Awfully Good: Snow White: A Deadly Summer

What better way to get you pumped for SNOW WHITE AND THE HUNTSMAN than a Snow White movie with Marcia Brady and Eric Roberts?

Snow White: A Deadly Summer (2012)

Director: David DeCoteau
Stars: Maureen McCormick, Eric Roberts, Shanley Caswell

Is there a plot?

A troubled teenage girl is sent by her evil stepmother to Camp Allegiance, a summer camp for unruly teens. And if that’s not bad enough, her dad is Eric Roberts! Oh, and there’s a killer on the loose murdering everyone.

What’s the damage?

No, you read that right. SNOW WHITE: A DEADLY SUMMER is a modern day retelling of the classic Grimm Brothers fairy tale, with Marcia Brady as the evil stepmother and Eric Roberts as the dad. That may sound fantastic for the purposes of this column, which is why I hate to be the bearer of disappointment—both one-time stars are barely in the movie for ten minutes. While it’s a pretty enjoyably bad ten minutes, it’s nowhere near worth sitting through this dumpster baby of a movie.

“It’s great being famous!”

If you’re wondering why you haven’t seen Maureen McCormick in anything since THE BRADY BUNCH, the answer is simple—she’s a terrible, terrible, terrible, terrible actress. So embarrassing that I almost feel bad even mentioning it. Granted, it takes a special kind of performer to convincingly play a psycho killer with multiple personalities, but this movie’s cliché-ridden script doesn’t do her any favors. Whenever she’s onscreen she’s constantly forced to give evil bug eyes to everyone around her, or have crazy conversations with herself in a mirror, Willem Dafoe-style. The best part is McCormick is clearly trying to branch out in a different kind of role as the villain…except she ends up playing Marcia Brady all over again. I can totally picture the Brady teen reaching middle age and completely snapping when everyone forgets about her and starts fawning over her stepdaughter instead. And make no mistake; it’s still all about Marcia, Marcia Marcia. McCormick literally spends half of the final showdown just yelling, “MEEEEEEE! MEEEEEE!”

Maureen was about to find out that saying “Marcia, Marcia, Marcia!” was also another way of conjuring up Candyman.

Aside from insane Bradys and the joy of seeing Eric Roberts fall asleep during his five lines, there’s absolutely nothing worthwhile in this Snow White retread. In fact, you can barely call this a Snow White movie, since it has jack and very little squat to do with the fairy tale character. Her name is still Snow and there’s a forest and an evil stepmother who talks to a mirror (and her makeup compact), but that’s it. It doesn’t even attempt to follow the basic storyline, let alone feature any dwarves. (However, a character does get to utter the ‘clever’ line, “How Brothers Grimm of you!”) Instead Snow is sent to summer camp and you get a worse-than-run-of-the-mill camp slasher movie.

“Yes, that absolutely looks like somebody with multiple stab wounds. Nice job with the makeup!”
-The director of this movie

All of the campers at Camp Allegiance are laughably uninteresting stock teen characters—the good girl, the skank, the brain, even the undercover reporter pretending to be a teenager. Instead of doing, I don’t know…anything, everyone sits around and talks and talks and talks. But right when you’re at the point of contemplating suicide, SNOW WHITE switches gears from a bad drama in to an even worse horror movie. There’s a hooded killer stalking the kids, a ridiculous mystery involving Snow’s stepmother and a mentally challenged girl, and — you’re back to considering hara kiri. This movie seriously manages to make a guy getting killed via bear trap boring.

“Yes, you need to be doing push ups in this scene and the camera needs to be exactly right here. ”
-The director of this movie

To completely ruin the movie so you never watch it, in the end Snow White defeats her stepmother only to wake up and realize the whole thing was a dream. (Yes, it went there.) Her dad tells her she took a bunch of pills before she was supposed to go to the camp and has been in a psychiatric facility for weeks and all of her “campmates” are actually her fellow patients. Best of all, when her dad chose to be with his daughter in the hospital, the stepmom killed herself! All is right with the world, until the final shot when her stepmom is inexplicably revealed to be her doctor. DUN DUN DUN! [self-inflicted gunshot]

Firms? Photoplay? Are they admitting this isn’t even a real movie?

“Best” Line

I do give this actor a lot of credit for being able to say, “I’ll beat the white off your Snow White ass” without laughing.

“Best” Parts

Marcia Brady laughably acting as a psycho killer, dumb teens getting killed via bear trap and a brief sample of Eric Roberts nap, I mean “performance.”