Sleeping Beauty Review by Bobby LePire. Edited by Courtney McAllister.

 

As “Casper Van Dien Month” wraps, we visit his Asylum offerings. And what better way to start a look at the collaborations between my favorite actor and my favorite movie studio than by looking at Van Dien’s directorial debut, “Sleeping Beauty”. It is an Asylum tie-in to “Maleficent” from May 2014. So did the lower budget movie beat the theatrical release? Do decades of starring roles in front of the camera translate into having a vision and style behind it? The answer to both is hell yeah!

 

It’s ‘Sleeping Beauty’, so you know the plot already! But, this is surprisingly close to the source material:

Princess Dawn (Grace Van Dien) is cursed by the villainess Tambria (Olivia D'Abo) to death by spindle needle on her sixteenth birthday. A good fairy alters the curse for it to be just an eternal slumber. A hundred years later, a prince (Edward Lewis French) and his band of adventurers are on a quest to save the princess. The evil witch summons zombies, a dragon, and other beasts of evil for the heroes to contend with. Can the prince save the princess in time? Will the witch take over the neighboring kingdom?

 

I have probably seen this a dozen or so times since its release, and having already written 1600+ words on this movie, I will attempt to not retread too much of the same things here. But, certain things can’t be helped.

 

Grace Van Dien is excellent as the titular beauty- radiant, compassionate, and seriously owns the last third of this movie. She gives a starmaking performance, which in and of itself makes the movie worth buying. Happily, her costars are as equally impressive. Finn Jones, as the whipping boy Barrow, is just as convincing. The way he has to hide his intelligence from the prince, but lets it slip out just enough to prove he knows better is subtle and impressive. Jones and Van Dien's chemistry is excellent as well, and makes their instant falling in love totally believable.

 

Olivia D’Abo is tons of fun, overacting her crazed fantasies, and still coming across as a real threat. Casper Van Dien and Catherine Oxenberg have small roles as the King and Queen, and both are excellent, and exude a certain regal charm each time they are on screen (Oxenberg is a real life princess, so that probably helped). Edward French plays Prince Jayson as a completely spoiled brat, but a turn about halfway through the film is perfectly performed with lots of heart and conviction. Dylan Vox and David Elliot portray the Brothers Grimm (yeah, they are in this movie), and they are clearly having a ball, and that joy comes off the screen.

 

Special effects maestro Joseph Lawson, who has helped create some of the best looking special effects for the Asylum, outdoes himself here. The balls of magic energy thrown by the various enchanted creatures look credible, while still retaining a sense of wonderment about it. A sea monster looks impressively slimy and scaly. The dragon though, is the standout. We get quite a good number of scenes featuring it, and it is awe-inspiring. The sense of weight when it crashes into the ground from a high tower, the way it moves after it loses an arm, its convincingly razor sharp teeth, it looks amazing.

 

The costumes also have a lot of attention and detail to them. The crowns, and various other jewels/ treasures, don’t look plastic-y or too bright, but rather realistically worn and tarnished, though still opulent. The dresses and , especially a gorgeous gown worn by Dawn during her birthday ceremony, all look good, suited to the time period, and have vibrant colors. The suits for the fellows look equally stylish and realistic. The differences between Prince Jayson’s and Barrow’s clothes, one being constantly covered in dirt, the other being pristine until the crazy comes, shows quite a bit of thought put into it.

 

The score by Joseph Metcalfe is just as good as everything else. The rising strings during the fight between the evil Tambria and the good fairies is rousing as hell. It helps envelop you into the world, and helps heightened the stakes. Metcalfe's song at the end of the movie, ‘When You First Kissed Me’, is incredible, and it fits the mood of the movie perfectly.

 

Casper Van Dien’s directing is exquisite. There’s a sense of urgency, and danger lurking just around the edges. He never cuts away from anything too swiftly, so a nice sense of geography builds up. The cinematography is lush, and offers a great depth of field, which adds to the overall magical feeling of the world.

 

In a year filled with excellent Asylum releases, Van Dien’s “Sleeping Beauty” blows all of them, along with a surprising number of bigger releases, out of the water. With its attention to detail, style, and edginess, this is the Asylum’s best movie to date, and I can’t imagine anything else topping it for awhile.