Rumpelstiltskin 1995 Written by Mark Jones and Joe Ruby, directed by Mark Jones. We watched the Terror Vision release. They have an annoyingly loud logo when you pop in the disc. Someone needs a shot of Paul Naschy's flaming skull drilled into their gentleman's sausage area.
The movie opens with a group of villagers chasing Rumpelstiltskin and burning him alive. He curses the villagers, he'll get his revenge in 1000 years. After the fire dies down all that's left of Rumpy is a stone image of him. It gets tossed in some water and we jump ahead 1000 years to Los Angeles.
A cop is killed on the job while his pregnant wife listens to the shooting on the phone. It was a badly written scene, the cop didn't even defend himself, the criminal managed to shot him 3 times before he fell over. The partner managed to shoot the criminal in the noggin. The partner disappears from the film.
Months pass and the baby is fairly big. The wife's friend takes her to a goofy antique shop where she buys the Rumpy lump. She takes it home and unknowingly activates the cursed stone. She had wished her husband would return to her, he does, next morning Rumpy shows up and wants the baby for it's soul. The wife manages to escape and the rest of the movie is her being chased by Rumpy looking to get that soul.
It's got a decent baddie but the script is poor and the actors so-so. It didn't do so well at the Box Office and the IMDb score is 4.7, I didn't think it was worth a 5. Writer director Mark Jones had written and directed the first Leprechaun movie. That was a better film. The only other movie I had seen of his was Triloquist and that was below average. Not one I need to buy for my collection.
The Shaolin Plot 1977 Based on a novel by Kuang Ni, screenplay and direction by Huang Feng. We watched the Arrow Blu-ray release. The movie was filmed in South Korea.
The baddie is collecting Shaolin martial arts books. The Shaolin monks aren't that interested in giving them up without a fight. Sammo Hung is one of the baddies.
The production looks good with plenty of big sets and nice locations. There's plenty of fights and action but movie is rather slow at times. A good bit of trimming would have been appropriate. I enjoyed most of it but I was struggling to stay awake in the middle of it. I wasn't the only one. I'd still watch it again sometime but would FF during the dull bits. I hope to catch the commentaries at some point. I see they are the same ones as on the Eureka Release.