Release Year: 2006

Genre: Drama, Fantasy, War

Director: Guillermo del Toro

Writer: Guillermo del Toro

Stars: Ivana Baquero, Sergi López, Maribel Verdú, Doug Jones

Remember Choose Your Own Adventure books? Those dusty garage-sale paperbacks with amazing titles like Prisoner of the Ant People or Vampire Express?

Well, the protagonist of Pan's Labyrinth is like the main character of a Choose Your Own Adventure book…if you consistently made that character choose the weirdest, most inexplicable way forward.

Check it out, CYOA-style:

A giant praying mantis flies into your room and hops up on your bed.

Do you scream and try to get rid of it? (Turn to page 76)

Do you ask it if it's a fairy? (Turn to page 52)

We'd probably go with the former…but not our gal, Ofelia. She's going to follow it all the way into an ancient labyrinth where…

You meet an old, milky-eyed, moss-covered, fairly creeptastic Faun.

Do you scream and run away? (Turn to page 43)

Do you listen to him as he tells you that you're a long lost princess who must complete three tasks to return to your true home? (Turn to page 24)

Again, Ofelia picks Door #2: the weird option.

But, to be fair: Ofelia's violent step-father and the war he's raging against the rebels in 1944 Spain, combined with her mother's difficult pregnancy, aren't making this the most pleasant time in her life. So we can't really blame her for wanting a little escape.

What follows is a fairy tale…but the kind of dark, deeply disturbing fairy tale that you want to keep the young'uns far away from. This cinematic weirdness (and family unfriendliness) led to a middling box office performance. But Pan's Labyrinth has been hailed as a critical success ever since it first hit screens 2006, being nominated for six Oscars including awards for Screenplay, Cinematography, and Art Direction.

And not only did this movie launch director/screenwriter Guillermo del Toro into the fame stratosphere, it also fixed itself in the hearts and memories of pretty much everyone who's seen it. Because this film shows that fairy tales, horror, and political drama are a combination as compatible (if not as delicious) as caramel, chocolate, and almonds.

Every choice that young Ofelia makes in this warped-yet-moving film is slightly baffling (crawling under a dead tree to feed a massive, belching toad?) but it leads her—and us—deeper into the labyrinthine plot of Pan's Labyrinth. And even when we're begging her to stop (don't go into the room with the child-eating monster with eyes in its hands, Ofelia!) we understand that she's compelled to find a world that's better than her current reality, despite the dangers that lie in her path.

In other words, she doesn't want to live the life that's laid out before her. She wants to, well, choose her own adventure.

Now if only del Toro would adapt some of those actual, insane-sounding CYOA books like You Are A Shark or The Trumpet of Terror…

Here's the thing: Pan's Labyrinth may be dark n' disturbing…but it's actually pretty much par for the course when it comes to fairy tales. The original versions of fairy tales.

For example, you might know Snow White as the beautiful young woman whose evil stepmother wants her heart cut out.

That's pretty disturbing…but not as disturbing as the original version, which states that her mother wanted her heart, liver, and lungs. And—oh, yeah—Snow White was originally seven years old when her mommy dearest decided that she was just too pretty to live. (Source)

Or how about Sleeping Beauty, that lovely lass who pricks her finger on a spindle and is forced to sleep until a handsome prince wakes her with true love's kiss?

Yeah: in the original a king rapes her. This results in her giving birth to twins while still in a coma. After she wakes up, the king wants to be with her—but there's one catch: he's married. The queen tries to kill Sleeping Beauty and her kids by boiling them alive…but the king ends up walking in and instead the queen commits suicide by jumping into the bubbling cauldron of soup she'd prepared for Sleeping Beauty & Kiddos. (Source)

Hmm. Suddenly a fairy tale film that involves a weird faun, a terrifying child-eater with eyes on his hands, a huge toad, and some very insect-looking fairies seems pretty tame.

We don't think it was Guillermo del Toro's intention to make a tame fairy tale…but we do think it was his intention to return to the original pitch-black goriness that the original stories contained.

Pan's Labyrinth isn't a film for young whippersnappers, that's for sure. But neither were the original Brothers Grimm fairy tales. They were meant to entertain adults, and remind adults of the magic and wonder and (yes) horror that existed all around them.

So in a very real way, Pan's Labyrinth is a return to the kind of fairy tales that existed once upon a time, when they were meant for jaded adults, told stories of gruesome torture, and the family unit was portrayed as a lot more horrific.

Because here's the thing: these dark fairy tales (like Pan's Labyrinth) still almost always ended with a resounding "…and they lived happily ever after." It's just that the stuff these early fairy tale heroes and heroines went through was way harsher. But in a certain warped light—like the kind that permeates Pan's Labyrinth—"happily ever after" only really matters if you've actually been through something pretty intense.

That being said, we'll take the sanitized version of Sleeping Beauty over the original any day.