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On the festival circuit, Penelope, starring Christina Ricci as a pig-nosed recluse embarking upon the modern world for the first time, seemed to get about as much press attention as its shut-in titular character. Now that the film is seeing release Friday, we thought it time to conjure up other movies in tiny cross section of the genre to which it belongs.

No one's going to argue that traditional fairy tales have a creep factor. Perhaps we can credit Disney for our unnatural comfort with anthropomorphic animals, but before you go squealing about the cuteness of a talking hedgehog, let's remember that both the Three Little Pigs (talking abominations in and of themselves) and Little Red Riding Hood were duped by talking wolves. Which brings to bear a point: To a kid these tales may be literal, but to adults, the beauty is all in the metaphor.

Playing fast and loose with a familiar story, Matthew Bright's 1996 update of Red Riding Hood, Freeway (74 percent on the Tomatometer), cleverly modernizes Red by swapping the gothic doom of the fairy tale for the danger of South Central.

Vanessa Lutz (Reese Witherspoon) lives with her prostitute mother (Amanda Plummer) and her sexually abusive (wicked) step-father (Michael T. Weiss). Surrounded by meth addiction and crippled gang war veterans, Vanessa is barely literate but commands a lot of respect in her neighborhood. When her parents are arrested she takes a basket and a six-pack and drives (did I mention she's probably 14?) to the mythic sanctity of her grandmother's trailer. En route to the trailer park her car dies and the perfectly clothed Bob Wolverton (Keifer Sutherland) "saves" her. Called "Cynical, stylish and witty" by Liam Lacey of The Globe and Mail, Freeway looks far more original than most other fairy tales out there. No wonder it kick-started Witherspoon's career.

Freeway's opening animated credits.

As mentioned, the gothic touch has always loomed large with these stories, and here to prove that the gothic is not the sole province of the Germans are Marc Caro and Jean-Pierre Jeunet. Previously affiliated with graphic novels, French duo Jeunet and Caro reached new career heights with 1995's The City of Lost Children (82 percent), their second film to see a broad success in the States (the forerunner being 1991's Delicatessen). New Times critic Andy Klein wrote, "Anyone looking to lose themselves in an engrossing fairy-tale world will be richly rewarded."

Starring Ron Perelman as One, a circus strongman, City follows this unlikely hero and his world-weary orphan guide Miette (Judith Vittet) into the belly of a nightmare factory. A mysterious band of Cyclops/cyborgs steal One's little brother and through a bizarre chain of events One and Miette trace the Cyclops colony to a nightmare factory. The villain of this netherworld is an ancient, bony man who's lost the ability to dream and so has dedicated his life to stealing the dreams of children. Ironically all he does to inspire these dreams is incarcerate the children and scare the crap out of them -- which is fine because his mad scientist lab is equipped with its own diaper service. Those mad scientists are prepared.

The City of Lost Children's trailer.

Sadly, nothing could prepare Terry Gilliam for the critic beating he received for his last endeavor Tideland (28 percent). Critic Chris Barsanti said, "If there was ever a film to end a career, Tideland is it." Barsanti was only one of a wave of critics who wrote about Tideland as if Gilliam himself had entered their homes and beat their children. And with little reason, if you ask me. Gilliam's work has always bordered the dark and dry aesthetic of old England. (He himself admits he stole his best material for Robert Hamer's Kind Hearts and Coronets.) Adult fairy tales paved the golden path of Gilliam's early career and outlined some of his pet themes. The Adventures of Baron von Munchausen, Time Bandits, and Brazil all bandy in the same aesthetic and each are considered noteworthy contributions to the lexicon.

What makes Tideland different is that instead of celebrating Gilliam's previous themes, he's pulling them apart; Gilliam himself is looking for the source. Jeliza-Rose (Jodelle Ferland) is the daughter of two washed-up rock musicians who manage their home, family, and heroin addictions with uniform sloth. Jaliza fixes her father Noah (Jeff Bridges) his "vacations" (hypodermics) and withstands her mother's cruel and insane fits. When her mother dies her father flees with Jaliza to his childhood home. Shortly after arrival, her father dies and Jaliza is left to make her way, surviving the cruelties of her circumstance with a mixture of fantasy and denial. Though in some ways Jaliza's fairy tale are inspired by her life, she uses these fairy tales to escape reality.

Perhaps the reason Tideland wasn't a crowd pleaser is the same reason Penelope could be. Sometimes the best part of a fairy tale is the escape it affords you, and maybe we just need more of that escape when we're small. Like Lillian Gish says in Night of the Hunter, "It's a hard world for little things."

Tideland's trailer.

If you like these fairy tales for the fully grown, consider also Ridley Scott's Legend (52 percent), Atom Egoyan's pied piper revision, The Sweet Hereafter (100 percent), or Steven Spielberg's Pinocchio, A.I. Artificial Intelligence (72 percent). And if you're in the mood for comedy, there's always The Princess Bride (95 percent) -- which is as much about the fairy tale as about the telling.