Today’s episode continued this month’s Halloween theme with a look at movies that put a dark spin of fairy tales and repurpose urban legends. Here are the films discussed on the show as well as some additional commentary.
Sleepy Hollow
“The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” is a short story by Washington Irving originally published in 1820 but set in 1790 in which New England schoolmaster Ichabod Crane encounters the ghostly Headless Horseman. This story has been adapted numerous times. One of the most famous versions is a segment of the 1949 Disney film The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad. The legend also figured into 1976’s The Scooby-Doo Show and an episode of Are You Afraid of the Dark? Tim Burton’s 1999 film Sleepy Hollow expanded the story and it was Burton’s most brutal film. The 2013 television series Sleepy Hollow reimagined the story by way of a contemporary police procedural.
The Last House on the Left
The original Last House on the Left was the story of two teenage girls who are kidnapped, tortured, and murdered by a group of psychopathic criminals. The movie shocked audiences in 1972 but it was not altogether original. Last House on the Left was an unofficial remake of Ingmar Bergman’s The Virgin Spring. Bergman’s film was adapted from a 17th century Swedish folk ballad. It was fitting that the music of Last House on the Left was created by folk musician David Hess who also played the gang leader.
Return to Oz
When The Wizard of Oz was released in 1939 it was not immediately embraced as a classic. That happened later when it was repeatedly broadcast on television and then became beloved by moviegoers. In 1985 filmmaker Walter Murch directed Return to Oz which was a sequel to the original story. Return to Oz had a much darker tone and its fantasy creatures were created with puppets and costumes. Stylistically it was closer to The Dark Crystal and Labyrinth than it was to The Wizard of Oz. Return to Oz was not a success in 1985 but it has since achieved a strong following especially by viewers who saw it as children.
Sweeney Todd
The character Sweeney Todd originated in Victorian fiction. The stories were about a barber who murders his customers with a straight razor and then turns the victims over to his neighbor who uses their bodies to bake meat pies. At the root of this story is a premise that keeps coming up in other forms such as The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Soylent Green. The Sweeney Todd story was the basis for a stage musical which was later adapted into a film directed by Tim Burton and starring Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter.
The Beast
The Beast came out of the mid-1970s, a time when erotic movies were in vogue and filmmakers were pushing boundaries in depictions of sexuality. Filmmaker Walerian Borowczyk was among those working in this niche and he had made an impression with 1973’s Immoral Tales, an anthology of erotic period pieces. One of the segments was an erotic Renaissance-era encounter between a woman and a bear-like creature. This section was struck from Immoral Tales and became the basis for Borowczyk’s 1975 film The Beast. The feature version builds out the context, adding a narrative frame around the erotic sequence.
The Ugly Stepsister
The Ugly Stepsister revisits the Cinderella story from a contemporary feminist point of view. In most versions of this fairy tale the stepsisters are rude, stupid, and cruel. Writer and director Emilie Blichfeldt puts the focus on Elvira, the elder of Cinderella’s stepsisters. Elvira is introduced as an idealistic and sweet young woman who wants to live peacefully with her new family but when they are broke it becomes necessary for Elvira to marry. The Ugly Stepsister is about the way society pits women against each other and the indignities and discomfort women put themselves through in the name of beauty and courtship.
Candyman
The hook man story is a longstanding urban myth about a killer who attacks a couple in a parked car. This story was foundational to the slasher film and we can see echoes of it in He Knows You’re Alone, Final Exam, and I Know What You Did Last Summer. The 1992 film Candyman also used the hook man story but grafted it onto America’s racial history. Based on a short story by Clive Barker, Candyman is about academics investigating an urban legend in Chicago’s housing projects. They awaken a violent specter with a tragic past. A few sequels followed. 2021’s Candyman is a companion piece to the original film and although it is flawed it was a thoughtful legacy sequel.
The House on Sorority Row
A popular premise in horror films and urban legends are tales of young people who pull a prank on an emotionally delicate peer. Something goes wrong and the targeted person is traumatized or killed. This legend is the basis for a lot of films especially 1980s slasher films including Slaughter High, Terror Train, The Burning, and Prom Night. The prank-gone-wrong story has often been associated with college sororities. That may be due to the traditions around initiation rituals and hazing. On film we’ve seen that combination play out in The House on Sorority Row and its sort-of remake from 2009.
