When a young Prince and his trusted aid learn of a beautiful Princess's cursed eternal slumber, they embark on a journey to rescue her. They must battle an evil queen and legions of undead monsters before she will be free.

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planktonrules from Bradenton, Florida
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Sleeping Beauty is a production of The Asylum—a film production company known for making so-called 'mockbusters'. These mockbusters are films that are released to coincide with the release of big studio epics in order to capitalize on the hubbub surrounding the big-budget movies. They feature titles that are VERY similar to the bigger films—and this movie is being released just before Disney's big summer release Malificent! A few other examples of their films are Atlantic Rim, Death Racers, American Battleship, Snakes on a Train…and many others that have titles almost like blockbuster films. Because of this, it's obvious the film will have a low budget and very modest pretensions—and most likely will be a film you'll see coming direct to DVD. And, I might add, it's filmed entirely in Bulgaria.

The cast for Sleeping Beauty is very, very unusual. It seems like this production was a real family affair. In addition to acting in the film, Casper Van Dien directed the film. This isn't so unusual. However, his wife (Catherine Oxenberg) also is in the film…as are Van Dien's three daughters! This makes for a most unusual pedigree. However, despite being a family film, in many ways I would NOT recommend this film for your entire family! Nor would I recommend it to the youngest of Van Dien's kids. This is because this odd version of the classic story has a lot of intense gore as well as a reference to rape—and I really am not sure why these were included in the film.

The first portion of the film is much like the Perrault story as well as the Disney tale. A king and queen have a daughter and they invite everyone to come celebrate with them EXCEPT for the one person who happens to be a complete maniac and almost all-powerful sorceress. When this nasty lady arrives and is miffed by never receiving an invitation, she curses the girl to die by being pricked by splinter from a spinning wheel by the time she turns 16. However, the good fairies are able to change the curse—instead making it so the princess will sleep for as long as it takes until a prince of good heart will come and kiss her. Weirdly, they also put the entire kingdom to sleep when she falls asleep —even though this seems like an incredibly bad idea as it leaves the kingdom to the nasty sorceress.

So far this is pretty much the classic story. However, this is all shown in the first quarter of the film! Having the prince battle his way in, kill the sorceress and kiss the sleeping girl clearly had to be padded out…a lot. So, they created an all-new story about a wastrel idiot of a prince, his lackey friends and his whipping boy. Is this interesting? Mildly—but often the characters behave inconsistently and you wonder why anyone would follow this prince, since he is a complete and total moron. But as I said above, there is a lot of adult content tossed in as well as some incredibly bad dialog from time to time. The overall effect isn't bad…but it is muddled and not particularly noteworthy unless you thought the original story should be spiced up with zombies, spinal columns being yanked out, be-headings and the like. It's not good…but not completely terrible either if you absolutely must see a classic fairy tale infused with zombies and the like. I do wonder, though, who exactly would really want to see this one---it's certainly not the average viewer.

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swedish_chef_dave from Spain
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I was hoping for something along the lines of a Disney type kids drama but the fact that the leading characters had messy hair and had dialogue as wooden as a 70's robot made me realise this was something unique. I managed to last about 15 minutes until I wanted to gouge out my eyes and drill a huge hole in my head to make it all stop.It is such a long time since I have seen a movie so awful, how it managed to to get a 4 I will never know, I would have given it less than 1 but there is no option. Today in this financially challenged time I find it incredulous that this type of junk direct to DVD rubbish keeps being made, I would have hoped that the financiers had closed off the lines of credit, the sooner the better in my own opinion.

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TheLittleSongbird from United Kingdom
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Sleeping Beauty is far from great, far from good even, but for The Asylum it's okay. The costumes and scenery do look quite nice and the photography while rushed in places certainly could have been far worse. Maya Van Dien is very endearing as one of the more interesting characters while Finn Jones is good carrying the movie, and the ending is fun with some goofy suspense. Sleeping Beauty starts off very well too with a great classic fairy-tale atmosphere. However, much of the rest of the acting is not very good, Casper Van Dien and Catherine Oxenberg is rather wooden as underwritten characters; Grace Van Dien is beautiful but never rises above okay due to not having much of note to work with; Olivia D'Abo's performance is very inconsistent and not in a good way with hammy moments and bland ones, and worst of all Edward Lewis French plays the Prince as a truly annoying idiot. The characters are fairy-tale clichés and that would not have been a bad thing- characters can be clichéd and still be good enough- if they didn't have such cardboard personalities or acted so inconsistently. The script is the very meaning of clunky with parts that come across as really cheesy and in a way to make anybody hearing it cringe. The story feels very dragged out in places as well as structurally rather muddled and while it starts off well it later goes over-the-top with the violence and gore that it feels like a completely different movie and makes one question who the movie is aimed at. The music does sound pedestrian, the narration while delivered in a very distinguished manner by Michael York wasn't necessary and at times over-explanatory and the special effects do often look cheap with stilted movement. All in all, Sleeping Beauty is not good but it is not that terrible either, nowhere near among The Asylum's worst. 4/10 Bethany Cox

