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Cinefantastique: Excerpt from Rumpelstiltskin |
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This article deals mainly with the movie Rumpelstiltskin, written and directed by Mark Jones. The interview with the director included some discussion of his first movie project:
Jones experienced a lot of negative media reaction to his first feature project as a director, LEPRECHAUN. "I was destroyed by critics," he said. "All I ever wanted to do was make a kids' horror movie. Originally it was going to be PG-13, but Trimark decided that an R market was the way to go, and it did a big boxoffice - over $20 million. Hardcore horror fans were disappointed because it wasn't really scary. If you look at it as a kids' movie, you're much more forgiving. But I don't want to complain; I'm so happy to be in this business, being able to make movies.
"After that film, I said, 'What else would be a high concept everyone knows about but no one has done?' And I thought of Rumpelstiltskin.
"One of my favorite movies was TERMINATOR, and it's also that kind of structure, with a woman on the run, with a baby, and a monster going after her to get the baby. I don't think there's anything more innately scary and horrific than a mother losing her child. It's primal.
"And it's a much better movie than LEPRECHAUN. I can say that since I wrote them both. It's adult, with more defined characters. We shot in CinemaScope, our director of photography Doug Milsome did Costner's ROBIN HOOD, LONESOME DOVE, FULL METAL JACKET and many others. I was the luckiest guy in the world to get him. The results look like a $20 million film."
Jones and his partner Mike Prescott were involved in early stages of story development for Trimark's LEPRECHAUN II, and have producer credit on that film, but when they got a green light for this RUMPELSTILTSKIN, they readily chose it instead. "It had a bigger budget and was more our picture," said Jones. "We couldn't do both - they were literally going at the same time."
[End of excerpt]
Did Mark Jones choose the right film? Well, the Leprechaun series is still going strong and Rumpelstiltskin is not. And a look at IMDb's Mark Jones listing indicates that Rumpy wasn't a big career-booster.
Most of the links showing how critics compared the two movies are now defunct, but they're not completely gone. For a reviewer who liked Leprechaun and hated Rumpelstiltskin, check out The Unknown Movies. And for a reviewer who thought Rumpelstiltskin was better (definitely the minority viewpoint) check out Hall of Anubis.
