Venganza diabólica

"Keep away from Pumpkinhead, Unless you're tired of living, His enemies are mostly dead, He's mean and unforgiving, Bolted doors and windows barred, Guard dogs prowling in the yard, Won't protect you in your bed, Nothing will, from Pumpkinhead."

So goes the poem by Ed Justin. I've never heard of it previously. I'm assuming it's more of an American pop culture thing.

Stan Winston may be the man behind many of todays horror icons and creatures but how exactly does he hold up as a director? Not that great I'm afraid to say. But let's be reasonable. This film is almost 20 years old (it was completed in 1987) and Winston has no doubt improved in many ways since. But what he lacks in style he makes up for in enthusiasm.

The ever-brilliant Lance Henrikson (the man with THE coolest voice in the world) is Ed Harley, a backwoods shopkeep who's Milky-Bar Kid-lookalike son is killed by reckless dirt-bikers. After this surprising sad and touching scene, Ed visits the house of a mysterious old hag who has ties with the forces of darkness. Wishing vengeance upon the bikers he is sent on a mission to dig up the remains of a demon buried in a pumpkin patch. With his blood thrown into the mix of an evil spell, the demon is soon resurrected and goes about his usual mission of killing people who deserve it.

And so begins a series of scenes you've seen many times in numerous Friday the 13th films and the subsequent rip-offs. Only instead of a masked killer you get a very tall, weird looking creature that looks a lot like the Xenomorph from the Alien series. Despite Winston's usually awkward framing and cutting, he does pull off a couple of good scares and generates a decent amount of atmosphere. But the constant unnatural lighting, floodlit woods and fog effects get a bit annoying.

Pumpkinhead is, essentially, a tribute to urban legends and ancient scary stories told for generations before TV and mass-communication came along. In that sense, Pumpkinhead ranks alongside other mythical characters such as Spring-heeled Jack, the Skunk-Ape, Shadow People and El Chupacabra. Many of these characters are in the public subconscious, but like I said, perhaps the Pumkinhead myth is too uncommon outside of America to make that kind of impact.

Plus, there is good amount of story going untold. The whole idea of Harley and Pumpkinhead being connected through blood and bloodlust isn't developed too well and the film should have had a stronger showdown between them. The mysterious old hag could have had a bigger part too.

But if you're in the mood for undemanding horror, with slight irony, mild mythology, an interesting killer and one of the coolest actors ever (Mr Henrikson, take a bow) then go for it. Don't expect anything groundbreaking or memorable.

A group of young adults heading to a cabin for the weekend accidentally run over and kill the son of country storekeeper Ed Harley (Lance Henriksen) and then drive away. Driven by grief, Ed goes to a witch for help raising a demonic creature known as Pumpkinhead to wreak vengeance upon his son's killers. Directed by special effects wizard Stan Winston, Pumpkinhead is one of the most original and underrated horror films of the last thirty years. Lance Henriksen is terrific, as is John Carpenter favorite George Buck Flower. The best scenes go to the witch Haggis, played by Florence Schauffler under a ton of makeup. Every scene involving the witch is gold. On the minus side, the kill scenes are not terribly inventive and are done with a minimum of suspense, despite the terrific atmosphere Winston has set up with the dark and misty backwoods locale. And, of course, praise should go to Winston and his special effects crew for creating a unique creature like Pumpkinhead to begin with. I'm sure the dream of every special effects artist who grew up idolizing Jack Pierce, Willis O'Brien, or Ray Harryhausen would be to create a memorable monster of their own. Winston did just that with this film.

The Good: I remember visiting the Canadian side of Niagara Falls as a kid, and going through Madame Tussaud's Wax Museum, and every single time, being utterly terrified of the "horror section" of the museum. Of all the wax figures, Pumpkinhead always scared me the most.

Since then, I guess childhood fear and literally thousands of other options meant I never ended up watching Pumpkinhead. Now that I have, I can say this movie really surprised me. I really liked the folksy, dark fantasy aesthetic, I think it begs for the movie's universe and lore to be expanded on. I left the movie wondering about how many other human dramas Pumpkinhead intervened in. I wonder about where he came from and how the townsfolk knew about him. That's the sign of a great horror concept.

Lance Eriksson is phenomenal here; he grounds the movie in a sort of realism and pathos that you don't often get with these types of movies. The relationship between his character, Ed, and his son, Billy is sweet and effective; you understand the man from the first 5 minutes, and can immediately understand the depth of his pain. Which, makes his summoning of the demonic avenger Pumpkinhead at least seem...understandable.

I also liked the tension generated by the tragic incident, where a group of (mostly) insufferable teens accidentally kill Billy. I like how there's another layer of the story, namely, how these people are going to figure it out and what they're going to do to fix the situation. Maybe I expected them to be a bunch of bodies for Pumpkinhead to kill or something, but I found the film way more interesting because of how their story develops.

But of course, Pumpkinhead himself. He has such screen presence, viewed so terrifying by everyone around him, there's no way you don't buy into him and get a little spooked yourself. He's treated as all powerful, unstoppable, and I can totally see why he's a key figure in the horror pantheon.

The Bad: Stan Winston's weaknesses as a director do kind of show here. There's some truly baffling acting at times, a lot of bad editing, and the first portion of this movie just feels...off. There are moments that end unexpectedly, where the music is too loud and inappropriate...just little aesthetic things that annoyed me throughout the movie. It definitely gets better as the movie goes on though.

