The idea of a horror movie called RUMPELSTILTSKIN seemed funny enough to me in the 1990s that I got a poster for it in the free bin at the video store (“1996 THEATRICAL RELEASE!” it exclaimed) and hung it on my wall, but not enough that it ever occurred to me to actually watch it. Then a couple years ago the eccentrically curated label Terror Vision put out a fancy 4K/blu-ray special edition, and I thought, “Could it actually be good?”

Well, that depends on how you define “actually good.” I’d say I got more out of JACK FROST, which had almost the same trajectory for me. But RUMPELSTILTSKIN is one of those movies, scarcer and arguably more charming now, that take an absurd horror concept and go to town with it, knowingly silly and with some jokes but with at least a main character who treats it with complete sincerity. At the time it was easy to hate, but now it’s easier to at least get a smile out of it.

As soon as it started with its 1400s prologue I realized yeah, this is a really funny idea. Some weird goblin guy who steals babies and you have to guess his name to stop him… put that guy in modern times, see what happens. Skip forward to “Modern day Los Angeles,” show some buildings, play a Kool Moe Dee song.

You see, a witch transforms him into a little stone statue that ends up in a strange antique shop (one of a couple things I now realize is being referenced in HOAGIE, a really funny movie I wrote the blu-ray liner notes for, coming soon). Shelly (Kim Johnston Ulrich, Passions), whose cop husband (Jay Pickett, RUSH WEEK) was killed on duty while she was pregnant, is strangely drawn to the thing, and holding it when she wishes her dead husband could meet her son and then one of her tears drips on it. You gotta have the wish and the tear to unleash Rumpelstiltskin, that’s why it took 500 years. Honestly I’m surprised it happened that fast.

Well, she does get her husband back, and she fucks him, but the next day he comes out of the shower as Rumpelstiltskin (Max Grodénchik, SISTER ACT), and the scuffle that ensues turns out to be my favorite part of the movie. She calls him a sonofabitch and kicks him hard in the nuts. She threatens to “rip your fuckin head off and shove it up your ass,” cuts off one of his fingers and stabs a knife into his skull. She rams a broom handle into his mouth, lifts him by it and stuffs him in a pantry. When she tries to drive away he crashes head first through her window, drops onto her vehicle, punches through the windshield and says “Don’t let any blood get on the baby!” She slams on the brakes, he flies off and rolls, she runs him over. Good times. Definitely not the lazy movie I once pictured this as.

I thought it would be funny though if she said, like, “fuck you, Rumpelstiltskin” as an insult, accidentally defeating him immediately. I didn’t really understand why, after determining that this is the guy from the fairy tale, she was unable to use his name against him. I may have missed an explanation.

Before all that there’s a funny touch that she has a TV in her kitchen and for some reason has it on a talk show that disgusts her. The host, Max Bergman (Tommy Blaze, GOD’S NOT DEAD), is interviewing six women in bikinis about their boobs. She thinks he’s a sexist pig but her best friend Hildy (Allyce Beasley from Moonlighting!) says “All men are sexist pigs. At least he’s up front about it.” Thanks alot, Ms. DiPesto.

We needed that background for when Shelly randomly meets Max on the highway. Her station wagon is broken down during a Rumpelstiltskin-related emergency and she waves down Max in his Ford Explorer (towing a boat and dune buggy for a vacation) and demands a ride. Only after that does she realize who he is. It becomes kind of a buddy movie with the two of them and eventually he proves that he has a sensitive side.

“Maybe you’re not such an asshole after all.”

“Bullshit. Lady, I am an asshole. Max Bergman, professional asshole.”

Rumpelstiltskin the character is corny in the same way as the Leprechaun is, but also enjoyable in a similar way. Grodénchik is definitely very committed to the bit of being some annoying hobgoblin who is seeing motor vehicles and shit for the first time. But he’s open minded and enthusiastic about new experiences, I would say. I think also to his credit he is a cooler creature design than the Leprechaun, thanks to the great Kevin Yagher of ELM STREET 2–4 fame. Rumpelstiltskin kinda looks like a small, hunchback Green Goblin, doesn’t he? The pointy ears, the purple jester’s hat thing. You know what would be great would be to see him drive the truck from MAXIMUM OVERDRIVE. That does not happen, but there’s a long sequence about him driving a huge black oil tanker, and I was impressed by all the shots where yep, they really put Rumpelstiltskin in the driver’s seat of a moving semi (which he calls a “mighty chariot”).

Oh, also he drives a motorcycle, wearing sunglasses. He’s got some FRANKIE FREAKO spirit in him.

There’s a good amount of mayhem: Max’s aforementioned boat gets rammed and disconnected, skids down the highway and Rumpelstiltskin’s truck hits it and it’s torn in half in a fiery explosion. There are Dukes of Hazzard style truck jumps and crashes, the tanker explodes into flames. In the climax Max drives a flaming bulldozer through a cemetery and scoops up “Uncle Rump” as he calls himself in one part.

And although come to think of it this is not a slasher movie – he’s just trying to steal Shelly’s baby’s soul, not really specifically looking to kill people – they still fit in some fun gore. He rips out a guy’s eyeball and then it moves around in his hand as if still seeing. And he eats it. He loses limbs and grows them back, he gets burnt up but is still alive. That kind of stuff.

Of course at the end he goes back into the statue and it ends up in someone else’s hands, setting up how he could keep coming back for more stories, like some sort of WISHMASTER. It was obviously not a successful 1996 THEATRICAL RELEASE! but I would bet it made money on video. They had a good thing going back then where a low budget movie that every video store was gonna buy at least one copy of was automatically profitable. But then they called it a night, they never made a sequel. That’s too bad because he never spins straw into gold in this one. I figure they were saving that for when he goes to space or the hood or Broadway or wherever.

RUMPELSTILTSKIN was directed by the late Mark Jones, his followup to LEPRECHAUN. He wrote it with Joe Ruby, the co-founder of Ruby-Spears animation, who produced the movie! The connection is that before Jones was directing horror movies he was writing such Ruby-Spears shows as Scooby’s Laff-A Lympics, Super Friends, Mister T, Rubik the Amazing Cube, Turbo Teen and A.L.F. And you know, it kinda makes sense to me that a story this random comes from scribes forged in the flames of Saturday morning cartoons. If you made the show where Mr. T tours the country with a kids gymnastics team and solves mysteries then you also figure the Rumpelstiltskin movie should be about a cop’s widow and a sleazy talk show host being involved in various vehicle stunts.

I’m actually glad I waited to see RUMPELSTILTSKIN. Back then I would’ve thought ha ha, it’s funny that people make crap like this. Now I know it’s beautiful.

P.S. Here’s some time capsule shit for you. Who else remembers The Wherehouse? Kind of like a not-as-good-as-Tower music store chain. It was in malls but also there was a stand-alone one I would drive to to buy concert tickets, because they had a Ticketmaster inside. One time I went to buy Fishbone tickets and there was a line of older people in lawnchairs outside. One of them asked me if this would be my first time seeing The Boss.