Is This The Scariest Fairy Tale Adaptation So Far?

It's no secret that Disney movies made fairy tales a lot softer than the originals — but we're about to see quite how much. A trailer has just been released for the Tale of Tales movie, and it's violent and creepy enough to make even Cinderella's evil stepsisters look like harmless kittens. The movie has ignored everything that previous fairy tale adaptations have done, and gone back to the books — all the way back, in fact, to a book from the 16th century.

Yes, that's right: even before the Brothers Grimm got started, a Neapolitan poet named Giambattista Basile was collecting some seriously dark fairy tales. And I mean really dark. Like, "Salma Hayek eating the heart of a monster on the movie poster" kind of dark. That's what happens when you ditch the Disney and get books involved, people: things get sinister. Tale of Tales is adapted from Basile's Il Pentamerone . (The book's original title was in fact ' The Tale of Tales' in the Neapolitan language — but that translation is a little NSFW to reproduce here. Search it: you'll see what I mean.)

We first saw a Tale of Tales trailer floating around last year, but back then it was only due for release in Italy. Now, it's finally on its way to U.S. theaters, as well as Video on Demand.

And check out this terrifying poster...

Something tells me this is ain't no Little Mermaid...