Sleeping Beauty (2003, VHS)

This movie used to scare the living daylights out of me. I think Malificent may well be the most frightening villain ever to enter a Disney animated feature. The scene where Aurora pricks her finger is ethereally creepy, and the final battle between Prince Philip and Malificent is downright scary. For those reasons, I'm not sure that this movie is appropriate for children under five, and it may well scare children older than that.

However, not all of the movie is so dark. The story centers around Aurora, a princess who is cursed by Malificent days after her birth. The evil witch declares that on her sixteenth birthday, she will prick her finger on a spinning wheel and die. Luckily, the three good fairies, Flora, Fauna and Merriweather, are present at the time. Each is able to present the child with a single gift. Flora and Fauna have already given the child the gifts of song and beauty, but Merriweather still has her gift. So she declares that the princess will not be killed when her finger is pricked, but will fall int oa deep sleep from which only the kiss of true love can awaken her.

As a precaution, she is sent to live with the fairies for sixteen years. She is given the name Briar Rose and the fairies abstain from using their wands so as not to attract the attention of Malificent and her cronies. On her sixteenth birthday, Aurora is sent out to pick berries. While in the forest, she is greeted by her friends, the woodland creatures, who pretend to be the man of her dreams. Then, out of nowhere, he shows up, much to the delight of the lovely young woman.

Meanwhile, the fairies are having a miserable time trying to clean house, bake a cake, and make a dress for Aurora's birthday without magic. After practically destroying the house with their lack of domestic prowess, the fairies convince Flora that the time has come to bring out their wands. As Flora and Merriweather fight over what color to make the dress and cake, Malificent's crow spots the magical sparks escaping through the chimney.

Aurora returns home, delighted with the cake and dress. But when she tells her caretakers that she is in love, she is horrified to discover that she is betrothed. That night, when the fairies return her to the castle, she is tricked by Malificent into climbing the long staircase to the tower which contains the only remaining spindle in the kingdom.

Devastated at this turn of events, the fairies cast an enchanted sleep on the entire kingdom, to be broken when Aurora awakes. Only Prince Philip is unaffected, and he must awaken his true love, the peasant girl he met in the forest, by first destroying Malificent.

Beautiful animation and plenty of comedy, provided mostly by the fairies and woodland creatures, make this movie a delight, but scary moments like those mentioned in the first paragraph cause me to urge you to use caution when showing it to young children. They will enjoy most of it, but make sure you're there to hold their hands tightly when the frightening climax comes.