Snow White
The Snow White story originated in Grimm’s Fairy Tales and it has been adapted to the screen on a regular basis, most famously in Disney’s 1937 animated film. The original story was much darker and more violent than the Disney version and some films reflect that, notably 1997’s Snow White: A Tale of Terror and 2012’s Snow White and the Huntsman. The 2025 film The Death of Snow White embraces the violence and it is a hard-R style fantasy horror picture. It’s an ambitious film but it often looks like it was shot at a Renaissance festival.
The Company of Wolves
The Company of Wolves is an anthology story that combines various fairy tales and folklore. It is a strange and stylized movie that’s more fantasy than horror. Directed by Neil Jordon, who later helmed Interview with the Vampire and Byzantium, The Company of Wolves brings a sexual element to these fairy tales but also comments on the act of storytelling itself and the power of these fantasy tales to illustrate difficult or ambiguous aspects of life.
Red Riding Hood
The story of Little Red Riding Hood has been adapted many times including in The Company of Wolves. It was also part of the 1986 anthology film Deadtime Stories, modifying it to the tale of a teenage girl who picks up the medication for her grandmother but inadvertently gets medicine intended for a werewolf. The 1997 short film “Little Red Riding Hood” starred Christina Ricci and the 2011 feature film Red Riding Hood starred Amanda Seyfried. One of the most unusual adaptations of this fairy tale was 1996’s Freeway which starred Reese Witherspoon as a teenager who runs away from home and is picked up by a driver named Bob Wolverton, played by Kiefer Sutherland. This was a satirical take on the Little Red Riding Hood story and Freeway has achieved a cult following.
When a Stranger Calls
The urban legend of a babysitter harassed by a mysterious caller has been used in numerous films including Fright (1971), Black Christmas (1974), and Scream (1996). 1979’s When a Stranger Calls opens with an exceptional dramatization of this urban legend. The rest of the movie goes off in a different direction to mixed effect. A sequel, When a Stranger Calls Back, was released in 1983 and a remake was released in 2006.
Urban Legend
1998’s Urban Legend came on the heels of the original Scream and it was intended to ride the wave of postmodern horror films at that time. The supporting cast was packed with established horror actors including Robert Englund, Danielle Harris, and Brad Dourif and the story riffed on various urban legends including the killer in the backseat, mixing pop rocks with soda, and the Bloody Mary myth. It’s very silly but fun. Direct-to-DVD sequels followed and a remake of Urban Legend is now in development.
Folk Horror
Folk horror isn’t quite the same as fairy tales but it certainly overlaps. Folk horror usually takes place in rural settings and the stories are about the conflict between Judeo-Christian or post-religious cultures and paganism. A lot of these stories are set in pre-industrial time periods or in communities that have rejected modernity. One of the classic examples is Blood on Satan’s Claw in which the residents of an 18th century English village are corrupted and overrun by a demonic influence.
A more recent example of folk horror overlapping with fairy tales is 2016’s The Witch. Set in 17th century New England, a family is banished from their Puritan village and set up a new home. They are plagued by mysterious phenomena that might be supernatural. The story of The Witch has its roots in early American literature and religious-based fears that the devil resided in the wilderness.
Guillermo del Toro
Filmmaker Guillermo del Toro has frequently adapted fairy tales or used them as the foundation for his movies. The fairy tale influences can be seen in Crimson Peak, The Shape of Water, and Cronos but the influences are most obvious and most interesting in The Devil’s Backbone and especially Pan’s Labyrinth. In The Devil’s Backbone and Pan’s Labyrinth, del Toro grafted the fantasy onto harsh reality, specifically the Spanish Civil War and the Franco regime. The Devil’s Backbone was set at an orphanage largely populated by children who have been bereaved by the war and Pan’s Labyrinth focused on a girl whose stepfather hunts political dissidents. These stories use the fantastic as a way for young characters to confront and reconcile with real life horrors.