Pumpkinhead (1988)

A man conjures up a gigantic vengeance demon called Pumpkinhead to destroy the teenagers who accidentally killed his son.

The Cast:

• Ed Harley, A small town man/shopowner who once saw Pumpkinhead.
• Billy, precocious youth. His death gets the ball rolling.
• A group of teens, 3 guys and 3 girls including Joel, the tough guy who kills Billy and is currently keeping everyone hostage in fear of a jail sentence
• Bunt, a local hillybilly
• A witch. Haggis, who clearly looks like she's been at this for a while. Likes to repeat her sentences for emphasis.
• Gypsy, the dog. Stupid dog.

The Situation:

A group of city kids drive into town looking to spend time in a nearby cabin for the summer. Along the way, they stop at a general store owned by a man and his young son. There they hear the legend of pumpkinhead from some of the locals. Understandably shook, they make plans to leave when they get into an impromptu dirtbike race and hit and kill Billy, the owner's son who ran out there chasing Gypsy.

Pissed that they killed his only son and enraged that they left him to die, Harley immediately looks for help from Haggis a local woman with supposed powers. She tells him that she can't raise the dead but she can grant his vengeance. She helps him to raise/summon Pumpkinhead, who she explains is a demon of pure vengeance.

She then tells him to go as it has begun.
One by one the kids are picked off and taken out right in front of each other. Pumpkinhead has no mercy. Man, those kids are fucked.

The Escape:

Local hillbilly, Bunt, determined to find out whether the legend is real or not, sneaks out of his place, fills them in on the legend and helps the remaining teens. 

Harley, determining that shit had gotten too real, has a change of heart and joins the group in stopping pumpkinhead and saving their lives.

 

Pumpkinhead is a cult classic horror film that doesn't get mentioned in the same breath as the heavyweights, but is still decent nonetheless. It is deliberately slow, which helps build the tension but it's relatively tame as far as horror flicks go. I had never seen the original but I knew of it. What better time to watch it than October?

The dialogue is, of course, pretty bad, but we don't watch these for dialogue. The creature design is absolutely terrible. It's like a lightskinned alien humanoid and it hurts to know that this was the final design.

Stray Quotage:

"The kid's father just showed up and he took the kid away. I think everything is gonna be fine."

"That old woman scares the piss out of me."

"It only kills what it was called upon to kill. That and whatever gets in its way."

I think Pumpkinhead is due for a remake. It's been long enough and we'll probably get there soon. Hollywood is starting to scrape the bottom of the barrel for ideas.

Violence? Yes
Explosions? Of death
Nudity? No