Aesthetic beauty and horror are intertwined for me. Snow White’s stepmother, the witch queen, was glamorous in her severe black raiments, her eye make up flawless. Snow White by comparison was a pretty but bland goody two-shoes. The witch queen was dramatic and elegant as she entered each scene of the movie. Even the demon that lived in the mirror had a stylish pizazz about him, always wreathed in mist. The question the queen posed was “Who is the fairest in the land?” To me, that was the wrong question. Maybe the mirror demon was a literalist; maybe Snow White was fairest in complexion. A better question would have been, “Who is the most fabulous in the land?” The witch queen would win, hands down.
Craig Laurance Gidney 