The Curse of Sleeping Beauty - Movie Review
What do you get when you mix Sleeping Beauty with Silent Hill and a dash of Insidious? A movie that’s why better than it has any right to be. Does that mean it’s good?
Let’s discuss.
The Curse of Sleeping Beauty (TCOSB) is a Horror/Mystery/Thriller brought to us writer/director Pearry Reginald Teo based on the works of The Brothers Grimm and Everette Hartsoe. Yeah, I’ve only heard of The Brothers Grimm too. Pearry Reginald Teo hasn’t really done anything mainstream. He’s written screenplays based on obscure graphic novels and had minor producer credits on box office bombs like Cloud Atlas. As for the graphic novel of the same name written by Everette Harsoe and Pearry Teo, it’s a poorly done self published work that appears to have never risen above the bargain bin.
Not a great start, right?
Well, unlike the graphic novel and the careers of those involved, this film is actually pretty decent. I know that’s a pretty vanilla answer that gives no implication of what I think. So let’s put the film on the day of the week scale. Not familiar? This is a scale that is grades the film by the factors of day of the week and time of day that this would most likely be found on TV in the good old days.
(That means the 1990’s FYI.)
So, on the Day of the Week Scale, I’d say this falls firmly into the Saturday afternoon at 2:00pm. For those Millenials reading that have no recollection of the 90’s, let me break it down. 2:00pm Saturday, 1994 - Woke up at 9:30AM, caught X-Men: The Animated Series before going outback to mow my parents lawn, skim the pool, eat lunch, do my homework, and then law down on the sofa and flip on the cable box. Your belly’s full, your work is done, and you don’t have to do anything but Vege for the rest of the day. These are the movies that you’re kind of digging, but not enough to keep you from dozing off halfway through. Movies that you remember that snippet before nap time and you can’t remember the name of no matter what you do. So, you couldn’t figure out if Blockbuster or Hollywood Video had it on tape to rent. Which then of course leads to twenty years of questioning if the movie was real or if you had a stroke.
Ahem, back to the task at hand—the film breaks down as follows:
Thomas Kaiser is a troubled painter. No matter how much he paints or sketches, he can’t shake the nightmarish visions that haunt him every night. The stress on his health is only compounded when he is notified that he is the sole beneficiary on his uncle’s estate. An uncle he didn’t know existed. Upon stepping foot inside the property Ethan’s visions invade his waking life as he’s pulled into a dreamscape of angels and demons. Will Ethan be able to solve the mystery behind Sleeping Beauty’s curse before he’s pulled into oblivion? Find out in The Curse of Sleeping Beauty on UPN this Saturday at 2:00pm Pacific.
I couldn’t resist.
Cough—Spoilers—Cough!
Alright, so first off… this is an extremely low budget production. We’re talking slightly above junior college, but far below Ivy League. This has the feel of a student film sans the political message. That’s what makes the quality of this movie so surprising. The set dressing, lighting, practical effects, and camera work are nearly the AAA level. The film looks great. There are some dips in quality in a couple of sequences (Briar Rose Monologues), but outside of those, the film has an almost Polanski feel to the visuals.
It’s too bad they cast Ethan Peck as Thomas Kaiser. They might as well have cast a Duraflame log. Ethan’s a gorgeous man, but acting is not one of his talents. Wait, Wait… that’s too cruel. He has some acting talent. He’d probably be serviceable in a cologne commercial, but I digress. This has been a common theme recently on our discussions here. Movies that would have been 100% better with one casting change. Ethan Peck isn’t fully responsible for the failure of this film, but by God he’s shoulders a large chunk of this cross. There are scenes where his co-stars are just chewing scenery to try and overshadow his Sofia Coppola-esque performance. What confounds me the most about it is that Zack Ward is in this film in a supporting role. Why didn’t they swap Ethan to the 5 line part? WHYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!??!!
Speaking of acting, other people are in this film. Prolific 2010’s television actress Natalie Hall is our love interest here. She brings a lot of heart to the role of the estate agent searching for her long-missing brother. I felt so bad watching he try to act off of a hunk of wood. She’s trying so hard to pull something out of him… Sorry, I’m back. Holy shit, they dragged screen legend Bruce Davison into this? Bruce, you poor soul. If you don’t know who Bruce Davison is, you’re a terrible person. He’s pretty much been in every tv show or movie for the last thirty years. He was Senator Kelly in the X-men films and my favorite villain of all time Dr. Stegman in Kingdom Hospital. He’s the best thing about this entire film. I would have rather seen a movie about his character, Richard, the exorcist who has a Koran in one hand and .22 pistol in the other.
That doesn’t happen.
Nope. You have to watch the movie the filmmakers put together. Which starts out strong as a haunted house mystery flick, but quickly takes a nosedive into pseudo-apocryphal gibberish mixed with Islamic mythology. I love that they switched the Sleeping Beauty myth to a Persian motif, but the convoluted twists and turns that are attempted sound more like that one guy who Role-plays his Planeswalker at Friday Night Magic.
NERD ALERT!
In all seriousness, it’s so overly complicated and messy that it becomes incomprehensible. I get wanting to world build and try to mix culturally relevant myth and religion into an adventure story. I am currently writing a series of novels based on the Lost Key of Soloman mixed with Greek Mythology. It’s a fun topic, but you can’t overcomplicate it. If you’re going to look at the Islamic creation myth of Djinn and Ahriman / Demons, you can’t just do an exposition dumb that blurted out like gobbledygook at the end of the movie. The majority of the audience is going to have 0 basis in the story from the outset. You have to bridge that disparity of knowledge.
That doesn’t happen.
So we get to the end and it turns out that Sleeping Beauty was a demon, not surprised, and the Djinn was a good guy that just looked like the nurses from Silent Hill. Oh and our favorite log of inanimate flesh Thomas? Oh, he’s a meatbag full of demon’s souls. That explains why he was drawn to the house and started experiencing a psychic menstrual cycle upon entering.
Wait, no it doesn’t.
This film sets up a lot of intriguing questions. Outside of the almost unbearable exposition dumps, the film actually has some okay writing. Until you get to the last thirty minutes.
Jesus…
I don’t know if this was the ending had planned or if they just ran out of money, but they try to jam all of the information and mystery into this final section of the film. That’s after so much time was wasted watching Thomas lounge around and act like he had a tummy ache. Poor time/money management on a film set is the kiss of death. This is evident here as the ending is just a rancid banana of a conclusion. I don’t think I can put into words how convoluted it is. This is coming from a guy who loves Italian Giallo.
I feel bad for the special effects team. You could really tell that they didn’t have much money to work with as the quality of the monster effects wanes as the film goes on. Initially, the nightmarish creatures are on par with the 1st Silent Hill film. After the halfway point, the quality dips to high school drama department level. It’s a brutal shift as the initial half hour of the film had impressive visuals.
Okay, Okay, I know I’ve basically just dropped trow and squatted over this film, but really it’s fine. You’re only going to see the good parts while you doze on the couch anyway.
Watch this film on Saturday at 2:00pm. Make sure you’ve got a comfy pillow and a light throw.
