C. M. Rosens

Introduction

There are A LOT of Sleeping Beauty films, and most of them, unsurprisingly, are French and German. There are also a few horror and drama films that I think might count as related, but I’ve thrown in other films as well, like the adaptations of the Japanese novella The House of Sleeping Beauties (1961) by Yasunari Kawabata, which I didn’t find in time for the previous post.

The concept of this novella honestly makes my skin crawl, but it’s not a horror novella I think? It’s actually esoteric erotica, which is my personal kind of horror, to be honest. As is now tradition, I’ve kept the whole list loose and contentious, so enjoy!

Anyway, here we go. You will find these in the second section of this post, after the list of direct(ish) adaptations of the fairytale 1903-2023, which include filmed versions of the ballet.

Catch up on the whole series of fairy tale posts here.

Sleeping Beauty Adaptations

Here’s a list of adaptations of the fairytale from 1903, the earliest short silent film I can find, up to a 2023 version of the ballet. This also includes Disney’s live action Maleficent duology and an erotic version. Genuinely surprised that the 1970s didn’t bless us with a million soft porn versions of this tale, but I guess they were busy making all the kids animations? Maybe they did. Again, I’m not looking too hard. The ‘esoteric erotica’ premise of The House of the Sleeping Beauties is still haunting me. Ironically, I actually wrote a scene like this in The Crows, and it remains [for me] the most uncomfortable scene I’ve written.

• La Belle au Bois Dormant (1903) dir. Lucien Nonguet and Ferdinand Zecca
• La Belle au Bois Dormant (1908) dir. Albert Capellani, Lucien Nonguet (early short silent film, watch it on YouTube colourised, here, or here.)
• Dornröschen (1917) dir. Paul Leni
• La Belle au Bois Dormant (1922) dir. Stéphane Passet
• La Belle au Bois Dormant (1935) dir. Alexandre Alexeieff (French stop motion)
• Dornröschen (1943) dir. Ferdinand Diehl (German stop motion)
• Prinsessa Ruusunen (1949) dir. Edvin Laine
• The Sleeping Beauty (1954) dir. Lotte Reininger
• La Belle au Bois Dormant (1954) dir. Pierre Badel
• Dornröschen/Sleeping Beauty (1955) dir. Fritz Genschow
• Sleeping Beauty (1959) dir. Eric Larson, Wolfgang Reitherman, Clyde Geronimi, Les Clark (the Disney animation set, allegedly, in the 14thC)
• Dornröschen (1965) dir. Fritz Zecha (TV movie)
• Dornröschen (1968) dir. Katja Georgi (East German stop motion)
• Dornröschen/Sleeping Beauty (1971) dir. Walter Beck
• The Sleeping Beauty (1972) – Rudolf Nureyev’s choreography, film of the ballet
• Jak se budí princezny/How To Wake A Princess (1978) dir. Václav Vorlíček
• Sleeping Beauty (1981) dir. David Irving (live action musical)
• Dornröschen/Sleeping Beauty (1990) dir. Stanislav Párnický
• Sleeping Beauty (1995) dir. Toshiyuki Hiruma, Takashi Masunaga (animation)
• Dornröschen (1996) dir. Wolfram Seeger (TV movie)
• Dornröschen (1999) dir. Hannelore Hermsdorf, Dieter Schmidt
• Rudolf Nureyev’s Sleeping Beauty (2000) dir. Hugues R. Gall (filmed version of the ballet)
• Dornröschen (2008) dir. Arend Agthe
• Dornröschen (2009) dir. Oliver Dieckmann
• La belle endormie/The Sleeping Beauty (2010) dir. Catherine Breillat
• Der 7bte Zwerg/The Seventh Dwarf (2014) dir. Boris Aljinovic, Harald Siepermann (animation – yes it’s about Sleeping Beauty/Rose and not about Snow White)
• Sleeping Beauty (2014) dir. Casper Van Dien
• Maleficent (2014) dir. Robert Stromberg
• Sleeping Beauties (2017) dir. Dean McKendrick (the erotic modern retelling where she wakes up and embarks on her sexual adventures with m/f after being asleep for 400yrs)
• Maleficent: Mistress of Evil (2019) dir. Joachim Rønning
• La Belle au Bois Dormant: Ballet en un Acte (2023) dir. Isabelle Julien (unsure what this is: going off the title/poster, I think a film version of the ballet for TV)

Films with Sleeping Beauty Themes

A lot of these are erotic drama, or dark/horror, or have CWs for rape, or a combination. It’s a ride, friends. There’s definitely a CW for attempted suicide in The Past/Le Passé, and I think it’s best to check doesthedogdie.com for all of them.

