I remember watching the Disney version and watching it now makes me think it has somehow lost its magic touch. Plenty of other renditions, Ever After put aside, of Cinderella, have, in fact, lost their touch throughout the years. Then I found this production with a flawless performance by Kathleen Turner as the evil stepmother and was blown away by the phantasmagorical essence of this fantasy story that has cast me under its spell since childhood.
We all know the story of Cinderella, a young girl who's father died and was dominated by her wicked stepmother and stepdaughters and longs to go to the ball for one last chance for freedom. But this plot line takes a different twist in the classic Fairy Tale by causing Cinderella (whose real name is Zizola, and is only called Cinderella by her family because of her slavery) to be trapped in a situation of her father (who still lives) slowly losing himself to a dominant wife who manipulates him into playing favorites with his wife and step-daughters against his own and tries to poison him. Thus, Zizola goes out to save her father by stopping her stepmother from finding another suitor at the ball by distracting the men who come her way. There, the bored Prince Valiant has a change of heart from his dull life and falls in love with the mysterious lady in the strange dress (forged by a water nymph named Mab) with rose petals for slippers.
What drew me to this film most of all was it's original take on the old Fairy Tale that none can compare to. It does not weave a web of lies like most Cinderella stories, it does not ignore any reason as to why Cinderella would want to attend the ball and nor does it show a shallow side to the Prince as the Disney version did. Instead it shows more of Cinderella's selfless heart more than any other production and the artwork is simply stunning! The costumes are all beautifully made, especially Zizola's sapphire blue ballgown to match the Marcella Plunkett's fantastical beauty and soft, spirit-like voice.
I would highly suggest this film for anyone who is interested in a dream-like sequence of the classic Fairy Tale with an interesting twist. My only problem is that the producers and director did not make a full collection of other Fairy Tales with this same element and the fact that the film is now out of print.

Moron and girlfriend conduct some ritual to resurrect the dead, in attempt to prove that the dead can not be brought back to life. Not surprisingly, they do resurrect a dead soul who commences chopping them up with an axe, and the next day some college aged people are telling the story around a campfire. The guy with the axe turns up and starts hacking up the idiots telling the story. The group calls the cops, the cop sees blood splattered all over and thinks it's a mountain lion(!?) and soon after is axed by some deformed killer who may or may not be a ghost.
Moronic little splatter movie which was filmed in broad daylight but where several characters are carrying flashlights and talking as though it were the middle of the night, and wanting to send up a signal flare to attract attention. One guy has a gun in one hand and bullets in the other but doesn't bother to load it, then after he finally loads it, he has several opportunities to shoot the killer but doesn't bother to, because that would end the movie too early. Then he throws the gun away! Also detrimental is characters who show no emotion and don't look the least bit concerned after their friends are chopped up into pieces and lousy effects (the human heart looks like a piece of chicken meat, the car blown up at the end clearly was a model car) and awful dialogue and some really ugly female nudity doesn't help. And in the end it tries to get away with it's incoherence by saying that it was all the invention of the same college aged people telling campfire stories at the start of this movie.
Then the killer turns up for real in the last scene hacks them into pieces. Again.
Mediocre of it's kind, good only for some unintended laughs.
*1/2 out of ****