X
- 1988
- R
- United Artists
- 1 h 26 m
- 1988
- R
- United Artists
- 1 h 26 m
Summary After a tragic accident, a man conjures up a towering, vengeful demon called Pumpkinhead to destroy a group of unsuspecting teenagers.
Directed By: Stan Winston
- 1988
- R
- United Artists
- 1 h 26 m
- 1988
- R
- United Artists
- 1 h 26 m
Pumpkinhead
47
8.4
Where to Watch
Summary After a tragic accident, a man conjures up a towering, vengeful demon called Pumpkinhead to destroy a group of unsuspecting teenagers.
Directed By: Stan Winston
Where to Watch
Top Cast
Metascore
Mixed or Average
Based on 10 Critic Reviews
47
30% Positive
3 Reviews
3 Reviews
50% Mixed
5 Reviews
5 Reviews
20% Negative
2 Reviews
2 Reviews
Metascore
Mixed or Average
Based on 10 Critic Reviews
47
30% Positive
3 Reviews
3 Reviews
50% Mixed
5 Reviews
5 Reviews
20% Negative
2 Reviews
2 Reviews
Lance Henriksen's gaunt, anguished features have rarely been put to better use than in this superior horror story...Pumpkinhead would give the Predator nightmares. [23 July 1999]
Henriksen is superbly anguished throughout, his pectorals and cheekbones competing for the most exciting on-screen spectacle award.
User Score
Universal Acclaim
Based on 56 User Ratings
8.4
89% Positive
50 Ratings
50 Ratings
7% Mixed
4 Ratings
4 Ratings
4% Negative
2 Ratings
2 Ratings
User Score
Universal Acclaim
Based on 56 User Ratings
8.4
89% Positive
50 Ratings
50 Ratings
7% Mixed
4 Ratings
4 Ratings
4% Negative
2 Ratings
2 Ratings
Ed Harley's (Lance Henriksen) son is killed in an accident involving a motorbike or something so summons this demon monster and resurrects him to take revenge on the group who were responsible for his son's death. Fairly decent horror film that's well made, very dark and entertaining.
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A Great Creature Feature That's about a father getting revenge for his son.
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Stan Winston steps in as director (and co-scenarist) here after many years leading one of Hollywood's top special makeup effects units. Ironically, Winston shows a surer directorial touch with the early, more human scenes (especially those between Henriksen and son) than he does later with the spooks and scares, which are never even faintly frightening. He doesn't win any more points for having his creature followed by artsy mood lighting wherever it goes in the supposedly black night.
Typically hollow and patchy, the script is low par for the course, the acting close behind. Where it's a cut above the rest is in the work of Yugoslavian cinematographer Bojan Bazelli: His outdoor shots, both day and night, are superbly lit and cleanly shot, as if this were an A film. And with Marcus Manton's crisp editing, Pumpkinhead looks three times as good as it is.
By now the "Ten Little Indians" method of killing characters one at a time has gotten so stale that no matter how impressive the monster is, the resulting sequence is inevitably tedious.
It'll have you wishing the villain was just another maniac with a machete or a chain saw. [30 Jan 1989, p.C6]
A horror picture very nearly as mushbrained as its title character-a terrible demon that rises from a pumpkin patch to seek vengeance...As a technician, Winston clearly knows how to make a monster, but as a director he's yet to learn how to bring one to life. [28 Oct 1988, p.C]
This was very predictable but overall good monster movie with enough shocks and suspense not to disappoint. The pace was a little slow, the story was focused at the beginning and then the story didn’t develop for the rest of the film but the suspense and thrills really did. The ending was expectedly predictable and tragically too understated. It is worth watching for horror fans especially if they like their monsters big and mean.
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"Pumpkinhead" mixes creature feature and slasher horror subgenres rather well. Special effects guru, Stan Winston, directed this film. The effects are pretty good, which should come as little surprise knowing that Stan Winston was involved, but the movie as a whole is not up to par with the effects unfortunately. The story is about Ed Harley, played by Lance Henriksen, who seeks supernatural revenge against a group of teens for accidentally killing his son. Henriksen brings some gravitas to his character, and his acting is the only decent acting in the movie. All of the actors seem to struggle a bit, which is fairly standard for these type of horror films. This movie does diverge from its similar slasher pics by not telling the whole story from the perspective of the teens getting killed, but rather from the perspective of others, namely the person that wants the teens dead. It is a different take and does make this feel a bit more fresh than other slasher-type films. Now, this is also a creature feature to a certain extent, but the titular creature is seen a bit too early and isn't overly scary. It looks like a friendlier Xenomorph really (the similarity between the two should not be surprising since Winston worked on Aliens). The kills aren't very interesting. They are rather mediocre for a film like this. The dialogue is not as campy as I was expecting, so that was a nice surprise. Also, this movie had a creepy vibe to it which is missing from a lot similar movies. It does rely a little too much on noisy jump scares and not enough on building suspense, which it could have done a lot better. At the end of the day, this is a slightly better 80s slasher/creature flick than you might expect, but it is still not great or overly memorable. Overall, I give this movie a 6/10.
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Awards
Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films, USA
• 3 Nominations
