Pumpkinhead #Moviereview

Pumpkinhead is a local legend, a demon from hell who can be summoned to exact revenge on those who have done something wrong. After a tragic accident, Ed Harley raises Pumpkinhead from the dead to destroy a group of unsuspecting teenagers. Chaos and some frankly quite avoidable shenanigans ensue.

Tagline: Cruel, devious, pure as venom. All hell’s broken loose.  

Starring: Lance Henriksen, Jeff East, John D’Aquino, Kimberly Ross, Joel Hoffman, Cynthia Bain, Kerry Remsen, Florence Schauffler, Brian Bremer, George ‘Buck’ Flower, Matthew Hurley

Released: 1987 | Runtime:  86 minutes | Space Krakens Earned: 3/5

Warning: this review contains massive spoilers (but won’t affect your enjoyment of this film).

Pumpkinhead Review

For this week’s review I thought I’d throw it back a little to the 1980’s. Why? Because I am a child of the eighties and although I can’t say I miss them, I do love nostalgia, and nostalgia has led me to Pumpkinhead (otherwise known as ‘Everyone in this film make a series of extremely poor decisions’).

Directed by Stan Winston (autocorrect wants me to say Stab Winston, how droll) Pumpkinhead is a good old-fashioned creature feature in the same vein as Nightmare on Elm Street, Critters, Gremlins, Hellraiser and so on, and honestly, I had forgotten how much I enjoy this type of film. Computer graphics are well and good but, my first love will always be prosthetics and hand-crafted special effects and they are on show in abundance here. Winston by the way also worked on Terminator 2, Jurassic Park, Predator 2 and Aliens to name only a few of the movies on his CV, so it’s fair to say his special effects credentials were nothing less than stellar. Sadly he passed away in 2008, but he does leave an extraordinary legacy of scary behind him.

And so to the film.

Ed Harley, played with some aplomb by Lance Henriksen, master of the intense stare, is haunted by memories of an evil local legend that he encountered when he was a boy: the inventively named revenge-demon Pumpkinhead. ‘Keep away from Pumpkinhead unless you’re tired of living, his enemies are mostly dead, he’s mean and unforgiving’. I mean, as rhymes go the iambic pentameter is a little off and the metaphysical elements need work, but it’s effective in getting its point across. Pumpkinhead is bad and evil.

Now a father himself, Harley is about to encounter Pumpkinhead for the second time, to devastating consequences. Capiche? Good, let’s move on.

We start with a fairly heavy-handed portrayal of life in the countryside. Ed is a farmer/storekeeper with a young son called Billy, and the pair of them are living that rural dream- workin’ the land, and hanging around with the (strange) locals. Here’s a thing: evidently, in the rural back of beyond, everyone is covered in dirt twenty-four hours a day. ‘Does noone wash in the eighties?’ Says my husband, and he has a point- why is everyone so dirty? I get that this is simple country living, but Jesus. I figure out eventually that this makes the countryside folk contrast nicely with the city folk who then appear later on. And I get it, I do, but it’s a bit much. They look less Little House on the Prairie and more Empire of the Sun, but what do I know. I decide in my mind that everyone is called Cleetus and that whoever wrote the script has never, not once, ventured out of their penthouse apartment in Manhattan.

But its okay! Because then, the annoying city jocks arrive with their suntans and white teeth! And because it’s the eighties they wear white sports socks in an unironic way and sneakers and the boys wear ninja-turtle style bandanas and cut off Jersey t-shirts and distressed denim and its an aesthetic I’m all over if I’m honest. And they are suitably obnoxious and start dirt biking all over the place without asking permission, and then before you know it, Billy is standing there looking cute and vulnerable, and there’s a slow-motion dirt bike jumping scene and SPLAT!

Lance Henriksen has one less mouth to feed.

Hilarious dialogue ensues:

‘He just came out of nowhere!’ says one of the nasty city folk. At which I start yelling at my TV, in capital letters:

NO HE DIDN’T, HE WAS STANDING THERE BOLD AS BRASS YOU MORON! YOU HAD PLENTY OF TIME AND OPPORTUNITY TO JUMP IN A DIFFERENT DIRECTION! DID YOUR BANDANA GET IN THE WAY?

‘Can I help?’ says another nasty city person.

YES YOU CAN TRY NOT MURDERING SMALL CHILDREN WITH YOUR NASTY CITY DIRT BIKES FOR A START!

So we’re 28 minutes in and proceedings so far have made me desperate for Pumpkinhead to hurry up and massacre everyone because frankly, they’re just hateful people. But first, we have a Pet Semetery style resurrection scene to get through, and this is where I start to get excited, because the revenge-demon Pumpkinhead is deliciously scary when he finally makes his first proper appearance, having been summoned from his grave. I mean, seriously, ditch these other muppets and make a film with just him in it, because he’s ace.

Now, there is an etiquette in horror movies, and that etiquette is that Lance Henriksen does not die until the very end. So instead, it makes sense for Pumpkinhead to start with those dreadful city folks, whee! Off they pop, one by one, mostly down to repeated poor life choices: running round in the woods in the night without weapons, frequenting ruined churches, praying (in horror movies that means you may as well paint ‘kill me next’ on your forehead), splitting up and deciding that a mullet is an acceptable hairstyle. It’s a highly enjoyable romp where no-one seems to question the validity of their own actions and each and every death is nothing less than well-deserved as a result.

And while we are on the subject of terrible decisions, something else bothers me. I know its the countryside, but…where are the doctors, the hospitals, the police? My first reaction upon the death of my only son would not be to seek out a witch and summon a demon. It would be hospital. Where they have medicine and surgeons and stuff. I mean, again, its the 1980’s, not the 1880’s. Billy at least deserved a phone call to 911. Come on, Lance. Try harder next time.

Eventually, even Lance begins to understand he’s been a bit of a dufus. ‘I realise now this is wrong!’ he cries, after annoying city person number four kicks the bucket at the hands of Pumpkinhead. Again, I start shouting at the screen in capital letters:

Er, MAYBE YOU COULD HAVE REACHED THAT CONCLUSION BEFORE YOU SUMMONED THE ZOMBIE MUTANT VEGETABLE PERSON TO EXACT REVENGE ON YOUR BEHALF BUT WHO AM I TO JUDGE HONESTLY

Don’t get the wrong impression, folks. I am enjoying myself immensely. My shouting is proof.

The film grinds on and we’ve got every cliche going here. Witches with white hair and owls and rats. Repressed memories. Sinister nursery rhymes. Country hicks versus city slickers. Harmonicas playing and tumbleweed rolling down the road. Misty swamps. A possessed pumpkin patch. And someone actually says ‘Get off my land!’, completing the rural nightmare trading card set.

As we draw to a close, and as the end credits start rolling, I realise I’ve had fun, and isn’t that what movies should be about, sometimes? Just sitting back and having some good, old-fashioned, silly, monsters-and-ghosties-and-things-that-go-bump-in-the-night fun.

Special mentions go to Mayim Bialik’s first acting role (you know her as Amy in The Big Bang Theory and also as a child CC in Beaches, which BLOWS MY MIND) and to Mushroom the dog, who was also in Gremlins, so there’s that.

When I mentioned I was reviewing this film, someone on Twitter said Pumpkinhead was a fine example of ‘southern gothic’. I have no idea about that, but it is deep fried gold.

‘Should I be afraid?’ Ed Harley’s mother asks in the opening sequence. Umm. Yeah. Not so sure about that. Maybe of the acting. And the hairstyles. But we didn’t come here for that. We came here for a bloody good monster, and that’s exactly what we got.