 |  | A "B" horror movie, but a good one. |  |
The first time I saw this was on tv.
I'm glad I watched it and I'm sorry I didn't see it in the theater.
The creature is super freaky. Remember the part when the kid is hiding in his closet from the monster???
BAAM!!!!!!!!
Sudden shocker!!!!!!
This movie has quite a few of those.
The acting is ok, the fx are ok, everything gets a passing grade.
Granted it's not in the same league as Halloween but it's a great movie to rent on a stormy night.
Recommended.
June 24, 2008I thought this movie was great. It was well done, Lance Henriksen is awesome, & was a perfect fit for the movie. The storyline was great, the look of the pumpkinhead demon was good. The director did a great job with this movie. It's just a overall excellent old school horror movie.
January 20, 2008I recently revisited the film Pumpkinhead which I had not seen in many years, and I have to say it's not a bad flick. In the time of 80's slashers, there really weren't a whole lot of monster type movies making appearances. However, this one manages to break the monotony of the slasher period by putting more emphasis on atmosphere than straight up violence, and it does it quite well.
Pumpkinhead tells the tale of a father and his young son who are all each other have. To say that the movie is set in a hick town would be an understatement, it's more like a rural middle-of-nowhere kind of place that has a real eerie feeling of isolation to it. When a group of reckless city slickers come to town, a terrible accident brings about the death of the young boy. In an act of revenge, the father conjures up the fabled creature "Pumpkinhead" to settle the score. Unfortunately when the revenge begins, he regrets it as well as discovers that he has some type of connection with the creature. Ultimately he finds that the only way to stop Pumpkinhead might be to stop himself.
The atmosphere is what really makes this movie. The town they live in, the "pumpkin patch graveyard", and the voodoo woman's home truly make for some creepy set pieces. Other than Lance Hendrikson, the acting is pretty subpar, but it's still a few notches above the horror standards for that particualar time. Overall it's a well done horror movie that is often forgotten/overlooked. Although it's certainly not the greatest story ever told, it should get a little recognition. I recommend revisiting this one, or checking it out for the first time.
January 16, 2008Pumpkinhead was directed by special fx whiz Stan Winston who also did the creature fx which were quite impressive I mean the look on the monsters face was creepy it looks like he has an evil grin and I also liked the backwoods hag or was she a witch I'm not sure but she looked creepy, anyway Pumpkinhead is one of those classic 80's horror films that I think is not going to appeal to alot of people if your looking for a mindless gore flick then forget it, the death scenes in this were bloody but there wasn't any gore. Lance Henriksen was great as Ed Harly I consider him to be one of my favorite actors and this was definitely his best role you feel kind of sorry for his character after he loses his son in an accident. In one aspect he is the grieving father who has lost everything and on the other hand he is the vengeance obsessed man who will do anything in order to get revenge on those who have wronged him so he himself becomes evil thats what I thought was interesting about this film and the storyline was quite good. The locals of a small town believe that a demon exists for each of man's evil, when a young boy is killed by a group of teens in a motor bike accident a revenge attack is called upon by the boys father when he unleashes the demonic creature to kill the teens only his punishment is to witness each attack in person. Most of this film takes place in the woods and the teens are attacked from a wooden cabin even though Stan Winston's directing could have been better I still thought it was a cool monster film and I didn't really care about the sequels. I highly recommend this 80's horror film to horror fans and two thumbs up!.
December 2, 2007 | | A great monster and Lance Henriksen make this worth seeing | |
Pumpkinhead is your typical story of revenge gone wrong when a small town grocery owner goes after a group of "city folk" who inadvertantly kill his son. I like this movie, it's got some fantastic setpieces and really nice atmosphere thoughout, but I find it far from the 5 star masterpiece that many on here would like you to believe it is. This was special effects guru Sam Winstons (Terminator 2, Aliens) first time in the directors chair (his only other being the train wreck known as "A Gnome Named Gnorm") and for the things I mentioned above that he got right, just about everything else is sub par... this basically watches like a really good made-for-TV movie. The acting, dialogue, scares, plot, music, and incredibly minimal amount of bloodshed just aren't quite right for it to be a genre classic or the franchise that companies have been trying (and failing) to make it for years now. There are two elements of the movie that do make this worthy of viewing though. The first is Pumpkinhead himself, Stan did what he does best here (remember when watching that this is 1988!)and created a really cool looking movie monster that you can't take your eyes off of when he rears his head (not to mention the best witch EVER as a bonus). The bad thing about the Pumpkinhead creature is that it's all design over style, meaning that he looks great but the only way he ever kills is by throwing victims over and over again or by picking them up by their necks (which both are done so that you only see the monsters arm in the scene, so I'm guessing that it was too hard to get full screen shots looking right and it's probably for the best that they didn't try). The second thing that the film get's right is casting Lance Henriksen. He's one of those actors that just seems to never suck... no matter how good or bad the material he's working with is. So I like Pumpkinhead, but it's nothing overly spectacular and defiantely not a 5 star masterpiece (let's save those for The Exorcist, TCM, Psycho, The Shining, etc.).
October 15, 2007More reviews at Amazon.com ...
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