FAIREST OF THEM ALL (2025)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *drama*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *psychological*

I clicked on this TUBI item just because I thought it was some new take on the Snow White story, albeit mixed together with some MAD-magazine style of satire on THE HUNGER GAMES. I had no idea that (a) the overall concept was torture-porn a la the SAW films, or (b) that this was a film from the production company made infamous for doing gory horror-movie takes on established properties that had allegedly fallen into public domain, such as Mickey Mouse and Winnie the Pooh. But once I got going with FAIREST, I thought I might as well stick it out for the sake of my ongoing examination of crossovers, 

Apparently the writer for this little pustule, one Harry Boxley, wrote a bunch of these things, so I would assume he's a mover-and-shaker in the company. The plot IYCCIT (if you can call it that), involves the Mad Hatter enslaving Alice to his will and then going on a brutal slay-fest as he abducts other famous princesses and brings them back to (I suppose) Wonderland. Most have traditional names like Sleeping Beauty, Belle, Snow White, Cinderella, and Tinkerbelle (naturally played by a full-grown female), though in a couple of cases the studio may not have been sure of being able to avoid being sued for use of trademarked names. Thus the Little Mermaid is named "Georgia" instead of using the Disney "Ariel" (though the latter appears in the credits), and Sleeping Beauty is called "Rosetta" rather than "Aurora." What does the very Mad Hatter want with all these princesses? Why, he wants them to fight it out for the honor of being "fairest of them all," and thus the Hatter's destined bride.

I have no automatic disgust toward satirical travesties of familiar icons, even those often assigned to kids' fiction. But it's very rare that anyone comes up with some internal logic for the transformation. Sometimes MAD magazine did it well, and in film the first example that comes to mind is Troma's 1996 TROMEO AND JULIET, written in part by James Gunn. But Boxley's thin script is made worse by his tossing out any old notion that occurs to him. Did any version of Cinderella have on her a curse that forced her to murder? Bet not. Boxley's only consideration in this film was to come up with one gore-scene after another. Thus the fights between those princesses who go along with Hatter's scheme are more likely to bite and stab one another rather than fistfight, and I judge FAIREST to be (happily) outside the bounds of the combative mode.

I think the whole cast is British going by the accents, but in addition to everyone acting badly, all the women look skanky, and one even looks rather like a dude in drag. I guess that puts The Asylum ahead of this company, for though most Asylum flicks are deadly dull, at least most of their performers are reasonably attractive.