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Susan Quinland from United States
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The Script: Horrid and Stilted. The Acting: Horrid and Stilted. The Costumes look like a cross between "bring your own" and bad Renaissance Faire rentals. The Music was ridiculously melodramatic, as though they thought that would help the audience to care about what was happening. The castle set looks like they were filmed in someone's backyard with about half a dozen extras trying to look like a "kingdom". There is about as much emotion as a chess match. While the Sleeping Beauty story is one of my all time favorites and I have seen and read almost every Sleeping Beauty story, book and film, I couldn't get past the first 20 minutes of this awful, awful film. Don't bother.

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ks_irene from Germany
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This is what I would call a Vanity Movie, in that it seems Casper van Dien promised his daughters to make a movie with them and this is the result.

The two critics so far seem puzzled for what kind of audience the movie was made and I can see their problem. It's not a Kids Movie because of the violence and gore (but strangely has rather childish kids movie elements like the narrator, that I found totally out of place). For an actual Parody Movie it takes itself way to seriously (I think that would have been a fun way to go with this), and I hope I'm not talking out of my butt here because I'm not exactly genre savvy, since I usually have the threshold of an immature three year old for scary stuff, but as a Scary Movie it fails spectacularly too, as it's not scary like ... at all (the zombies are laughable and I really hate zombies).

The writing and acting is strangely wooden and overly dramatic in places. Casper and Catherine as king and queen made me cringe actually. Of their girls I like Maya better than Grace, but then she also had probably the more interesting role with (little plot helper) Newt rather than Sleeping Beauty.

Olivia d'Abo is underacting while overacting. You're the evil lunatic queen in a fairy tale. Go all out girl! Edward Lewis French as the sleazy prick prince Jayson that obviously won't get the princess in the end is fine, but then I'm not sure how you could throw such a role anyway.

Then there is Prince Jayson's "band of misfits" as one critic called them. A weird bunch indeed. Some of which are a brutal sell-sword type (Gruner), two brothers (lets call them Rapist and Thief) and a farmer lad (Barrow) that acts as whipping boy for the prince and overall punching bag for all of them. Now guess who gets the princess in the end.

If you're still guessing, Finn Jones has top billing. As Barrow he is also the only literate one in this bunch and finds the letter/map to Sleeping Beauty's castle. Prince sleazy prick sees an opportunity to usurp a defenseless kingdom and no longer having to quibble over this one with his father. So off they go, despite the warnings of wise old man that stuff is cursed.

Them getting into the castle and to the main action is a bit dragged out. The R&T brothers being total cowards is harped on a bit too often. Unlike the zombies the CGI monsters are actually pretty cool for a B-movie. After continually decimation of their expedition party, Gruner finally comes to respect Barrow via their fighting. Even prince snot-pig in the end gives Barrow his birthright (quelle surprise: as the real prince) back, who can now go on and lift the curse with his pure heart kiss. The evil queen goes a bit gaga and extremely violent before of course, though love defeats all in the end.

It's a bit silly, but I liked and laughed at the ending gag of turning the story into a circular one. And they lived happily ever after *shoes of next evil queen showing up* ... or maybe not.

All in all very strange and uneven, though it gets better the closer it gets to the climax.

3.5/10 (rounded to 4 because I have a tiny little crush on Finn Jones)

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Sandcooler from Belgium
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Sweet Christ, this movie is awesome! It also has no production values whatsoever and is generally just very badly made. I honestly don't know how to rate something like this. I was entertained pretty much from start to finish, but I guess for all the wrong reasons. Writer/Director Casper Van Dien (Johnny Rico from "Starstip Troopers") shows some real audacity in how he handles the story: the evil witch has an army of zombies, gives shelter to a murderous sea monster AND rips a guy's head straight off (a guy who bleeds awful effects), that really ought to count for something. If you get to make your debut as a director with a movie about Sleeping Beauty and the first thing that comes to mind is "hey, let's put in zombies", you are entitled to some of my respect. "Sleeping Beauty" will have tremendous trouble finding an audience though: the movie's way too creepy and gory for the kiddies, but the title won't attract many fans of terrible B-movies either. It'll probably sink into obscurity very quickly like everything else The Asylum Studio makes, but I would say...unjustly? This terrible movie has something I can't put my finger on, something that makes me want to see it again someday (and I'll never ever find out what).

