The Pumpkin Karver

I agree with everyone else. This movie was extremely horrible. It was filmed about 4 years ago in my home town, palmdale, CA. If you look in the party scenes, i am the one dressed as the pimp in the purple costume. I have never been in a movie before so i was pretty psyched to see myself. This alone made the hour an a half worth it. I still wont recommend this movie to a lot of people. When i was in it the director told me it might not come out in the states, so when it did it was pretty exciting. If you are with your friends one night and you have nothing to do, and you are bored out of your mind, you should rent it. It makes for a good laugh and you can see how crappy the town i had to grow up in is.

In the Halloween in West Minister, the teenager Lynn Starks (Amy Weber) is attacked by a man wearing a pumpkin face mask in the basement of her house. Her younger brother Jonathan Starks (Michael Zara) is carving a pumpkin in his room and hears her sister crying for help. He uses the knife to protect his sister, stabbing the assaulter. When they take the mask off his face, they realize that the man is Lynn's boyfriend Alec (David J. Wright) playing a prank on Lynn.

One year later, the siblings are living in Carver, and they are invited to a Halloween party in the field. Lynn introduces her friend Tammy (Minka Kelly) to her brother, who is haunted by Alec, and Jonathan stays with Tammy. However, her former boyfriend Lance (David Austin) bullies Jonathan along the night. Meanwhile several youngsters are attacked by the Pumpkin Face that carves their faces.

"The Pumpkin Karver" is a film with terrible story, characters, direction and acting. The plot is unoriginal and full of clichés; there are several slashers very similar to "The Pumpkin Karver", but the conclusion is awful. The characters are stupid and non-charismatic and the two guys dressed in white are annoying and unbearable. The direction and the acting are bad, and Michael Zara is very weak in the lead role. My vote is two.

Title (Brazil): "Pumpkin Karver, a Nova Face do Terror" ("Pumpkin Karver, the New Face of Terror")

This movie begins with a teenager by the name of "Jonathan Starks" (Michael Zara) sitting at the dining room table on Halloween night carving a pumpkin. Also at home with him is his older sister "Lynn Starks" (Amy Weber) who is waiting for her boyfriend "Alec" (David J. Wright). Upon getting there he essentially acts like a jerk and is told by Lynn to come back later. Sometime later, a man wearing a pumpkin mask, sneaks into the house and attacks Lynn with a knife. Jonathan hears her screams and kills the intruder with the knife he was using to make a jack-o-lantern. However, it's only after stabbing him multiple times that both Lynn and Jonathan realize that the intruder was Alec playing a prank. The scene then shifts to one year later with Jonathan having undergone counseling and now moving with his sister to another town to start a new life. Upon arriving they are greeted by several people including one older man named "Ben Wicket" (Terrence Evans) who appears to have some emotional issues of his own. Likewise, another young man by the name of "Lance" (David Austin) also quickly develops a disliking to Jonathan due to his former girlfriend, "Tammy" (Minka Kelly) showing a romantic interest in him-and trouble soon starts not long afterward. Now rather than reveal any more I will just say that this film started off pretty well and showed some good potential. Unfortunately, the director (Robert Mann) seemed to lose control after the first 30 minutes or so and the plot went seriously off the rails after that. Along with that, I didn't especially care for the acting on the part of Michael Zara who seemed totally inadequate for the task at hand. On the other hand, I thought both Amy Webber and Minka Kelly performed reasonably well as did Charity Shea (as "Rachel") to a lesser degree. Even so, it wasn't enough to overcome the flaws just mentioned and I have rated this film accordingly. Below average.

The Pumpkin Carver is yet another one of the recent attempts to apply the tried and true slasher formula. And as so many do, this movie fails to deliver. The plot is plain stupid as are most of the stock characters. You have the fragile hero (whiney is more like it), the drugged out party dudes (annoying as hell), and the token asshole jock type. These are the party-people, and yes, they are destined to get killed.

The movie would have us believe that some evil pumpkin carver is killing kids at a Halloween party.....in a pumpkin patch! Actually, the movie can't find a plausible reason why this thing is killing kids. The premise is very confused and ultimately hurts the movie. The ending is plain awful....I still don't know what really happened.

The kills were low budget all the way, which is unfortunate given the polished look of the film in general. Really not an ounce of clever to be found here. And as one reviewer has pointed out, no nudity despite saying otherwise on the box.

One bright spot was Minka Kelly, a pouty lipped poor man's Jessica Alba. She was stunning and I anticipate seeing a lot more of her. Overall, I say avoid the Pumpkin Carver.

I saw this movie in the theater on it's opening night (a preview). I've got to say, it has a very creative plot twist right out of the gate which I think sets it aside from most of the low budget, predictable horror flicks. There are a lot of fun, weird kill scenes (my favorite killing is the guy who gets it at the pumpkin patch). Okay, so we're not seeing any big movie stars running around in this movie, but you can't gage a horror movie on it's star power. It's a low budget hack and slasher but it's right up there with all the other low budget hack and slashers. I believe this movie has the potential to become one of those popular, underground horror flicks. A nice rental...