With Disney’s Maleficent bringing the craze for dark retellings of fairy tale standards to a full boil—following the smaller-scale likes of Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters and Snow White & the Huntsman—this kick-off to Wicked Pictures’ new Wicked Fairy Tales line should be a massive hit, indeed.

In fact using Huntsman as its model, this is a far grittier, more sinister take on Snow White than most remember from their childhood … in other words, much truer to the actual spirit of the Brothers Grimm original.

Unlike the comic book parodies that have comprised the majority of director Axel Braun’s output over the past several years, for which he has frequently taken the creative liberty of concocting his own storylines bearing little resemblance to those of their mainstream counterparts, here the tale’s basic elements are so carved into the stone of the universal consciousness that he’s afforded no such freedom. In a sense, this seems to have allowed him to inject more breathing room into the narrative than usual, by way of devoting greater focus to the performances and overall texture of the movie.

Braun’s contract girl, Riley Steele, gets the title role, and she’s as good as she’s ever been, not to mention quite fetching with the jet-black hair the part requires. Barrett Blade, donning a black wig of his own as well as a grey-tinged beard, does one of the finest acting jobs of his career as the huntsman.

Wicked Girl Jessica Drake, however, unquestionable steals the show as Snow White’s evil stepmother, summoning forth the inner über-bitch she apparently has been keeping locked away just for this part.

On the sex front, things get off to a scalding start with Ash Hollywood and Katie St. Ives magically appearing before king Alec Knight as a birthday present from the evil queen, who tells him he may do with them as he pleases—and that he does (during which his obligatory fairy tale condom does some magical disappearing and reappearing itself). Of course, being that she’s evil, the queen’s birthday present turns out to be a murder ploy.

Aiming to off Snow White next, she plies the huntsman to do the deed for her by permitting him to bury his axe in her royal rectum. A bit later, she shows the man in her magic mirror (Eric Masterson) just who he better decide is the fairest of them all by calling him out of the glass and banging him silly.

In a dream sequence, evil step-mom does what evil step-moms do best and makes Snow White eat her pussy (albeit she at least reciprocates with some toy and fingerbanging action). And finally, Prince Charming (Ryan Driller) awakens Snow from her slumber and gives her his princely D.

Rich and sumptuously shot, with stunning art direction and a continuously engaging musical score to match, this is a production with all the makings of a timeless classic.