Earlier this month, I was writing a post about fairy tales and I wondered why we don't get many classic fairy tale horror movies. I'm not referring to reimagining familial tales into something more adult (like Dorothy and bdsm), but rather going back to the source of the fairy tale. There have been a few attempts, such as Sigourney Weaver's Snow White: A Tale of Terror, but not nearly as many as there could be in the seas of zombie movies and Saw sequels.

What is creepier than kids, parents, evilness, sorceresses, wolves, and cannibalism? Before the stories were ripped from their horror roots, they were just right for scary, gory films. The early days of fairy tales weren't all rosy cheeks and puckered, pouting lips; they had blood, flesh, and genuine frights. If kids of yesteryear saw the tykes of the last 50 years, I think we'd all be getting a feline-sounding name that isn't too complimentary.

So here are seven tales perfect for scary movies. Some wouldn't need any embellishment, while others could easily be morphed into a chilling tale that not only taps into our younger days, but also thrills our current adult lives. Take this as a dare, scary filmmakers! Look through this creepy list and whip up something to scare the pants off us. And for you non-filmmakers out there -- which tale would you want to see on the big screen?


Hansel and Gretel

A family is starving, so the evil mom says: "Hey, let's send the kids out into the forest so that we have enough food for ourselves." But the buggers come back, because they leave a trail of pebbles that lead them back home -- a reason we should never teach our children, the insidious food-stealers! So dear old mom tries again, and the kids only have breadcrumbs, so they're stuck in the forest. They come upon a house made of bread, with sugar windows. Their little mouths begin to salivate, and they start eating the house. The old woman who owns the house takes the kids in, which seems awfully nice for a woman who just found kids eating her lovely home. That is, until she makes Gretel her servant, and fattens up Hansel so she can eat him. But then Gretel kicks her old butt into the oven, and the kids are free. They find their way home, and conveniently, their mom has since died of "evilness," so they live happily ever after with their previously mom-whipped dad.

There's not too much actual horror in this, beyond the burning of the old woman, but imagine her cannibalistic dreams, or the children's evil mom's fears about starving while they frolic. Or, maybe the old woman has done this before, and they find half-eaten children piled up in back. Who knows!?

Okay, so it might be a bit creepy for an adult to admit that an animated character is hot, but come on, Jessica Rabbit wasn't really bad, she was just drawn that way, right? Animated characters have been sexualized since the early days of the genre because sex sold just as well back then as it does today. It's pretty evident when you check out all of Disney's animated leading ladies that they've been drawn to look appealing to the eye, going back as far as Snow White and Tinkerbell. (An interesting side note here, according to this interview with Margaret Kerry, who was the character model for Tinkerbell, she claims that her real name is Tinker Bell, two words, although Disney officially has it as one. Her interview is pretty fascinating, check it out.)

The Being a Man Spot over at fanpop has a list of Disney's top ten hottest women, and there are no real surprises on the list. What's notable are the omissions like Jessie from Toy Story 2 who was both sassy and smart, and Daisy Duck, who sort of falls into the creepy Wayne's World category of Bugs Bunny in a dress being attractive. Daisy had a fair amount of sass as well, and she didn't take Donald's nonsense either. That has to count for something, because she definitely wore the pants in that pants-less relationship.

The real question is, what effect does the traditional Disney female image have on young kids? Not everyone is a fan of the oversexed and vivacious look that runs rampant in the Disney-verse, arguing that it gives little girls an image to live up to that is far from what a normal person looks like, and that is sets a very limiting stereotype of what a heroine can look like. Barbie has faced the same sort of criticisms, especially during the whole "Math is hard!" fiasco, yet both Barbie and the Disney women are still created to look like pinup girls.

Is this a good thing, or a bad thing? What do you think, Cinemites?

[Thanks, Marsha]