Back at the castle, the slab of ham in the Queen’s disguise potion is starting to take effect. “Dip the apple in the brew, let the sleeping death seep through,” she intones while dunking an apple into a bubbling cauldron of blue stuff. Said blue stuff globs onto the apple and forms a jack-o-lantern face, which is apparently the symbol of death. Who knew? The queen then tells the apple to turn red in order to tempt Snow, and it obliges before she even starts to properly say it.
"Have a bite!" she says tauntingly to her raven, who is seriously reconsidering his choice in owners by now. "It’s not for you! It’s for Snow White." She starts giving a speech about what will happen when Snow eats the apple. It actually sounds really disturbing, even painful. "Her breath will still, her blood congeal, then I’ll be fairest in the land!” Until the mirror tells you about some other chick. Honestly, I don’t see the physical appeal of ol’ Queenie here.
"But wait!” she says, turning to — oh god, not the camera again. “There may be an antidote.” Stalking over to her spellbook, she flips through the pages. Sure enough, it says that those cursed by the Sleeping Death can only be revived by Love’s First Kiss.
"Bah! No fear of that," the Queen says to us as she slams the book shut. "The dwarfs will think she’s dead! She’ll be BURIED ALIVE!”
…I want to make a joke about this, but she’s gotten too frightening for that. I’m glad my three year-old self was scared away from this movie by the transformation scene out of context. No telling what this would’ve done.
Anyway, the Queen puts the poison apple in a basket and sets off for the dwarfs’ cottage in her Charon cosplay gear. She makes her way deeper into the castle, stopping to torment the skeleton of someone who died with a water jug just out of reach, gets in a little boat and rows off into the night. Just when I thought she couldn’t get any more freaky, they have to go and show her prowling around in the dead of night. Wonderful.
The next morning, the dwarfs are going off to work and leaving Snow White alone. “Now don’t forget my dear, the old queen’s a sly one,” Doc reminds her. “So beware of strangers.” Snow tells him that she’ll be alright and gives each dwarf a kiss on top of his bald head (or two, in Dopey’s case).
Even Grumpy can be seen straightening what little hair he has in anticipation. “Don’t let nobody or nothin’ in the house!” he snaps at her, trying to look tough.
"Why, Grumpy," she says, "you do care!” She gives him his kiss, and as he walks off, he smiles for the first time in the whole film. And promptly loses his ability to walk without bumping into everything in his path. He eventually catches up with the others, and they march away singing.
Meanwhile, the Queen is getting closer to the house. Now that the dwarfs are gone, her victim will be alone “with a harmless old peddler woman!” A pair of vultures have been following her since she left the castle, and their evil grins get even bigger at the prospect of food.
Speaking of which, Snow and the animals are making gooseberry pie. She rolls out the dough, lays it over the pan and trims off the extra bits, which the birds use to spell out GRUMPY. Again, AWWWWW. :)
In fact, it’s so cute that no one notices the shadow being cast over the kitchen until it scares the animals away. “All alone, my pet?” the Queen asks Snow after opening with an evil chuckle. I don’t know what’s worse, that she probably thinks this is subtle or the fact that for her, it is.
Snow, to her credit, does seem disturbed by this. “Why…Why, yes I am, but…”
"The…little men are not here?"
"No, they’re not, but…"
"Makin’ pies?"
"Yes! Gooseberry pie."
The Queen wastes no time in telling her that the way to a man’s heart through his stomach is with apple pies, made from apples just like this nice red one! Why, Snow can even have a bite if she’s skeptical of its deliciousness!
Fortunately, the animals are smart enough to realize what’s going on and attack her. Unfortunately, Snow shoos them away and lets the Queen into the house when she pulls her Wounded Gazelle Gambit.
But the animals are not to be outdone, and off they run to find the dwarfs. They’re in the process of starting another slapstick routine, but it quickly gets broken up when the animals arrive at the mine and try pulling them back to the cottage. At first the dwarfs think they’re just acting up, but Grumpy realizes that something’s wrong.
"Maybe the queen’s got Snow White," Sleepy suggests casually. Everyone else reacts a little more strongly.
"The queen will kill her! We gotta save her!" Grumpy shouts. He jumps on one of the deer, and the others follow suit as they all ride to the rescue, cute little birdies and all.
Simultaneously, the queen lets Snow in on a little “secret”: this isn’t just any old apple, this is a wishing apple! Make a wish, take a bite and all your dreams will come true!
By this point, Snow is looking pretty creeped out. “There must be something your little heart desires,” the Queen says as she backs her up against a wall. “Perhaps there’s someone you love.”
"Well, there is someone…"
"I thought so! Old Granny knows a young girl’s heart. Now take the apple, dearie, and make a wish," she says while putting the apple in Snow’s hands.
Snow is hesitant at first, but she starts getting into it as she wishes for her prince to materialize and whisk her off to his castle for a happily ever after.
"Fine! Fine!" the queen says. "Now take a bite! Don’t let the wish grow cold!"
The actual process of the poisoning is left to the imagination, which works really well; Snow brings the apple to her lips, and it cuts back to the Queen. We only hear Snow gasping and presumably suffocating for a few seconds while the Queen looks on, then the camera pans down to show Snow’s hand flop to the floor and drop the once-bitten apple. A thunderclap happens at the same moment, and it starts pouring rain as the Queen stands over the body cackling. “Now I’ll be fairest in the land!”
The dwarfs come back over the hill just as the Queen is stepping outside. “There she goes!” Grumpy yells. “After her!”
If those vultures had some popcorn right now, they’d be munching on it without even looking at it. They watch as the dwarfs and animals chase the Queen through the forest and up onto a ledge where a boulder has been precariously perched. Seeing this, the Queen grabs a branch and starts trying to dislodge the boulder so it’ll crush the dwarfs. “I’ll fix ya!” she yells. “I’ll crush your bones!” But just when it looks like it’s going to work, a bolt of lightning strikes the ledge and breaks it. Down goes the Queen, and after her comes the boulder! CRASH!
…So essentially, she gets taken out Wil. E Coyote style. Ah well, at least she’s dead. But how do we know that? Remember those vultures? Yeah, they’re circling. At least they end up happy.
And on that note, see you in the final part!