Les belles au bois dormantes/Versatile Lovers (1970) dir. Pierre Chenal – I’m not sure that this shares much with the tale except the title; it’s also called Les Libertines, and Les Bellas del Bosque.
Isabelle (Marisa Mell) runs a nursing home for wealthy women who are trying to detox from their various obsessions. Her lover, Serge Belaiev (Robert Hossein), a petty gangster, has pulled off a big hit but his partners have denounced him to the police in order to appropriate his share of the loot. Isabelle takes him in and hides him in an attic of this strange house. In love with Isabelle, Philippe Lansac (Alberto Dalbes), the owner of the place, decides to close the castle…

Some Call It Loving (1973) dir. James B. Harris – A woman who’s been asleep for years is part of a carnival that sells her kisses for a buck. A lonely jazz musician buys her. Once awake, the two of them and his two girlfriends hook up. But sometimes, dreams are better than reality.

眠れる美女/House of the Sleeping Beauties (1995) dir. Hiroto Yokoyama – [Also adapted by Spain and Germany in the 00s, because of course it fucking was] About an establishment where old men pay to sleep besides young girls that had been narcotized and happen to be naked, the sleeping beauties. The old men are expected to take sleeping pills and share the bed for a whole night with a girl without attempting anything of bad taste like putting a finger inside their mouths. [This is the actual description and I’m both deeply intrigued and crawling out of my skin]

This one was remade as Nemureru bijo (2007) dir. Akemi Tachibana.

Sleeping Beauties (1999) dir. Jaime Babbit – YOU MAKE A CORPSE LOOK WARM. A morgue beautician is trying to get over her ex-girlfriend. 13mins short lesbian film.

Bellas Durmientes (2001) dir. Eloy Lozano – [adaptation of the Japanese novella and its 1995 Japanese film version] Lawrence, a renowned writer, comes to Santiago to spend the winter. There, by his colleague Elijah, he finds a very special house on the outskirts of the city, run by a secretive and mysterious woman, Salome. In this house, older men spend the night with young sleeping women, seeking to regain their lost youth.

Jason X (2001) dir. James Isaac – EVIL HAS AN UPGRADE. In the year 2455, Old Earth is now a contaminated planet abandoned for centuries – a brown world of violent storms, toxic landmasses and poisonous seas. Yet humans have returned to the deadly place that they once fled, not to live, but to research the ancient, rusting artifacts of the long-gone civilizations. But it’s not the harmful environment that could prove fatal to the intrepid, young explorers who have just landed on Old Earth. For them, it’s Friday the 13th, and Jason lives!

Hable con ella/Talk To Her (2002) dir. Pedro Almódovar – Two men share an odd friendship while they care for two women who are both in deep comas. (TW: rape, pregnancy from rape)

Kill Bill Vol. I (2003) dir. Quentin Tarantino – An assassin is shot by her ruthless employer, Bill, and other members of their assassination circle – but she lives to plot her vengeance.

Bill is the wicked fairy not invited to the wedding… and so Beatrix “The Bride” Kiddo ends up in a coma after getting shot (a bullet is the spindle in this case). During her coma there is the sexual assault element from the hospital porters – though this fails to wake her. When she does wake, she goes on a rampage of revenge.

Dornröschen (2004) dir. Jochen Taubert – Who says Sleeping Beauty is a girl? We know that it is a male vampire who is just waiting to be awakened by a kiss. Because death is only the beginning…

The Brothers Grimm (2005) dir. Terry Gilliam – This one is a mash up of a lot of Grimm fairytales, and the main antagonist runs on a Sleeping Beauty/Rapunzel plot.

ELIMINATING EVIL SINCE 1812. Folklore collectors and con artists, Jake and Will Grimm, travel from village to village pretending to protect townsfolk from enchanted creatures and performing exorcisms. However, they are put to the test when they encounter a real magical curse in a haunted forest with real magical beings, requiring genuine courage.

Das Haus der schlafenden Schönen/House of the Sleeping Beauties (2006) dir. Vadim Glowna – [German adaptation of the Japanese novella] Edmond, a man in his sixties whose wife has recently passed away, is told about a secret establishment where men can spend an entire night in bed alongside beautiful, sleeping young women, who stretch, roll over and dream, but never awaken. Bedazzled by their seductive yet innocent tenderness, but distressed about the reason for their deep sleep, he delves into the mystery of the house of sleeping beauties.

