This Ever After is no Cinderella Story, like the 1998 Drew Barrymore hit. However, it does have a Prince Charming (Ghost Bastard’s Philippe Reinhardt), albeit one who roofies women and plays with rocks.
It also has a Little Red Riding Hood (Borderlands’ Riana Emma Balla) who quips, “Happy ever after, motherfucker!” before shotgunning someone, but I’m getting ahead of myself.
From Hungary, this storybook slasher smorgasbord concerns seven young women on a bachelorette trip to a rental house in a desolate forest. None of the ladies bears a character trait beyond “horny,” but that’s okay since Ever After is interested in entrails, not introspection.
As the bloodletting begins, the girls encounter:
• three pig-masked men whose instruments of death include a sledgehammer, flamethrower and massive bare belly
• a redneck huntsman (Michael Berryman, 1977’s The Hills Have Eyes)
• a big bad wolf (voiced by Kane Hodder, Jason X) clad in leather vest adorned with kitty cats and an “I’M SPECIAL” patch
• a frog king (voiced by Malcolm McDowell, 1982’s Cat People), complete with crown
• a witch (Bonnie Aarons, 2018’s The Nun)
• and a circus ringmaster (Mark Sheppard, TV’s Supernatural) who speaks in riddles and rhymes
Although I’m not against paychecks, I’ve come to despise the Expendables-of-horror casting approach in which Ever After and so many indie fright films indulge. Generally, because doing so suggests that’s all the movie has going for it. That’s not quite the case here. Director and co-writer Laszlo Illes (Haunting Trophies, get it?) lines his fucked-up fairy tale with dialogue that’s either spoken in jest or lost in translation: When a bear trap snaps around a woman’s ankle, her friend shouts, “Quick! The tweezers!” If the result of a language barrier, at least it kept me mildly interested.
Gorehounds won’t be satisfied, considering the acts of carnage occur off-camera — retractable-blade knifings notwithstanding. Illes clearly has ambition, but perhaps way too much. His greatest sin is overstuffing the story. Seriously, why is this more than two hours long? By comparison, Christopher Nolan’s epic The Odyssey runs nearly three, but that covers 20 years to Ever After’s, oh, 36 hours.
Slashers should leave you wanting more, not less — just not wanting everything more because it has zip to offer, a la the similar public-domain path-trodding Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey. Unlike that dump, this is bearable. —Rod Lott
In theaters Friday, Sept. 4. On demand, Tuesday, Oct. 27.