Rumpelstiltskin, 2025.

Directed by Andy Edwards.
Starring Hannah Baxter-Eve, Joss Carter, Adrian Bouchet, Colin Malone, James Dance, and Evyn George.

SYNOPSIS:

A modern retelling of the classic Brothers Grimm fairy tale, albeit a bit more sweary.

What? Not another childhood favourite being given the low budget horror movie treatment? Okay, this isn’t Winnie the Pooh, Popeye or Mickey Mouse but an adaptation of a fairy tale that, if you ever care to read the original Brothers Grimm source and not the child-friendly Penguin Books editions we all grew up with, then you may be pleasantly surprised by how dark and gruesome those stories are. Ripe material to have some fun with then, yes?

Well, sort of, because on the surface of it Rumpelstiltskin is a horror movie in the same vein as the Leprechaun and Wishmaster movies, in that it takes a folkloric character, makes him look grotesque with some fun make-up and sets him loose on unsuspecting victims where he can use his magic to get what he wants.

But those movies take an ancient demonic character and put it in the modern world, whereas this movie is a straight-up(ish) adaptation of the original story, set in medieval times and full of magic and wonder. Well, it would have been if the budget went that high, but it doesn’t and so what we are left with is an ambitious movie that is unable to put everything it wants to achieve on the screen thanks to budgetary restrictions, and so adapts the script ever so slightly to include some, shall we say, spicy dialogue that may or may not have been commonplace during the period in which it is set.

For those unfamiliar with the story of Rumpelstiltskin, the basics are that the King (Colin Malone) wishes to sire a son to continue his bloodline and decides that the beautiful but promiscuous peasant girl Evalina (Hannah Baxter-Eve) shall be his chosen bride after she cons him into thinking she can create gold by spinning straw. Whilst in the castle prison, Evalina is visited by a troll-like creature (Joss Carter) who promises to spin enough gold to satisfy the King in exchange for her handing over her first-born child.

Things go well for Evalina as the King accepts she can spin gold and he marries her, but when she gives birth to a son the troll comes back for his prize, only for Evalina to go back on her deal, but if she can guess the troll’s then she can keep the child.

A story that the movie sticks very faithfully to, and it must be said that Joss Carter and Hannah Baxter-Eve give it their all to make the script come alive – as well as Carter being magnificently mobile as the titular Rumpelstiltskin, dancing around and filling the screen with his menacingly comic persona – but to make up for the visual shortcomings in the effects department, the dialogue is peppered with F and C words in what is likely an attempt to avoid a PG rating because, aside from a very brief flash of female nudity, there is very little else here likely to cause too much distress as the movie is virtually bloodless and the CGI effects for Rumpelstiltskin’s forest demon master aren’t likely to trouble the likes of Industrial Light & Magic. They’re not terrible considering the budget, but are far too cartoonish to add any serious threat.

But there are plenty of positives to take away from this movie, as long as you temper your expectations accordingly. Rumpelstiltskin’s look is fantastic, the costume designs are straight out of Robin of Sherwood and, likewise, showcase a level of care and attention to detail that more expensive productions may have glossed over, and it rolls along at a decent clip without getting bogged down with mythology that movies based on literary sources often do. It is just that by the end of it, after the dodgy visuals, attempts to be edgy with the dialogue and a final act that feels very rushed and underwhelming, Rumpelstiltskin seems like a bit of a wasted opportunity to have done something really savage and nasty with the material, just like The Brothers Grimm no doubt would have wanted, and much like with the budget of this movie, you are left feeling a little short-changed by the end of it.

Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★

Chris Ward

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=embed/playlist

NEW YORK (OSV News) – Motion pictures based on popular video games may have found their perfected form in “A Minecraft Movie” (Warner Bros.).

The film is unrelentingly upbeat and undistracted by manufactured sentiment. Its positive mood is struck and sustained, moreover, without resort to the cheap jokes or occasional vulgarity that often plague such adaptations.

Rather than follow the easy path of anthropomorphizing video characters, the filmmakers instead take a group of people who are frustrated with the paths of their lives in the real world and insert them into a kinetic 3D immersive version of the Swedish game’s landscape where they learn to achieve their goals.

Since their source material is the best-selling video game of all time, the quintet of screenwriters — Chris Bowman, Hubbel Palmer, Neil Widener, Gavin James and Chris Galletta — assume the pool of veteran players-turned-moviegoers is large enough for them to get away with the occasional in-joke. But even newcomers can savor the nuances on offer here.

Director Jared Hess’ production is not the type of picture from which viewers expect to take away an especially meaningful message. But it does carry with it an implied theme about better living through gameplay — in other words, you’re not just killing time, you’re building your life.

In the game, protagonist Steve, one of only two playable human characters, has a dark backstory about being the lone survivor of a worldwide virus. There’s none of that here.

On the contrary, Jack Black gives us a perpetually optimistic — albeit initially dissatisfied — version of the character. His Steve longs to escape the drudgery of being a doorknob salesman and become a miner instead.

Steve gets his opportunity when he comes across the glowing blue cube known within the game as the Orb of Dominance and finds that it opens a portal to a utopian place called The Overworld. Here, players construct their own mini-environments. They also interact with blocky people and animals.

Among the latter are creatures called piglins. The inhabitants of an evil empire known as the Nether, piglins are on a greedy quest for gold.

Steve is eventually joined by a group of other visitors to the Overwrold who are just as happy as he is to leave their unfulfilling pasts behind them. Garrett (Jason Momoa), an arcade video-game champ from decades ago, has fallen on hard times. Failed real estate agent Dawn (Danielle Brooks) wants to be a zookeeper.

For their part, youthful siblings Henry (Sebastian Hansen) and Natalie (Emma Myers) share a belief that their lives have taken a wrong turn. Additionally, Henry finds himself mocked at school for his creative impulses.

There’s no fear of that in this dimension. Having characterized the Overworld as “the biggest sandbox in the universe,” Steve observes, “Creativity in this world is the key to survival.”

Ultimately, of course, the ensemble of characters must head for home, and their return journey is, unsurprisingly, reminiscent of “The Wizard of Oz.” As in that classic, the cast learn lessons along the way and discover talents they didn’t previously know they had.

The film contains intense action sequences and some scenes of cartoonish violence. The OSV News classification is A-II – adults and adolescents. The Motion Picture Association rating is PG — parental guidance suggested. Some material may be inappropriate for children.

Copyright © 2025 OSV News

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The latest film releases include Freaky Tales, A Minecraft Movie, The Luckiest Man in America, and The Friend. Weighing in are Shawn Edwards, a film critic at Fox 4 News and co-founder of the African American Film Critics Association, and Katie Walsh, film reviewer for the Tribune News Service and the Los Angeles Times.