Dornröschen Erwacht (2006) dir. Elmar Fischer – After three years in a coma, Juliane Maybach suddenly wakes up, but doesn’t remember the last months before the accident that caused her critical condition. The estrangement from her husband Stefan and their daughter Antonia weighs heavily upon her mind and makes her mistrust everyone. Little by little, Juliane tries to uncover the secrets of her past.

Parasomnia (2008) dir. William Malone – WHERE DREAMS END AND NIGHTMARES BEGIN. Laura Baxter is a young woman, literally a “sleeping beauty,” who suffers from a medical condition called “parasomnia.” A childhood accident victim, she is actually sleeping her life away, awakening briefly on rare occasions. Art student Danny Sloan falls in love with her, unaware that her hospital neighbor, a terrifying mass murderer and mesmerist named Byron Volpe, has other, more sinister plans.

Sleeping Beauty (2011) dir. Julia Leigh – Again, not sure much is similar here except the title and the loose image of a sleeping woman in a sexual context? But here it is. I think this might be loosely based on The House of Sleeping Beauties concept.

A haunting portrait of Lucy, a young university student drawn into a mysterious hidden world of unspoken desires. Lucy is a university student who is working a number of jobs. She volunteers at a research lab, works at a coffee shop, and as a photocopy clerk in an office. She responds to an advertisement and embarks on an erotic freelance job in which she is required to sleep in bed alongside paying customers.

Las Bellas Durmientes/The Sleeping Beauties (2012) dir. Marcos Loayza – [IMDB lists this as a Comedy] In a lawless country that no longer cares about the victims or perpetrators, the humble Officer Quispe, faces his superiors in order to find out the truth about the murders of beautiful models.

Le Passé/The Past (2013) dir. Asghar Farhadi – I wasn’t sure about including this one either, but a woman in a coma due to spiteful/dramatic machinations of other women is a plot point, and the cause is untangled slowly as the film progresses.

After four years apart, Ahmad returns to his wife Marie in Paris in order to progress their divorce. During his brief stay, he cannot help noticing the strained relationship between Marie and her daughter Lucie. As he attempts to improve matters between mother and daughter Ahmad unwittingly lifts the lid on a long buried secret…

The Curse of Sleeping Beauty (2016) dir. Pearry Reginald Teo – THE FAIRYTALE WAS ONLY THE BEGINNING. Thomas Kaiser inherits an ancestral mansion that has been in his family for generations — only to learn that he has also inherited an ancient curse stemming back to the Crusades. Forced into his new role as “protector” — the guardian appointed to keep the evil demons in the house at bay — Thomas teams with an ambitious local realtor and paranormal cleric to unravel the mystery of the house, while struggling to awaken the beautiful Briar Rose, held captive in a terrifying netherworld seen previously in his dreams.

Sun, Moon, and Talia (2019) dir. Jan Hernández Marsol – Talia, a young aspiring dancer, is desperate to escape her impoverished home-life. But after accepting the principle role in a ballet production of ‘Sleeping Beauty’, she is drugged and assaulted by the company’s director.

Y Gwledd / The Feast (2021) dir. Lee Haven Jones – You woke her up by violating her rest with a mining drill (very unsubtle metaphor and very ‘Sun, Moon and Talia’), and she’s very disappointed. I loved this. It’s the slowest of slowburns and the tension is stretched right out, but as soon as this chick turns up with wet hair (if you know your Welsh folklore, you’ll know rivers and lakes are entrances to the Otherworld) and the axehead falls off onto the lad’s foot (it’s iron), you’ll be on the edge of your seat, because you will know exactly what’s going on here. She’s been sleeping for a very long time, and she’s not necessarily here for revenge, she is just trying to work out what the world has become in her absence, and who deserves what. She’s doing that very Fair Folk/Bendith y Mamau (possibly) thing of being ‘nurturing’ but … through decay and destruction of the body, which reflects the intention to destroy the land with the drilling. There is a LOT of reverse violation here, and she is always ultimately in control. I’m including this because the whole premise is that you shouldn’t wake the sleeper in the hill, and this is why. This is why.

WHILE THEY FEAST, SHE WAITS.

A wealthy family hosts a sumptuous dinner, only for a mysterious young server to chillingly unravel their lives with terrifying consequences they could never see coming.

Sleeping Beauties (2023) dir. Stuart Simpson – Cahya gets a job as a maid working in an isolated old mansion. Pregnant and a recent widow, she is desperate to reconnect with her husband, opening a doorway to the spirit world. And in doing so, inadvertently awakens the tormented ghosts of her current employer, the previous maids.

Next Time:

The votes were very close! But it’s Little Red Riding Hood, so I’m excited to see what your recs will be for me… hoping to find a few things I’ve not read/seen!