Rumpelstiltskin (1995)
So… this movie was directed by Mark Jones, the very same man who gave the world Leprechaun. So congrats, Mike—you somehow dragged us through the backdoor of the Leprechaun franchise without even picking a Leprechaun film. That’s like saying, “No, we’re eating out fancy tonight,” and then pulling up to Arby’s.
And listen—I know directors can get typecast. But Mark Jones typecast himself. Leprechaun, Rumpelstiltskin, and then, years later, a killer ventriloquist dummy movie called Triloquist. That’s not a résumé—that’s a cry for help.
Now here’s where my head exploded: the cinematographer on this movie? Doug Milsome. Yeah. That Doug Milsome. The guy who shot Full Metal Jacket. I looked it up three times to make sure. He lit Vincent D’Onofrio’s suicide and a troll-riding-a-motorcycle scene in the same career. And he’s still working. The man is 86 years old and out here filming like this never happened. I respect that kind of denial.
The movie opens with a baby kidnapping. A literal baby. Like, a days-old child being snatched by Rumpelstiltskin, who looks like Freddy Krueger’s cooler, weirder cousin. The goblin steals the baby, looks at it like it’s a half-eaten sandwich, and then just… gives it back? No explanation. Then he grabs a guy, rips his eye out, eats it, and I start realizing: oh, this movie’s not here to explain anything.
But no worries, because some random old witch says his name and he bursts into flames. Roll credits. Just kidding, instead we smash cut to the 90s. And you know it’s the 90s because the first sound you hear is RAP MUSIC, which is promptly judged by a white cop asking his Black partner: “You really like that stuff?” We are one minute into modern-day and already in an episode of South Park.
Cops end up in a shootout after literally visiting a donut shop and the white guy, Russ, dies while his pregnant wife listens to the chaos after he drops his phone. The wife is named Shelly Stewart (played by Kim Johnston Ulrich) and a few months later her baby is born—John Stewart. Not Jon Stewart. John.
Ulrich’s performance starts like she’s auditioning for Silver Spoons and ends with her screaming “I’LL RIP YOUR FUCKING HEAD OFF AND SHOVE IT UP YOUR FUCKING ASS” while holding a knife. That is called range.
And then, there’s Allyce Beasley as Shelly’s best friend, Hildy. Yes, that Alyce Beasley – Agnes DiPesto from Moonlighting. And I was not prepared. I legit got excited. My notes say “HOLY SHIT IT’S ALLYCE BEASLEY” in all caps like I was twelve and saw a Ninja Turtle. I love her. Did you know her first husband was Vincent Schiavelli? King of That Guy Actors. That pairing makes me feel like the universe sometimes gets it right.
Anyhow, Allyce plays Hildy, a boy-crazy character who thinks everyone looks like her ex. Including Rumplestiltskin. Who, in the context of Moonlighting, would have been Curtis Armstrong. So if you’re keeping score: Booger and Agnes once dated in-universe. Let’s all sit with that.
And then there’s Max Bergman, played by Tommy Blaze. He starts off as this misogynistic TV host, dropping lines like, “Which of you topless dancers lost your virginity first? My guess is the slowest runner.” I wrote: WHY IS THIS ON TV? But what I meant was: Why is this in my life? However, as the film progresses, Max undergoes a transformation. After reluctantly helping Shelly and her perpetually awake baby escape from Rumplestiltskin, he shifts from being a self-absorbed jerk to a genuinely helpful ally. By the end, he’s driving bulldozers and facing off against supernatural creatures, showing that even the most insufferable characters can have redeeming arcs. It’s like the movie wanted to say, “See? Character development!” but whispered it so softly you almost miss it.
But the real prize here is Max Grodénchik. Better known as Rom from Deep Space Nine. Here, he’s playing Rumpelstiltskin. And folks, he is not phoning it in. He is scenery chewing, motorcycle riding, one-liner dropping chaos goblin. At one point he puts on sunglasses and mounts a bike to a song that is basically “Sympathy for the Devil” if it were sung by Dr. Teeth from the Muppets.
He says things like “Let’s playeth tag” and “I love it when a plan comes together” while driving a stolen tanker truck. Which, ten minutes prior, he didn’t even know what a car was. Like, he sees one and goes “A carriage with no horses!” Then he’s suddenly Vin Diesel in Fast 9. The math is not mathing. In the immortal words of Rumpel: fucketh me.
Also: the baby never sleeps. EVER. It is always crying. Even when it’s offscreen, it is crying offscreen. I have never hated a baby more, and I say that as someone who’s raised one. This kid is basically the third lead in the film and gets more screen time than most supporting actors on network TV.
Now, you’d think all this baby rage would wear you down, but nope. It just keeps getting better. There’s a scene where Allyce dies with what has to be the most disrespectful neck snap in film history. Rumple just walks in, gives her a quick twist, and moves on. NO FANFARE. I was furious. Allyce deserved so much more. That might be a new category for The Jitsus this year: Worst Death Scene.
And then we get to the truck chase. A duel-style sequence where a goblin chases a woman and a baby in a red truck driven by mysogynist Max, quotes The A-Team, explodes, comes back, and gets chased by Max in a dune buggy. Also, Flock of Seagulls plays on the soundtrack. Because apparently we’re doing this now.
The practical effects, though? Bangers. Head rips. Eye gouges. The makeup on Rumple is legitimately great. At one point, he rips his own head off and bites a cop with it. While holding it. It rules.
