the-curse-of-sleeping-beauty-movie-poster-2016-1010773365

My sister and I have a habit or parusing for horror movies we havent heard of or seen and picking them at random. As you can imagine this has been unbelieveably hit or miss. (Some of the garbage we have seen we refuse to ever mention again). Last night we hit amazon looking for a film for our girls night in and ran right across one of the coolest movies I have seen in quite a while that isn’t widely talked about. We were reintroduced to the tale of Sleeping Beauty through the lense of direcor Pearry Teo ….and it was a hell of a way to spend a Friday night.

The story follows Thomas (Ethan Peck) who inherits a property from his late uncle. A mysterious letter from his uncle raises all kinds of quesions for him and things get stranger when fantasy and reality collide. Familiar locations and visuals from a reoccuring dream featuring a ‘sleeping beauty’ begin to show up in his waking life and thats only where it begins…then that sleeping beauty speaks…

The Curse of Sleeping Beauty has so much genious I don’t even know where to start. The script was original, funny, easy to follow but not overtly obvious and engaging. You actually LIKED the charachters and while this easily could have come across as corny and rediculous in the wrong hands, the cast did and incredible job of executing the story and balancing the larger than life concepts of the supernatural and keeping it approachable.

The plot was interesting and I really liked the incorporation of different cultural aspects into it. Giving the story arabic and muslim overtones was an interesting spin on a long told story and kept it from being the same old Briar Rose that we always see. Somehow it still remained classic and recognizable even with the updates and the fresh new take which, again, is a testament to how well this was handled. Again, many have tried that and many did not pull it off half as well.

Visually this was a STUNNING movie to watch. The color scheme was gorgeous and the dream world and real world were both vibrantly different. The dream world was bright and etherial while the real world tends to be darker and more harsh. Both were beautifully executed and if you didn’t have a problem with mannequins…trust me…you will. The special effects in this movie are creepy as hell and look totally buyable.

All in all I bought this in the end. Original. Fun. Engaging. Freaky. As a Disney fan all my life I might actually like this version of Briar Rose a little better. 😉

 

Give it a watch and let me know in the comments below what you thought!