Pumpkinhead 4: Maldição Sangrenta

The appeal of the original "Pumpkinhead" (1988) was its creepy atmosphere, serious vibe, malevolent monster and the always reliable Lance Henriksen, but other than these factors it wasn't anything noteworthy. As far as overall entertainment goes, practically every Friday the 13th sequel was/is superior.

"Pumpkinhead 4: Blood Feud" (2007) is the third sequel and -- although it was shot in Romania rather than California -- it stays true to the original concept by having a similar revenge plot and features the three main characters of the original: Ed Harley (Henriksen), albeit now a ghost; the ugly, old witch; and, of course, Pumpkinhead itself. Although Henriksen is 18 years older he's just fine; the witch looks almost exactly the same; as does Pumpkinhead. Speaking of which, some complain about the appearance of Pumpkinhead, but he (it) looks great to me; I know it's probably done via CGI, unlike the original, but it works and I couldn't discern any strings, so to speak.

The unique thing here is that the story involves a modern-day take on the Hatfield/McCoy feud crossed with Romeo & Juliet, which I found interesting.

The creature is featured prominently throughout, as are Henriksen and the witch, and there's loads of gore, but I didn't find the story or the characters all that compelling. It's not bad, but it's not good either; it's somewhere in between. The story needed more drawing power. Still, it's a decent sequel.

GRADE: C

Pumpkinhead was in itself a decent 80s horror flick. No classic by any means, but an enjoyable piece of fluff. Why then, have we now been treated to a fourth film in this franchise is beyond me. As in previous sequels, there's nothing here to really connect the films except for the monster, the witch and Ed Harley (Lance Henriksen). This time out we follow the feud between the Hatfields and the McCoys. Part of the film is a Romeo And Juliet romance as a young McCoy boy and his Hatfield lover decide to run away to be together. Soon, however, they are torn apart and the boy's sister is killed. The boy escapes to the woods and gets the witch to resurrect Pumpkinhead for some vengeance. The acting is passable at best, amateurish at the worst. The titular demon doesn't even really show up for almost forty minutes and when it does its a pale comparison between it and the original design. Overall, Blood Feud fails to impress. It may be worth a watch once, but certainly not an addition to the collection.

I nearly didn't even bother to rent Pumpkinhead-blood feud since I hated the one before it called Pumpkinhead-ashes ton ashes,and they were made back to back.The only thing I liked about ashes to ashes was Lance Henriksen & returning from the original.I mean even pumpkinhead 2 was better and that one was a flop. The very first pumpkinhead movie back in 1988 was the best one and deserves a proper DVD special feature release.At the very least a cleaned up digital copy in widescreen! But the newest one "blood feud" is a good sequel.I could actually sit through it and enjoy it.The plot was good and it had again disastrous results for the poor bastards that summoned the demon and again ignored Ed Harley's(Henriksen) warning.This one was probably the goriest one in the series so far.The acting was a lot better then I thought it would be after the b-rated ashes to ashes.And even Pumpkinhead looked better and more ferocious then in the other one.

This fourth entry in the "Pumpkinhead"-saga (damn, that's kind of a depressing thing to write) finally goes for the element we've all been waiting for in this series: a Romeo and Juliet storyline. This movie provides us with an important lesson: if there's one thing that can truly express how much you really love a girl, it's by summoning a demon and instructing it to kill her entire family. Duely noted. Other than that the movie doesn't really provide much new, but it's entertaining and gory and just good enough for a lazy evening. It all seems to be in good fun, even the scene where the monster advances on a dude in a wheelchair is suspiciously humorous. The highlights of the movie are Lance Henriksen's interventions though, when it comes to delivering random wise-sounding monologues in rarely-seen genre movies he can't really be topped. Overall "Blood Feud" is a decent sequel, nothing less nothing more.

I enjoyed the original Pumpkinhead, but the three sequels are not as good. The best for me was this one, though Ashes to Ashes isn't bad either. Blood Wings was severely lacking for me. What I did like about Blood Feud was that it wasn't too bad visually. The effects are a little better than they were in Ashes to Ashes, the scenery is appropriately eerie as well as looking beautiful and the photography is thankfully not as frenzied. The music is haunting, what ties this movie with the original are used well and while the titular character doesn't show up for at least 40 minutes, while not having the impact he makes in the original, he is at least frightening. Lance Henrikssen is very good, he puts a lot of effort into the role and it shows. However, I was largely uninterested with what was going on until he showed up. The story of the Hatfields and McCoys is clichéd and often unbelievable, and is further hampered by plodding character exposition, and even then the characters felt under-written. The writing is rather trite and sometimes cheesy and most of the acting apart from Henrikssen is poor, sometimes even amateurish. All in all, the best of the three sequels but also could have been much better. 5/10 Bethany Cox