Article by FisterRoboto of lefthandhorror.com
Directed by Stan Winston
Written by Ed Justin (poem), Mark Patrick Carducci (story)
Starring: Lance Henriksen, Jeff East and John D’Aquino
A man conjures up a gigantic vengeance demon called Pumpkinhead to destroy the teenagers who accidentally killed his son.
Man, I forgot how great of a horror flick this is. It’s hard to beat pain and revenge for motivation in horror. A young boy witnesses a hideous monster extracting revenge on a neighbor in 1957. His father tells the pleading neighbor that he can’t sacrifice the safety of his family by letting the man come inside. Flash forward to 1988 and that young boy is now the grown up Ed Harley (Henriksen) who has a young son of own named Billy. The two live a simple but loving life running the family grocery stop in the boonies, serving the local townies and traveling “city folk’. Well, city folk always eff things up for the simple folks and this is no different. Beer drinking, BMX biking twenty somethings stop at Harley’s Groceries for some last-minute supplies and manage to drive a dirt bike over poor Billy Harley’s face – he eventually dies. Grief stricken, Ed rushes to his neighbors to find the location of an old woman in the hills whose rumored to have power..eerie powers. It’s there that Ed meets his destiny.
And a bunch of pumpkins.
The 80′s were fantastic for cranking out not so subtle horror movies with a message. The message is, of course, sometimes you get what you ask for. After some midnight grave digging and a little bloodletting, we have our favorite gourd-based horror movie murderer. Henriksen plays his role with the utmost seriousness, serving up that odd Lance style of delivery. Pumkinhead is no Halloween or The Shining, but it is a great old school horror flick that stands the test of time. I remember how thrilled we were at the theater when the monster first came into view. The costume itself was so cumbersome, and set on stilts btw, that effective action scenes were next to impossible to capture. Still, it’s great for what it is. This is perfect Halloween season viewing. Keep your asses out of Razorback Hollow, kids!
Pumpkinhead is one of the best horror films of the 1980′s and its the kind of folklore-tale told at campfires or on Halloween night by friends wanting to scare the crap out of each other – which makes it timeless. I have Hagis as #2 in my list of ‘Scariest Witches in Film’ post. The scene where Pumpkinhead enters the burned-out church and hisses at the crucifix is a beautifully evil scene & movie magic! Unfortunately, a half dozen cheap sequels diluted the story and most young ‘uns today haven’t seen the original one first, but have seen others and dismiss the franchise as low-budget monster movies. Also, I’d say this is Henriksen’s best acting in his career.
Well said. Find a cool movie and franchise it to death.
I loved the church and graveyard scenes. Even when Lance was relatively young, he had an oldness to him. Perfect guy to play Harley!
I seem to recall finding this one pretty awesome. Isn’t there a sequel?
There is, but not a very good one.
Ah, I shall avoid it then.