I also felt the music needed a more ethereal and fantastical than it ultimately was. I couldn't help but feel the Hellraiser music would work super well here.

I also hate to say this, but as cool as Pumpkinhead is, the technical limitations the filmmakers had in 1988 means that we often can't or don't see Pumpkinhead kill anyone. He often seems like he's standing above or around people, but clearly not interacting with them, if that makes sense? I know it's not really fair, but being so used to contemporary CG, where you see fantastical creatures interact with regular people all the time, it's just kind of distracting.

This movie has the longest opening credit sequence I've seen in a long time. It's not only long, but it's really bad too.

The Ugly: Pumpkinhead, as I mentioned before, should've been a bigger and better franchise than it ended up being. The studio, MPCA, did not have confidence in the film and literally released it the same weekend as another film THEY PRODUCED, called...Child's Play. One became a major horror franchise that continues today, and the other never really got a chance to be.

Instead, Pumpkinhead has a direct-to-video sequel and two TV movies. All, i have been told, are pretty trash. It sucks because there's a lot of potential with this franchise and I wish there was more to it, honestly.

But it's also a testament to this film's quality that despite having ONE good (if imperfect) film to its name, Pumpkinhead is still considered by horror nerds to be one of the most iconic movie monsters ever.

Pumpkinhead is directed by Stan Winston and stars Lance Henriksen, Jeff East, John D'Aquino, Kimberly Ross & Joel Hoffman. Music is by Richard Stone and cinematography comes from Bojan Bazelli. Plot sees Henriksen play Ed Harley, a loving and devoted father raising his young son on his own after the death of his wife. His world is shattered when a group of adventure seeking teenagers accidentally kill his boy in a motorbike incident. Struck with grief and fury, Ed seeks out a mountain dwelling witch that can invoke the demon Pumpkinhead to do his vengeful bidding for him. However, calling up Pumpkinhead comes at a cost to Ed as much as it does to the teenagers it now seeks.

Tho in essence it is just a creature on the loose killing the teens movie, so a stalk and slash piece if you like, Pumpkinhead is more appealing than most of its ilk. It's an old fashioned movie, rich on atmosphere, presenting a moralistic tale that's steeped in rural folklore and horror legend. It's also propelled forward by a damn great performance from Henriksen. Special effects guru Winston directs assuredly, with a strong visual sense and a knowing that as his movie shifts to the inevitable kill after kill sequence; he had to develop his protagonist first. It's during the first half where Pumpkinhead earns its stripes as Winston takes time to fully form the relationship between father and son, it's tender and very believable, so when the tragedy happens, Ed's reaction is totally understandable. We too feel vindictive such is the way Henriksen has let us feel the love.

On to the second half where the magnificent creature makes its appearance and the blood starts to flow. Here the film is only let down by its relatively low budget and the fact that Winston has nowhere to go other than formula. The youths are the usual array of cocky, bickering shriekers, tho in fairness a couple of the girls here are at least scripted as being intelligent and capable of reasoning. But thankfully in amongst the carnage is Henriksen peeling off another emotional layer, as he starts to get conflicted about what he has done. A fine performance from an actor who is far better than his king of schlock reputation. Tho still rated averagely on some internet movie sites, Pumpkinhead (dreadful name in truth) has garnered, and earned, a big cult fan base. Popular enough to warrant a solid 20th Anniversary DVD release, there's a chance that it will find more fans along the way. It deserves it, if only for Henriksen, the creature, and the attention to art design and detail. And of course if you like the stalk and slash formula anyway? Well it delivers there too. 7/10

Most critics (who actually get PAID to critique films, unlike me, HA!) really hated this movie, dismissing it as yet another "brainless teen" slaughterfest and slamming it with either one star or a big fat turkey. I've never really understood this. Okay, it's not ever going to win an Academy Award, some of the acting is atrocious and much of the incidental music was cheesy and had me rolling my eyes, but the basic story is quite good. Six city teens on a vacation in either the Appalachians or the Ozarks, make the mistake of running over a little hillbilly boy with a motorcycle. 5 of them want to do the right thing and call the police, but the 6th, a hulking moron with a police record, takes his friends hostage. By the time he comes to his senses, it's too late. The dead boys father has been to see the local Witch, who in turn has summoned the Demon of Vengeance: Pumpkinhead.

There's really not a lot of gore here, and no sex whatsoever. The "typical teens" here actually appear to be in their early twenties, and are hardly the faceless victims you usually find in these kinds of films. The real menace lies with the hill folk, many of whom look like the genuine article; inbred and dangerous. Lance Henriksen turns in a great performance as the dead boys father, blinded (most understandably) by grief and anger, yet still compassionate enough at last to try and reverse what he has done. The monster, Pumpkinhead, is really cool looking, created as it was by special effects man Stan Winston, who also directed. The atmosphere and mood of this movie are constantly menacing, even in the bright light of day, and Pumpkinhead seems to bring an aura of electrical storms with him wherever he goes, the sound of cicadas and the flashing of heat lightening most unsettling. The Witches cabin in particular is a magnificent set piece. Worth seeing at least once. The "professional" critics are NOT always right.

PS - Don't bother watching "Pumpkinhead 2: Blood Wings." I've never seen a more horrible sequel with a more annoying cast of arrogant teenagers who deserved to be killed. Banal, moronic waste of film.