Cinderella's Revenge has Lauren Staerck as our eponymous hero. After her father is framed by her stepmother and executed by a couple of bounty hunters, she's forced to live a life of toil and abuse at the hands of the stepmother and her stepsisters. When a ball is announced for the prince to find a mate, initially Cinderella is stuck at home, but a visit from her Fairy Godmother (Natasha Henstridge) changes all that, allowing Cinderella to go and be the belle of the ball. This only enrages her stepmother and stepsiblings even more, but instead of taking it lying down, Cinderella asks her Fairy Godmother for help again, and she gives Cinderella the strength to exact bloody revenge on all who have wronged her.
This was a lot of fun, a great mix of comedic, lighthearted moments, and gory, horror ones. When one of the stepsisters saws off her two smallest toes to try to fit into Cinderella's shoes, it was definitely a cringe-worthy moment for me, which is what a movie like this wants, but Tom reminded me on the podcast that that was taken from the original version of the story--not something we'll see in the Disney adaptations. Adding to the levity, Natasha Henstridge was great as the Fairy Godmother, off-beat, caring, and perhaps a bit sinister. This is juxtaposed with Stephanie Lodge's villainous stepmother, who is never not menacing and vile; and the two stepsisters, played by Beatrice Fletcher and Megan Purvis, who were more silly in their performances--Purvis in particular reminded me of Tracy Ullman. Then all of this is tied together by Lauren Staerck, who we really have to become invested in early on so we can be there to root for her when she starts the killing spree. It all works in a fun, 85-minute package, and while you can't see it in the theater anymore, Tubi is as great a place as any to check it out.
The big name in this is Natasha Henstridge, who we've seen here two other times, first in '07 with the Pyun/Lambert flick Adrenaline: Fear the Rush, and then in '08 with Riders aka Steal, with Stephen Dorff and Bruce Payne. 16 years feels like a long time between posts for her, but in looking over her IMDb bio, the only thing I see that we probably should've reviewed is 2016's Home Invasion with Scott Adkins and Jason Patric, but it was dumped from Tubi before I had a chance to catch it, and it's been lost to me ever since. I was surprised to find out that she's not that old, as she was only 21 when she did Species, and 22 when she did Adrenaline: Fear the Rush and Maximum Risk. So how do we get here, from Species to low-budget films like this--even if this one was produced by Mark L. Lester? In her IMDb trivia, she said she wasn't good at choosing movies, and turned down Independence Day and Men in Black for those two movies I just mentioned. That's the start, right? Then two underperforming films, Species II and Ghosts of Mars, a success in a supporting role in The Whole Nine Yards, only to see that sequel not do as well, and now we're doing She Spies. (Which I have to admit I was a fan of.) Seeing her here, where she's bringing a lot of great stuff to the table, we can see where she could've shined in bigger films. Maybe if Elektra didn't do so poorly, Marvel wouldn't have waited until Captain Marvel to make another female-led adaptation. And maybe we could still see her in something like that, but in the meantime, we can enjoy her work here.
That's right, Mark L. Lester produced this, he of Commando, Showdown in Little Tokyo, The Base films, and many others. Somehow I missed that he also produced The Gardener, the Gary Daniels film I reviewed recently. Over the last ten years or so, he's stopped directing and turned his attention to producing low-budget films like this--the one he did before this was Ouija Witch, which is also on all the free streamers here in the States. This kind of stuff is fun for sure, but what the world needs is another balls-to-the-wall actioner! Call up Dolph, call up Dacascos--hell if Arnold won't answer your calls, at least call Vernon Wells--and let's blow some shit up! And you've got the screenwriter you need, Tom can give you 90 pages. At the very least, just consider it, and if not for us, please, do it for the kids.
Obviously as the DTV Connoisseur, I don't see movies in the theater that often, let alone review ones I've seen at the theater on my site, so this was a unique experience, but one I hope to have more often. Yes, with me not having a car it's a bit of a hike up to Warrington where this was showing, but it was a fun adventure and worth the trip to support an indie low-budget release like this, and I would happily do it more often if more films like this were showing in the area. For low-budget distributors considering limited releases of their films, one benefit I hadn't considered was the exposure you get from people coming to see other things. At the time this was playing, the new Ghostbusters movie and The Fall Guy were also playing, so anyone coming to see those would see the poster for this and, even if they didn't come back and see it, would have been exposed to it, so when they saw it months later as they're paging through Tubi, it might be enough to have them give it a try among all the other options on there.
Finally, we live in a world of expansive movie universes. The MCU is perhaps the most well known, or DC, but Star Trek and Star Wars also come to mind, or even the Fast and Furious. What about fairy tale characters though? They're all public domain, so anyone can use them. Maybe you make a sequel to this, introduce Hansel and Gretel in it, give them their own movie, then go from there, building to a major film with all the characters from the previous films fighting two or three big baddies. And because these stories have been changed and fudged and passed around for centuries, like this one here, you can do whatever you want with it. I think we might have something with this...
But for now, it's just Cinderella's Revenge, and you can get it on Tubi here in the States. I had a really fun time with it, and I think it's worth checking out, especially if you're looking for some off-beat horror to pass the time. Kudos to everyone involved, including Tom, who wrote a great screenplay here. Again, you can check out my conversation with him on this on episode 157 in the archives.
For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt28087226
Looking for more action? Check out my short action novel, Bainbridge, and all my other novels, over at my author's page! Click on the image below, go to https://www.matthewpoirierauthor.com/
No comments:
Post a Comment