Pumpkinhead IV : Les Sacrifiés

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

In spite of the long feud between the Hatfields and the McCoys because of a car accident, Jodie Hatfield (Amy Manson) and her boyfriend Ricky McCoy (Bradley Taylor) love each other and are planning to leave their families and move to another place. During the night, after the Hatfields having trashed a McCoy wedding, Jodie sneaks out from her house to meet Ricky, while his young sister Sara (Maria Roman) looks out for them. However, Jodie is followed and they are found together in the woods by Jodie's brothers Bobby Joe (Ovidiu Niculescu) and Billy Bob (Elias Ferkin) that accidentally kill Sara. Ricky seeks revenge, going to the house of the witch of the woods Haggis (Lynne Verrall) that summons Pumpkinhead to kill all the Hatfields except Jodie. When his vengeance is set in motion, the Hatfields are attacked by the demon in a bloodshed night.

"Pumpkinhead: Blood Feud" uses the forbidden romance between a young couple of two families in permanent feud and a tragic love story like in Romeo and Juliet to bring back the powerful demon Pumpkinhead in another bloodshed. This television movie is not as bad as indicated in many reviews; actually I liked the enjoyable story and I found it underrated with the 4.5 IMDb Rating. My vote is six.

Title (Brazil): "Pumpkinhead 4: Maldição Sangrenta" ("Pumpkinhead 4: Bloody Curse")

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.

It was a bit surprising to note that this fourth movie from the Pumpkinhead franchise was the best of the sequels to watch. Not that that means that it was a great movie though but it featured a decent enough story, that stays true to the Pumpkinhead-franchise but is not as predictable and clichéd as its predecessors. The characters are all better and the movie also features a decent enough amount of gore to pleasure the genre-fans.

The movie has the same look and feels as the third movie "Pumpkinhead: Ashes to Ashes" and also seems to be shot at the same locations. This isn't a very positive thing though. It got shot in Romania, which is of course nothing like the South of the USA, which made the first Pumpkinhead movie such an atmospheric one.

The movie features some pretty good effects, which also provides the movie with some nice gory moments. It also uses the monster at the right moments and it doesn't make the mistake of featuring it as prominently as any of the other earlier sequels.

Yet again the movie features Lance Henriksen, who had played the main character almost 20 years prior to this movie, in the first Pumpkinhead movie from 1988, directed by Stan Winston. He also reappeared in "Pumpkinhead: Ashes to Ashes" but his role in that movie was rather small and pointless. In this movie his character doesn't make a totally redundant impression and it's a pleasure to watch him in this movie. It still gives the movie a certain bit of more overall professionality over it, despite its overall obvious low-budget look and feel.

A decent enough movie and certainly the best out of the so far three sequels made.

5/10

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Pumpkinhead 4: Blood Fued (2007) is a movie I've been looking for forever and finally caved and watched on Amazon Prime for $10.99. The storyline follows the famous feud between the Hatfields and McCoy's when one of the Hatfields falls in love with one of the McCoys. Unfortunately for the love story, Pumpkinhead may decide he's the only one that can settle the feud between the two sides...

This movie is directed by Michael Hurst (House of the Dead II) and stars Lance Henriksen (Aliens), Rob Freeman (Saving Private Ryan), Amy Manson (T2 Trainspotting) and Richard Durden (Batman).

The movie starts with a great kill scene. The storyline for this is pretty bad and the dialogue and script is uneven. However, the Pumpkinhead special effects are solid and the gore and kill scenes were better than I expected. Henriksen was awesome in this and ties this film back to the first film well.

This is easily the best Pumpkinhead sequel and is definitely worth a watch for fans of the series/character. I would score this a 5.5/10 and recommend seeing it once.