Tale of Tales and 3 Other Dark Horror Fantasy Movies to Watch on a Rainy Night

Directors seeking an unconventional approach to the material often resort to deconstructing traditional fairy tale plots into stories that are not at all for children.

1. Tigers Are Not Afraid, 2017

Thousands of people go missing each year in Mexico as a result of drug cartel wars. Many of those caught in the crossfire of the criminal showdowns leave behind children, and the authorities often have no time to solve the problems of orphans.

Little Estrella's mother never returns home. At school, the teacher gives the girl three pieces of chalk and says that each will grant her a wish.

Estrella runs away from home after her first wish is granted – her mother returns, but as a zombie. On the streets, the girl joins a gang of children who have also lost their parents.

2. Tale of Tales, 2015

Tale of Tales are three stories that are connected by the setting. In one, the Queen loses her husband but gains a child. In another, the Princess learns the hardships of marriage and chooses her own path.

And in the third, the King learns restraint in love, and his young wife learns the irreversibility of the flow of time.

Each story has its own moral, but does not try to moralize, and fate brings the characters together only at funerals and coronations, symbolizing the closed circle of life in which the characters of the magical land revolve.

3. The City of Lost Children, 1995

There is a castle by the sea where Krank, the fruit of the experiments of a long-lost scientist, conducts sinister experiments. Krank cannot see dreams, so he instructs his minions to kidnap children, whose dreams the villain extracts with the help of a special machine.

Not far from the castle is the City of Lost Children, where Krank's minions obtain kids. Circus strongman One, who has arrived in the city with his younger brother Denree, faces hostility from the locals, and soon Denree is kidnapped by unknown people.

One embarks on a journey full of strange creatures and events in search of his brother.

4. Sleepy Hollow, 1999

In the last year of the 18th century, New York constable Ichabod Crane, an advocate of the scientific approach to crime investigation, arrives in the settlement of Sleepy Hollow.

The local authorities do not share the young innovator's views, so they send Crane to investigate the mysterious murders in the Hollow, where someone has already beheaded three people.

The locals are certain that the killer is a cavalryman who has risen from the dead. Refusing to believe in the supernatural, Ichabod is drawn into a bloody game that may cost him his life.