Movie Review: 'The Death of Snow White' a Surprisingly Good Knock Off Horror Movie

The Death of Snow White

Directed by Jason Brooks

Written by Jason Brooks, Naomi Mechum-Miller

Starring Sanae Loutsis, Chelsea Edmundson, Tristan Nokes

Release Date April 18th, 2025

Published April 15th, 2025

I was expecting something awful when I chose to watch and write about the knock 0ff horror movie, The Death of Snow White. My experience with the Winnie the Pooh horror film, Blood and Honey, had me expecting something ugly, exploitative, and gross. Thus, it comes as a terrific surprise that co-writer and director Jason Brooks took the legend of Snow White for a horror movie subject and made a genuine horror movie that doesn’t denigrate the Disney story for cheap, ripoff, gross-out at the expense of our collective positive Disney memories.

Instead, The Death of Snow White adheres to the Brothers Grimm version of Snow White, crafting a horror movie for adults that dips into the broader elements of the blood and guts horror movie tropes while maintaining the character of Snow White as an innately good person whose innocence and kindness remain her greatest strengths. Snow White may appear helpless but her goodness masks strong instincts and her compassion makes her heroic when she needs to be.

In The Death of Snow White a genuinely terrifying Evil Queen (Chelsea Edmundson) bathes in the blood of young women in order to keep herself young and alive. This malevolence however, prevents her from becoming the ‘fairest in the land’ as her evil means she cannot eclipse the beauty and kindness of Snow White (Sanae Loutsis). Naturally, this drives the Queen mad. She’d attempted to kill Snow White in the womb years ago but Snow White’s mother sacrificed herself to save her baby.

Eventually, the Evil Queen was able to snake her way into the Kingdom and eliminate Snow White’s father, a beloved and benevolent King who’d managed to protect his daughter from the Queen’s predations. With him gone however, Snow is living on borrowed time. She’s blissfully unaware however, her relationship with the proletariat is just enough to keep the Evil Queen from murdering her right away. The Queen needs to build her strength before she can try and kill Snow White without the kingdom rising against her.

Among the most notable changes to the well known Snow White legend, aside from the bloody horror elements, is the introduction of our Prince, played by Tristan Nokes. The Prince is part of the story from the beginning of the movie and we get to see him begin his courtship of Snow White before the Evil Queen sends her huntsmen to capture Snow White and her friends. Yes, Snow White has friends in this version of the story and the Queen wants their blood next. This adds to the evil of the Queen and the bold bloodiness of the horror.

Fleeing into the forest, Snow White must battle her way through forest demons and shadowy characters and eventually she finds help in the 7 Dwarves. Well, 6 Dwarves and one giant who is an honorary Dwarf. Played by actual little people, as opposed to the modern CGI creations of the recent Hollywood adaptation, these Dwarves are badass, fearsome fighters, feared by the Evil Queen and bathed in the lore of having been Snow White’s protectors years earlier before the Evil Queen managed to run them off to the forest. Unfortunately for her though, she can’t keep them at bay forever and when they align with Snow White and The Prince, the stage is set for an uprising.

The Death of Snow White is far from perfect. The low budget is visible in the low watt visuals and slapdash sets. That said, the film is directed with gusto and invention. The blood and guts received a significant portion of the film's budget and is more than effective in turning stomachs and underlining the scares of The Death of Snow White. The genre of knock off horror, horror movies based on existing I.P, typically those with connections to beloved childhood stories, is usually a den of thieves and villains eager to exploit public domain I.P for hideously cheap and nasty movies that only make money by being cheap and exploitative. The Death of Snow White sidesteps this I.P exploitation by taking the material seriously and the horror even more seriously.

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