an extremely underappreciated movie of the "slasher" genre, Pumpkinhead is based off of a poem by Ed Justin of the same name:
Keep away from Pumpkinhead,
Unless you're tired of living,
His enemies are mostly dead,
He's mean and unforgiving,
Laugh at him and you're undone,
But in some dreadful fashion,
Vengeance, he considers fun,
And plans it with a passion,
Time will not erase or blot,
A plot that he has brewing,
It's when you think that he's forgot,
He'll conjure your undoing,
Bolted doors and windows barred,
Guard dogs prowling in the yard,
Won't protect you in your bed,
Nothing will,
from Pumpkinhead.
The movie itself stars Lance Henrickson as Ed Harley, a man who runs a roadside store in the middle of the deep, deep south with his son. A group of teenagers from the city arrive, and while racing dirtbikes (when Lance leaves) one of the kids, who was drunk, ran his bike into Ed Harley's son, killing him. Ed Harley swears to get revenge, so upon meeting with an old witch named Haggis, he conjurs the utterly terrifying demon known as Pumpkinhead, but not without a price.
Pumpkinhead and Ed Harley are connected, being that whatever one experiences the other feels as well. Ed swears to go back on creating the monster, so he sets out to save the kids who he doomed in the first place. The kids, on the other hand, want to go help Ed because of remorse for killing his son on accident, but the one who killed the kid was drunk and on parole and refuses to go to Jail. What follows is Pumpkinhead doing what he does best: killing the shit out of everything. 
This movie is fantastic in that it's one of the few slasher movies that fits in the genre but breaks every rule. There is actually very little gore, absolutely no sex or nudity, and it's one of the few horror movies of the genre with a central theme: what is the price you have to pay for something that was an honest mistake?
This movie is fantastic in that it's one of the few slasher movies that fits in the genre but breaks every rule. There is actually very little gore, absolutely no sex or nudity, and it's one of the few horror movies of the genre with a central theme: what is the price you have to pay for something that was an honest mistake?I really have to applaud Stan Winston studios. They knocked it out of the park designing Pumpkinhead. Yeah, a crazy teen killer with a knife and mask is pretty scary, but an 8-foot tall demon from hell is downright terrifying. 
The greatest thing about this movie is that it takes itself so seriously. It isn't corny at all, and the people feel real instead of stereotypes which plague this genre often. Stan Winston did a phenemenol job directing, and i will miss him greatly for all he contributed to the world of film (Stan Winston passed away a few months ago).
overall grade: 8.5/10
1 comment:
Hey Double R, Alex here. My first exposure to Pumpkinhead was when I was just a kid. Growing up, I'd always seen the box for the video and the big displays they'd have for it at the video stores we'd frequent. Some kids I knew in Kindergarten and First Grade were into Horror flicks so, they talked about this one quite a bit. Flash forward a couple of decades and just around mid last year, when I was first getting into horror films, I saw a review of it in a Fangoria magazine that I'd happened to read while at Border's Books. The reviewer gave the movie glowing praise and I thought I'd try and track it down on DVD. Took me a while but, I eventually found it at Suncoast a few weeks later. Upon watching it, I was completely entranced by the atmosphere of the film. Especially the scenes with the witch Haggis. It was also a very poignant story- a morality tale if you will. Basically, don't fuck with things that you know nothing about and that the devil always has a price. So, anyway, great review of the movie and I'm glad someone else out there feels the way I do about this. Great movie with a great story and awesome special effects.
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