and falls madly in love with her. He will do anything to get close to her including Murder! Not quite Argento’s best work but it has some beautiful scenery in it. The Phantom, played by Julian Sands, doesn’t wear the trademark mask. I think it might have been better if Argento had stuck to the usual Phantom that is disfigured. Dario Argento’s beautiful daughter, Asia, plays Christine. So there you have it, a list of my favourite Contemporary Gothic films or otherwise known as a list of movies that women will love!
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