Sleeping Beauty Is Getting A Gory Horror Remake
Sleeping Beauty's Massacre takes the classic fairy tale in a horrifying new direction.
Sleeping Beauty is about to become a nightmare. As reported by Bloody Disgusting, filmmaker Louisa Warren is bringing the classic fairytale back from the dead as the horror film Sleeping Beauty’s Massacre. Warren teased her take on the beloved material as “savage, dark, and utterly horrifying.”
Disney created the definitive take on Sleeping Beauty with its 1959 animated classic, but the story is much older than the movie. The fairytale exists in the public domain, making it fair game for adaptation. Producer/director Louisa Warren and screenwriter Jasmine Ebony Thomas are leveraging the story’s fame and putting their signature, low-budget horror spin on it.
“This film will flip everything as you know it on its head,” Warren said. “I am setting out to create the most uncomfortable horror experience to date. There will be lies, gore, and a big massacre. If you look back at the original material there is so much to play with.”
Sleeping Beauty’s Massacre follows Princess Thalia, a beautiful young woman whose life is cast into shambles after the death of her father. The power-mad Queen Velma casts Thalia into a never-ending sleep in order to take the Kingdom for herself, but her actions unravel a winding array of violent consequences.
Sleeping Beauty’s Massacre will be produced by ChampDog Films, a prolific indie studio specializing in low-budget horror fare, and distributed by ITN Studios. The film is scheduled to begin production in the UK this August and release later in 2023.
Before ChampDog Films gets its bloody paws on Sleeping Beauty, the studio is scheduled to produce Cinderella’s Curse, which is also slated for a 2023 release. The gory takes on Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty represent part of a larger trend in the low-budget horror space as more filmmakers take recognizable, beloved titles from the public domain and make them terrifying.
Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey drew tons of attention online for its egregious assault on a beloved childhood classic. The Mean One took a similar approach to Dr. Suess’s Grinch character, turning the green holiday hater into a vicious murderer.
ChampDog Films has also dabbled with titles based on classic characters, turning leprechauns, the Tooth Fairy, and scarecrows into mutilating monsters. Even at the low-budget level, the film market is being driven by franchises.
Reboots, sequels, prequels, and spin-offs abound because they have brand recognition. Disney went so far as to expand the 75-minute Sleeping Beauty into multiple movies with its Maleficent series. Sleeping Beauty’s Massacre can ride the coattails of the fairytale it is inspired by, catching the audience’s attention and stirring buzz simply by its association with other beloved films.
This horror remake, however, is shaping up to be quite different from the Sleeping Beauty most people are accustomed to. With different characters, an overhauled narrative, and plenty of blood and guts, Sleeping Beauty’s Massacre will not find its way into the Disney Vault anytime soon.
In the meantime, director Louisa Warren will continue cranking out horror films at a jaw-dropping pace. She currently has 22 directorial efforts in the pipeline. The low-budget horror movie market is one of excess in perhaps every way but money, but these cheap thrills find their audience, niche as it may be.
Every once in a while, one of these obscure horrors becomes a hit – look at last year’s Terrifier 2. Time will tell if the horror version of Sleeping Beauty can become a breakout nightmare of its own.
