I stumbled upon this one day in my local library when I was about six, and I wanted to rent it right away. I was pleasantly surprise when I started to watch it that it became one of my favorite movies. I think at one point I had all the lines memorized. I remembered that it was indeed frightening, but in an exciting, mysterious way that I don't think most children would be bothered with (if a six year old didn't find it scary, please, I doubt anyone else really will.) I've read some comments on here with people complaining about how scary it was, and all I can conclude is that you need to get out a whole lot more. This film is like Barney compared to some of the things I've seen kids these days watch. Now, years later being a horror movie fan I can only giggle at how I thought everything was so scary about this movie.
Did the animation suck? Yes it did. I recently rented this from the library again, curious to see it years later (one of those trips down memory lane) and as I watched I began to count all the continuity/animation errors and I wound up with a very high number lol. But was the story that bad? No, I actually remember liking it more than the original fairytale as a kid. This was much more exciting, and to this day I still love the villain, Lord Maliss. He's so deliciously evil, how could anyone refuse him? Getting to characters, was Snow White a cardboard cutout in this film? Yes, she was. But was she even flatter than a piece of paper in the original Disney classic? Yes, I found the original Snow White to be whiny and annoying. I also thought this Snow White was a lot prettier, excusing her unexplained hairstyle change every few minutes (I found it strange that sometimes her hair would be seen up in a ponytail, hanging down loosely or just wearing this strange, gravity-defying headband.) Scowl the owl had me laughing a couple of times, too. The only thing is that his sidekick, Batso, bothered me. He was, if anything, EXTREMELY annoying. I found myself wanting to slap him every now and then. The Dwarfelles, I thought, were some of the most original little creations to hit children's movies. Each one of the Dwarfelles carried a unique, fun, loving, and most of all interesting personality and had inspirational qualities to them. I found this especially true with Thunderella, such a cute little girl and I thought she had the most catchy tuned song as well.
Which now brings me to the music. Many people have accused the songs of being annoying wastes of time. I must disagree, I thought each one of the songs were original and likable in their own way, but I admire Thunderella's little song the most and it will always be my favorite. Even Scowl's song is fun, but I can only wish that Irene Cara was given a chance to sing.
I really don't know why this film flopped, to this day it's one of my favorite films of my childhood and will always have a special place in my heart.
8 stars outta 10
