Florida's Film, Television and the Arts Magazine
Ever After
Do you remember “Fractured Fairy Tales”? They were animated segments of famous fairy tales like Rapunzel, Cinderella and Snow White and ran within The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle and Friends. I saw them in reruns on tv when I was a kid.
Sometimes they were told from the perspective of the villain. They were sometimes humorous, sometimes just insane. Some had been modernized in their morals or language. Hans Christian Anderson be damned, apparently.
The film, Ever After is a bit like those short films. But this film is infinitely more vicious when it comes to handling the damsels in distress - and fatalities abound among their group. Prince Charming is no prince, unless you mean the Prince of Darkness. Lil’ Red, well, she’s the royal consort of the Big Bad Wolf, using her cape to entice stupid humans into helping her.
We’ve also got the ’10 Little Indians” plot. One-by-one, young women who simply want to enjoy their weekend getaway to a mountain cabin, quickly see their plans devolve into 48 hours of torture and slaughter. What kind of surreal creatures are seeking their demise? Well, the three little pigs, of course. There’s something funny going on in those woods, and it’s been going on for a really long time. That’s about the only horror/mystery trope that is left intact in the film.
If only each one of the young women hadn’t been so mind-numbingly stupid, I might have enjoyed the film. However, I shortly started cheering on the villains, just hoping they’d shut these annoying women up. This is not the 1998 Drew Barrymore Ever After: Cinderella story. In this Ever After, made in 2025, every ‘Cinderella’ loses much, much more than a shoe.
What one might find interesting is the casting. Actors you’d normally recognize in a second, like Malcolm McDowell, have their faces hidden behind masks or extensive makeup. Whereas other actors, such as Bonnie Aarons, who you know from the Conjuring universe as the Nun, is relatively makeup-free. Sure, she’s still obviously off the rails, but she’s maskless. Michael Berryman, an icon in the horror genre, especially with Wes Craven films, is also mask-less. He’s also quite human. However, it’s clear that his elevator doesn’t reach the top floor. Kane Hodder, who you all love to fear as Jason Voorhees, does remain masked as the voice of The Big Bad Wolf. Mark Sheppard, who spent years on Supernatural, is the sardonic ringmaster, leading the band of bloody brutes, with rhymes and riddles aplenty.
It’s as if Director Lazlo Illes took the character actors you’ve loved to fear for decades and, by unmasking them, allowed them the freedom to be even more terrifying. There’s buckets of blood and gore, lots of backstabbing and appendage slicing. Heads, fingers and toes all go under the blade. Would I see it again? Probably not. The women were just too annoying, their characters were indistinguishable from each other and the ending left me scratching my head. But horror is a big tent, and there’s room for every sort of deviance under that big top.