Eventually, our heroes kill him using a bulldozer filled with burning straw, which they drive into an electric pole. But because it’s allegedly a horror film, we get the oh he’s not dead final jump scare, which was more of a weak yawn than anything. Shelly says his name and boom, he bursts into flame and becomes a green statue again.
And the last scene? A knockoff Drew Barrymore finds the Rumple statue and it got me wistfully remembering the final segment of Cat’s Eye. I genuinely thought for a second that Max Grodenchik played the troll in that one too and had to look it up. (He didn’t. But… did he?)
The movie ends. The baby lives. Unfortunately. And the producers thank Dino De Laurentiis, because obviously they do.
Oh, and there’s a soundtrack. And I don’t own it. Which feels like a crime.
Bottom Five Character Names:
5. Rip Torn – (Real person, cheat pick)
Elmore Rual Torn Jr. — Actor
He’s not a fictional character, but with a name like Rip Torn, how could we not include him? Rip Torn isn’t a name — it’s a thunderclap in human form. Born Elmore Torn Jr., he inherited “Rip” from a family tradition of giving kids names that sounded like middleweight prizefighters. Which means yes — his actual name was Ripped and Torn. And he lived it. He once got into a knife fight with Dennis Hopper, broke into a bank thinking it was his home, and still gave knockout performances in The Larry Sanders Show, Men in Black, and fuck you, Freddy Got Fingered which represents a hill I will die on as far as much-maligned cinema goes. It’s brilliant and unbelievably funny.
Also: he’s Sissy Spacek’s cousin. The universe is wild.
4. Max Rockatansky – Mad Max (1979)
Played by Mel Gibson | Directed by George Miller (who was literally an ER doctor at the time)
You don’t think about it because the movie is so iconic — Mad Max is cool. He’s laconic. He drives a murder car through a dystopian wasteland. But then one day you hear his full name — Max Rockatansky — and suddenly the end of the world sounds like he!: got the last name of your Polish guitar teacher who spends his weekends in a Ska band. And the best part? Director George Miller was a medical doctor who funded the film in part from ER night shifts. He stitched people up by day and invented leather-bound biker cannibal gangs by night!
3. Tree Gelbman – Happy Death Day (2017) and Hsppy Death Day 2
Played by Jessica Rothe
A smart, surprisingly great slasher-with-a-heart horror flick that I know you also love, Mike, it does not change the fact the lead character is named Tree. Not Tori. Not Bree. Tree. Short for Teresa, but still — Tree. Paired with the last name “Gelbman,” which sounds like an off-brand hummus, you’ve got one of the most inexplicable lead character names in a modern movie. Tree Gelbman: firmly rooted in nonsense, blossoming into Final Girl greatness. And yet somehow, Tree is awesome. Which proves that even the dumbest names can grow on you — if you die enough times.
2. Lincoln Hawk – Over the Top (1987)
Played by Sylvester Stallone | Directed by Menahem Golan of Golan and Globus fame (but Stallone was basically steering the truck)
A movie about arm-wrestling truckers deserves a name this stupid. Lincoln Hawk is trying so hard to sound all-American that it feels like the cinematic equivalent of punching a commie while a flag the size of Kansas waves in the background. His son calls him “Hawk,” but other characters say “Hawks,” as if the script itself gave up trying to be consistent. Stallone, fresh off the Rocky IV victory lap, helped shape this passion project with Cannon Films — a studio not known for subtlety — and somehow turned child custody into a bench-press montage.
Menahem Golan wasn’t just the producer — he was the actual credited director of Over the Top. He was also half of Cannon Films, the legendary (and infamous) low-budget movie studio run by Golan and his cousin Yoram Globus. Cannon was responsible for a string of gloriously unhinged ‘80s films, including:
• Invasion USA (and several other Chuck Norris flicks)
• Masters of the Universe
• Breakin’ 2: Electric Boogaloo
Golan directed Over the Top himself because he genuinely believed it could be a hit that crossed into mainstream American success. And he had Stallone — the biggest action star on Earth at the time — for $12 million (a record salary then). So Golan put himself in the director’s chair, even though his style was… chaotic at best.
While Stallone wasn’t the official director, multiple sources and interviews indicate that he had a huge hand in shaping the film:
• He rewrote large portions of the script, often on set.
• He oversaw the editing process alongside Golan.
• He reportedly clashed with Golan about tone — Stallone wanted more emotional weight (particularly the father-son dynamic), while Golan leaned hard into the ridiculousness of competitive arm wrestling as a path to child custody!
1. Cypher Raige – After Earth (2013)
Played by Will Smith | Directed by M. Night Shyamalan
This name is so bad it could only come from a future where taste has gone extinct. Cypher Raige isn’t just a laughably overwrought sci-fi moniker — it’s the brainchild of a film that paired the creative forces of M. Night Shyamalan (yes, really) with a Scientology-adjacent parable about emotionless space rangers. After Earth’s heavy-handed message about controlling emotion to defeat fear — mirrors Scientology’s own emotional discipline philosophy. Combined with Will Smith’s public ties to Scientology circles and the film’s strange, joyless tone, it gave the movie a vibe that many found… cultish. So yeah, this isn’t just a bad character name. It’s the product of a multi-million dollar self-help metaphor… disguised as an action movie with space eagles. But let’s get back to the name; The last name, “Raige” sounds like a vape juice flavor, and “Cypher” feels like something a 13-year-old gives themselves in a Fortnite username.