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Ummi MxM from England, UK
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So So Bad. Waste of money and time. Acting is so bad it makes you cringe. So many plots and plans that just do not make sense. It's comical but in a very bad way. How can EVERY Actor in this movie get it so very wrong? Who wrote the Lines, 6 year old? Most probably the worst movie I have ever seen and believe me after going back to watch the old Batman & Robin Drama with the 'BOOMS' & 'CLASH' that is saying something! Ridiculous from start to finish. Maybe for 4/5 year olds but certainly not for anyone older, let alone teenagers or adults. The movie industry must have a lot of money to waste to bring out this trash. So much potential just wasted.

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boomanulla from Sydney, Australia
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I was keenly interested to see what I expected to be a modern retelling of an old fairy tale, enhanced with fine acting and superb special effects. The story was interesting, and the characters and settings were well presented and costuming was pretty good, and the quality of the filming was acceptable. Unfortunately, my expectations regarding acting and effects were far from met. Even the inclusion of zombies failed to lift this movie from it's lack of brilliance or vitality. The acting was poor all around, and the obvious attempt to embed some credibility by having the narration done by Michael York proved too little. Special effects would have been spectacular 40 years ago, but obviously by modern standards they fell dreadfully short of the mark. Amazed that I saw it through, I would not recommend this movie as a must see - more as a must avoid.

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Armand from Romania
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it seems be only expression of an actor to be director and impose his family to public attention. it is not important the manner or the plot, the acting or the script. more than not inspired work, Sleeping Beauty is chaotic. the dialogs are childish, the events without sense,each scene - expression of lost courage and ideas. a film like a family game who could be , at each step, only improvisation. and that fact is almost creepy. because the subject has a high potential. because the experience of Casper van Dien as actor could be basis of a better story. because it is only a film for the family and friends of director and the great question remains why the movie is on the big screen. more than uninspired film, it remains strange. because it has out of credible purpose.

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frybergr from Australia
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Every now and and then I'll get a movie about which I know very little. After all, it can be an exciting way to discover those unknown hidden gems. This movie is not one of those gems. Sometimes a movie is so bad that I feel compelled to review it in a desperate attempt to save others the money I've wasted. This is *that* movie.

It is shallow, disjointed, two dimensional and lacking any real discernible acting or directorial talent. The characters lack substance, or anything approaching a realistic thought or emotion. The story pays bare lip service to the original, which in itself would be fine, if the replacement contained any actual story line or drama. The moral of the story/film is not something from which you'd want your son or daughter learning. But then it doesn't really have a moral. Or a story.

This seems strange given it is almost singlehandedly a creation of the Van Dien clan. The title role being blandly and subserviently played by daughter Grace who doesn't demonstrate any character which could place her as a female role model and develop her career (her entire existence can be encapsulated as too stupid to not touch spindle knowing what it represents, needs prince to wake her, instantly becomes his, and has his baby), while daddy Casper writes/directs and plays her dad and step mum Catherine Oxenberg plays mum. Two other kiddies have small roles too. The movie may have benefited from open auditions to get talented actors rather than just family members, but then it is possible that the writing was so bad that no-one with any actual ability wanted any of the roles.

The budget is clearly low as the special effects are quite ordinary by 2014 standards, although if the story and acting were up to par, the effects probably wouldn't have mattered much. It is clearly not a kid-safe version with some unnecessary and graphic violence, which adds nothing to the movie, except perhaps confusion about who the target audience is.

In a time when classic fairy tales are regularly being cleverly reinvented on our screens with strong female leads and complex characters, this movie completely misses the opportunity. Disappointing is probably the best that can be said of this production. It probably doesn't help that it is one of three movies in the same year re-telling the same fairy tale. While I haven't seen the other 2014 Sleeping Beauty, I cannot envisage it being as bad as this one, and Maleficent is a clear choice here instead.

The royal family are played by Casper, his wife Catherine and their three daughters.
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undead|sorcerer|quest|forest|sleeping beauty|fairy|castle|

AKAs Titles:


Certifications:
South Korea:15 / USA:TV-14