Ooh, this is scary. If there was a movie for which the word eerie was invented, this one is it, and it is made all more chilling by its familiarity. It's a Fairy Tale, for Grimm's sake! It's Snow White and her little dwarvey friends, outwitting the wicked old stepmother and living happily ever after. It is not about depression and abandonment and manipulation and threats of rape. You'd think.

The place is sixteenth century Austria, and Lord Friedrich Hoffman (Sam Neill) and his wife have themselves a daughter. But, as we all know, the mother dies (in a carriage accident caused by wolves, here), and years later the father takes unto himself a new bride. This bride is Claudia (Sigourney Weaver), and our little princess, Lilliana (Monica Keena), is none too fond of her. After throwing wine viciously at her new step-mother during a slightly kinky wedding ritual, Snow continues to be horrible toward the glamorous Claudia -- who seems to only want to love her.

Then Lilli grows up. Stepmom can't deal with the fact that pretty Snowy gets all the attention -- oh, plus there's a dead baby in there somewhere -- and so she decides to have her convenient mute brother Gustav kill the girl dead (God, is she a bitch or what?). Mute Brother doesn't succeed, obviously, and Snow finds herself lost in the forest, this time with no friendly woodland creatures to show her to sanctuary.

Sanctuary she eventually does find, however, in the form of an abandoned Church. But she is not the only tenant therein; in fact, here's where she meets the dwarves (well, one dwarf and a bunch of other miners, none of whom are particularly diminutive). Amongst them is one far cuter than the rest, far nobler, far cleaner... oh, but there's no way she could be interested in him, surely! 'Cause she has to save herself for Prince Charming. Doesn't she?

Apparently not. The only Prince Charming-type in the film is Snow's idiot upper-class boyfriend (who comes to a delightful end!), and it is handsome peasant Will (Gil Bellows) who ends up saving the poor dear from her twisted step mother's revenge by awakening her in the usual manner -- gee, whatever could that be?

This is an oddly paced film -- days can seem weeks and weeks, years (and it always seems to be autumn in that country!). Nevertheless, it is a very original take on a very old tale, and boasts some very fine performances. Sam Neill is his usual handsome self as Daddy, and Bellows is a fine, fine figure of an outlaw as miner Will. Monica Keena, as the bratty Snow White -- and who will perhaps be better known to viewers of a certain age and temperament as Abby Morgan -- displays some of that manipulative sweetness that got her Dawson's Creek character drowned. But, really, none of them can hold a candle (it's the sixteenth century -- get it?) to Sigourney.

Sigourney Weaver turns in a truly masterful performance as a woman driven to insanity by the treatment of her mother, the loss of her child, and the wielding of arcane powers she does not seem to quite understand. When Sigourney dons that Old Hag makeup and gives Snow the poisoned apple (what, you didn't think they'd leave that out, did ya?) she is that Old Hag, she is Death incarnate. And when she looks into her magic mirror (yes, yes, that's here too) and sees therein only pain and misery, you have to feel sorry for her -- until you remember that she tried to have her step-daughter killed and that she poisoned everyone in the castle. That does tend to put her in a new light.

For all Sigourney's brilliance, however, the main star of this film is the score. It is simply spine-tingling. The huge Gothic castle, the darkness and The Sigourney all contribute to the feeling of doom and gloom, of course, but it is the music, more than anything else, that makes this film quietly terrifying. From the carriage accident (or was it an accident?) to the sex scenes to Stepmom's descent into madness, those mellifluous, beautiful -- and yet disturbing -- notes resonate through every scene, heightening tensions and strengthening otherwise dull moments, filling them with portent.

This is not a grand scale horror, and it is not even that graphic (though there is blood here, to be sure). But it has that insidious kind of creepiness that makes the goosebumps rise and the heart beat fast.

Sometimes subtle can be spookier.

  -- Rachel Hyland