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When horror retells a story, ask what the heroine is allowed to want

The White Reindeer, The Bloody Chamber, and Fatale each revisit older stories. Their differences show why a retelling’s point of view matters as much as its monster.

Whimsical Woes editorial · October 19, 2026

A retelling can keep the old castle, the dangerous husband, and the moonlit dance, then change the story by changing who gets to want something. That shift is easy to miss if we judge an adaptation only by whether the monster looks new. The White Reindeer (1952), Angela Carter’s The Bloody Chamber, and Tale of Tales’ Fatale all revisit older story material, but they do not give desire, danger, or agency the same shape.

First, identify whose version you are reading

The White Reindeer is a Finnish film co-written by Mirjami Kuosmanen, who plays Pirita. The BFI describes the story as a supernatural transformation and reads it through the expectations placed on Pirita after marriage. That is a useful lens, but the movie is a fictional work, not an ethnographic document. Its use of Sámi and Finnish folklore needs to be kept distinct from Sámi-authored accounts of tradition and history.

Carter’s collection works from a different position. Penguin describes The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories as dark, sensual versions of familiar tales such as Bluebeard, Little Red Riding Hood, and Beauty and the Beast. The change is not merely that the old heroine receives a modern vocabulary. Carter’s prose makes the story’s bargains visible: who gets wealth, who gets a room, who gets called innocent, and whose desire is treated as a threat.

Fatale changes the source material again. Tale of Tales identifies Oscar Wilde’s Salome as its inspiration and sets much of the experience after the famous execution, with a player waiting and looking through a quiet scene. That formal decision matters. The game does not only ask what Salome did; it asks what attention feels like once the plot’s spectacle has stopped moving.

Ask what desire costs in each version

A useful comparison starts with a plain question: what does the central woman want, and who gets to name that desire? In The White Reindeer, Pirita’s transformation can be read as an answer to a life narrowed by domestic expectations, but the story does not turn that change into uncomplicated freedom. The cost is part of the image.

In Carter, desire is not automatically proof that a character has been corrupted. It may be pleasurable, dangerous, strategic, or all three at once. The stories use the sensual language of fairy tales, then expose how often “happily ever after” depends on somebody else controlling the door. The lushness is deliberate; if ornate prose is not your thing, Carter can feel like the entire room has been dressed for one very long entrance.

In Fatale, the player’s limited actions turn agency into a question about attention. Waiting is not the same as doing nothing when the scene asks you to look, move closer, and extinguish lights. But the game’s own description also relies on an old, vague “Orient” framing for its setting. That wording deserves scrutiny rather than a free pass because a work is experimental.

A retelling is not automatically a rescue

It is tempting to call any story that gives a heroine more desire or screen time “empowering.” That skips the harder question: does the new version let her act, or only make her suffering more beautiful to watch? Does the story understand the culture and history it borrows, or turn them into wallpaper? Does the ending change the old rule, or only give the heroine a more stylish way to lose?

Those questions do not require one correct answer. A retelling can reveal a sexist bargain and still repeat some of its imagery. A story can offer a memorable figure while giving her very little control over what happens next. Good criticism can hold that tension without stamping the work “good” or “bad” and heading home.

Try this with your own horror art

Pick a familiar story and make three tiny sketches: the scene as the authority figure would describe it, the same scene as the heroine would describe it, and the object or room that both accounts disagree about. Keep the event identical. Change what each image emphasizes. A key can be protection in one frame and ownership in another; a dance can read as performance, refusal, or spectacle depending on who is watching.

Before you borrow a cultural tradition, find sources made by people from that tradition and ask whether your image is treating them as living context or spooky decoration. Before you call a character empowered, name the choices she can actually make. These are not rules that guarantee a perfect story. They are better questions than “is the monster scary?” when a retelling is trying to make an old plot answer for itself.

For a colder film example, read our [The White Reindeer review](/journal/white-reindeer-1952-pirita-winter-review); for the collection that makes the locked room itself an argument, see [The Bloody Chamber](/journal/bloody-chamber-angela-carter-fairytale-review). The most revealing change in a horror retelling may be the moment the heroine stops being a symbol and gets to want something the story cannot neatly approve.

Questions from the crypt

What makes a horror retelling different from a remake?

A retelling may reuse a fairy tale, myth, or story pattern without reproducing one specific film. A remake more directly reworks an earlier screen version.

Are feminist fairy-tale retellings always empowering?

No. A new point of view can challenge an old story while still repeating some of its limits. Ask what choices the character can actually make and how the story frames their cost.

How can artists use folklore respectfully in horror?

Research sources by people from the culture being represented, distinguish fiction from historical record, and avoid using living traditions as interchangeable spooky decoration.