PUMPKINHEAD

Pumpkinhead Movie Review

After his son is accidentally killed, Ed Harley (horror legend Lance Henriksen) summons Pumpkinhead, a demonic creature from the pumpkin patch, to extract revenge. What Ed didn't expect, however, is to be able to see visions in his mind of Pumpkinhead killing the "city folk" he feels are responsible for his boy's death. This 1988 film has long been a favorite of mine, but it had been a while since I watched it before today. Did it hold up to the awesomeness I remember? 

"Choose your words wisely"

With any creature feature, the viewer will likely be most interested in how the monster looks, and Pumpkinhead is visually impressive. Forget CGI--Pumpkinhead is done the right way, and for a movie that was shot on a relatively low budget (about three million), the costume doesn't look the least bit cheap. The acting leaves a lot to be desired--Henriksen just seems completely out of his element with this character, though he does the best he can with what he's given. Joel Hoffman (Slumber Party Massacre II) is wonderfully awful as Steve, and John D'Aquino is almost as bad as his brother, Joel (he would make up for this when he starred as Frank in a couple episodes of Quantum Leap). There are a couple others you will recognize here--Buck Flower (The Fog, the bum in Back to the Future) is here, and Mayim Bialik of The Big Bang Theory makes her big screen debut (extra credit if you actually recognize her when she appears). We also have Devon Odessa from The Wonder Years and the cult favorite My So Called Life in this one--a certain somebody who shall remained unnamed had bit of a crush on Odessa during the early 90's.

"Dream on"

The story of revenge in this movie is solid, and the death scenes are well done. The film moves along at a wonderful pace, never leaving the viewer bored. The characters, unfortunately, are paper thin, and boil over with cliche after cliche. If you can get past this, however, you will find Pumpkinhead is a very enjoyable horror flick that stands out as one of the better monster movies from a decade most known for their slashers. 

On A Scale Of One To Ten: 7

Pumpkinhead Movie Trailer