When Ed Harley was a young boy, he saw a man get killed by some kind of demon. Many years later, Ed is a local storekeeper and has a young son who he takes care of alone after that his wife passed. One day some city kids show up in the country close to his store and starts riding their dirt-bikes there. Harely leaves in order to go home and pick something up for a customer, and leaves his boy to look after the store. But the boy's dog runs away, and when the young boy's chases after it, he is accidentally run over by one of the kids dirt-bikes and dies. When Harley comes back and finds his dead son, he takes him to some old witch deep into the forest, were she resurrects a demon named Pumkinhead in order to avenge his son. But for that, a high price must be paid, something that Harley is soon about to find out.
Pumpkinhead is a really cool horror movies from the late 80's. What makes it stand out the most is the fact that it at times feels like watching a dark fairy-tale, and while the story of Pumpkinhead is quite simple, it has a very good feel to it. The actual monster, Pumpkinhead, looks great and the viewer get to see a lot of him, up-close as well, and the special effects are really well done. Another thing that makes this movie really good is that it stars Lance Henriksen. The man is a really talented actor, and here he plays the local storekeeper who's boy gets killed, and so he seeks revenge by resurrecting the same demon that he saw when he was a kid.
He looks up a witch who lives deep into the forest, and later heads to a cemetary to dig up Pumkinheads corpse and bring it back to the witch. The scenery here is amazing and really adds to the whole fairy-tale feel, not to talk about the actual witch herself as well. She then helps him bring Pumpkinhead to life in order for him to avenge his son. So Pumpkinhead is let loose and goes on a killing spree, killing off the city kids, one by one. But soon Harley starts to see how he kills off the kids through the very eyes of the demon, and snaps out of his rage and realizes he must put a stop to Pumpkinhead. But to stop Pumpkinhead isn't easy, as bullets don't seem to bite, and in the end there seems to be only one way to put a stop to it all...
Pumpkinhead is a great horror movie with a good looking monster (I'm talking about the effects, not the monster being handsome) and that has a really cool fairy-tale like story to it. Unfortunately the gore is minimal, but it's not really needed either for it to work. There are some blood and some totally ok killing scenes, but some more actual gore wouldn't have hurt. One thing that is pretty cool with Pumpkinhead is that every time he kills someone, he later shows the other kids the corpse and not just throws it away. He lets them see the corpses so they'll know what to expect is gonna happen to them. That's pretty nasty but is more humerous than scary I guess.
Pumpkinhead has a lot of good things going for it. The story is simple, yet quite brilliant, and the whole fary-tale like concept adds a lot to the movie itself. Some scenery is really nice, and the monster looks great and is quite nasty (even though he could've been a hell of a lot nastier). Lance Henriksen delivers a really good performance as the father who seeks revenge on those who killed his son. It's a movie that is really easy to get into and it's hard not to stay interested the whole film throughout. Recommended.
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ALTERNATIVE TITLE: Vengeance: The Demon
MOVIE YEAR: 1989
DIRECTOR: Stan Winston
WRITING CREDITS: Ed Justin, Mark Patrick Carducci
GENRE: Horror
CAST: Lance Henriksen, Jeff East, Kimberly Ross
COUNTRY: USA
RUNTIME: 86 min
RATING: 8/10
Pumpkinhead Website/IMDB Click here
Pumpkinhead Trailer Click here
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