Some of these pictures and descriptions may give away plot details that you might not want to know before watching the film.
This is a revisionist version of the fairy tale that strips away the whitewash on the 1937 Disney classic and returns the tale to its dark and violent source, closer to what was published by the Brothers Grimm 200 years ago. It's dark and somber and gritty - so gritty that both of the movie's beautiful A-list stars have dirty fingernails, and Snow White hardly even washes her face or combs her hair. She's definitely no Disney princess.
After the evil Queen Ravenna (Charlize Theron) kills her husband the king, she locks her stepdaughter Snow White (Kristen Stewart) in a jail cell for many years. When she grows up, Snow White finally escapes into the Dark Woods where Ravenna's magic doesn't work, so Ravenna sends a Huntsman (Chris Hemsworth) to retrieve her, but he ends up protecting her instead of bringing her back to the Queen. We see him leading Snow White through the Dark Woods when suddenly some branches surrounding her turn into snakes. (In the 1937 animated film branches turn into grabbbing hands.) She is terrified until the Huntsman gets rid of them with his axe. He tells her "the forest gains its strength from your weakness" which in this case must have been her fear of snakes. Later Snow White, the Huntsman, and seven Dwarves enter the verdant sanctuary of the fairies, the only green place remaining because Ravenna's evil magic has killed off everything else leaving the entire land looking like the aftermath of a massive forest fire. In the fairy woods we see lots of cute little Disneyish animals including a moss and mushroom-covered tortoise ridden by a fairy, and a moss-covered snake. I've seen sloths in the tropics with moss growing on their fur because they move so slowly, but it looks all wrong on a snake.
None of the snakes in this movie are real. They're all computer generated effects. But that didn't bother me since it's a fairly tale. Spoiler alert - the fairies aren't real either.