Best Fairy Tale Horror Movies, Ranked

Highlights

• Classic fairy tales can be turned into horrifying films with dark twists, like in Deadtime Stories and Wishmaster.
• Grief, obsession, and vanity are explored in the deeply disturbing Tale of Tales, presenting a darker side to fairy tales.
• Guillermo del Toro’s films like Crimson Peak and Pan’s Labyrinth inject horror into what seems like innocent fairy tales.

Fairy tales ordinarily encompass stories intended to be told to a child during bedtime, starring princesses in peril, daring princes who will race to their rescue, and a terrible monster of some sort, such as a witch, who wants nothing more to enact her wicked deeds. Many Disney movies have retold classic fairy tales, some of which weren’t always as cheery and child-friendly as the animated greats suggest.

Hans Christian Anderson is known for his fairy tales, but so are the Brothers Grimm, who were known to have darker endings for the stories, such as Cinderella’s sisters carving bits off their feet to try and fit into the glass slippers. Sounds like something straight out of a horror movie, and as one might expect, there are movies that embody more horrifying tales.

6 Deadtime Stories

Horrifying New Takes on Fairy Tales of Yore

• Director: Jeffrey Delman
• Release Date: November 26th, 1986
• Runtime 83 minutes

A tale of three witches, Red Riding Hood, and Goldilocks–these are the fairy tale stories that make up the plot of the horror anthology Deadtime Stories. In an attempt to calm his rebel nephew, Mike decides to tell him some classic bedtime stories, only with more horrifying twists as Brian has no interest in ordinary stories. The opening itself seems like a parody of the classic fairy tale adventure The Princess Bride, and that is just scratching the surface.

In the first tale, a fisherman’s son is sold into slavery to two witches who want to resurrect their fallen sister, in a classic tale a la Brothers Grimm. The second is one people might be familiar with, but will no doubt notice the darker diversions of the classic story of Little Red Riding Hood who finds herself as the target of a hungry wolf. The last is a horror twist on Goldilocks, only with mental patients in place of bears, and there is something not quite right with Goldilocks…

5 Wishmaster

Wishes and their Consequences are Shown Full-Throttle in Wishmaster

• Director: Robert Kurtzman
• Release Date: September 19th, 1997
• Runtime 90 minutes

Djinn, or genies, are creatures in folklore and fairy tales that have the ability to grant people’s wishes. They have also been used in other stories that tend to have a happier twist, such as Disney’s Aladdin. But this is a story ripe for corrupting, which has been attempted in horror media such as the anthology TV series Creepshow, and the 90s movie Wishmaster.

Every wish they make comes with a “monkey’s paw” style backlash which can result in horrifying consequences for the unlucky wisher and the djinn delights in their suffering. With cameos from horror legends such as Tony Todd and Robery Englund, Wishmaster puts an unusual but compelling twist on the classic story.

4 The Lure

Music and Horror Combine in the Classic Mermaid Story

• Director: Agnieszka Smoczyńska
• Release Date: December 25th, 2015
• Runtime 92 minutes

One of the most famous fairy tale stories of all might just be The Little Mermaid, part of Hans Christian Andersen’s vast collection of classic stories he penned. Rather than a happy tale of love like the Disney movie, the original story explores how much the mermaid suffers, as walking on her legs causes her pain as though knives are being driven into her skin, and the Prince falls for another, driving her to throw herself to her death.

The Polish horror musical The Lure embraces the darker aspects of this story, as two sisters join a rock band, and one sister begins to fall for one of the members, despite warnings that she could turn into sea foam or lose her voice if she pursues her feelings. The ending is just as tragic as one might expect, with one sister turning to sea foam and the other killing her sister’s beloved before returning to the ocean.

3 Tale of Tales

An Anthology Movie Exploring Darker Parts of Fairy Tales

• Director: Matteo Garrone
• Release Date: July 1st, 2015
• Runtime 134 minutes

Three tales rolled into one, Tale of Tales is three separate and artfully written stories exploring themes such as growing into adulthood, the desire for children, and vanity, and all three of them have the common denominator that desire can lead to obsession.

Blood, death, and mythological monsters are all present within the stories as well, giving each of the fairy tales a darker edge, and verging each of these stories into horror. With endings such as a cave monster revealed to be the Queen upon death, and an old woman finding a person to flay her so she can be young and beautiful once more, all of these films seem like they could be the works of the Brothers Grimm, the masters of fairy tale horror.

2 Crimson Peak

A More Modern Fairy Tale With Love, Wicked Sisters, and Ghosts

• Director: Guillermo del Toro
• Release Date: October 16th, 2015
• Runtime 119 minutes

Visited by ghosts with vague warnings, young novelist Edith Cushing thinks she has found her fairy tale romance with English baronet Thomas Sharpe, only to find out there is more going on with him and his sister than she thought, especially since their home is the very Crimson Peak she was warned about.

Ghosts of previous victims haunt the hallway, and Edith feels trapped in the home with her sister-in-law who perfectly embodies the wicked step-mother from fairy tales, who has held disdain for Edith from the moment she and Thomas shared their ballroom dance in a scene that could have fit into a Disney movie. The red, decayed ghosts add moments of suspenseful and terrifying horror as they shamble or crawl menacingly in all of their scenes, and the ending which sees Thomas join them is as poetic as it is tragic.

1 Pan’s Labyrinth

What Seems like a Tale of Wonder Quickly Morphs Into Terror

• Director: Guillermo del Toro
• Release Date: October 11th, 2006
• Runtime 120 minutes

Guillermo Del Toro is a master at crafting movies that seem like they could be fairy tales but are instead injected with abject horror, be it the horrors of human cruelty, or something more physical and visual. The latter is certainly present in Pan’s Labyrinth, which sees young Ofelia and her mother meeting Captain Videl, who will be her new stepfather. Life with him is dreary and dark, and Ofelia finds what she thinks might be her escape by following a fairy into another world.

Not quite wonderland, this world is inhabited by frightening creatures such as the faun she first meets, and later the Pale Man. This creature is one of Del Toro’s greatest creations, and the most terrifying scene in the movie, as he shambles towards Ofelia as she scrambles to climb to safety in a scene rife with tension. The Pale Man will stick with viewers years later, a testament to just how frightening Pan’s Labyrinth can be.