31 Horror Movies in 31 Days: Pumpkinhead

Pumpkinhead (1988)

Directed by Stan Winston

Starring Lance Henriksen, John D’Aquino, and Kerry Remsen

            Ed Harley and his son live a quiet life in a rural town.  That silence is shattered one day when some vacation teens accidently kill the Harley boy.  Driven by his loss, Ed searches for a way to get his son back or get those kids back for what they did.  He finds a witch in a backwoods swamp who can help him.  She summons a demon of vengeance, with long claws and big fangs.  This demon, Pumpkinhead, seeks out the teenagers and brutally kills them one at a time.  Ed cannot shake the feeling that this is wrong.  Not only did he not want all this blood on his hands, but he senses a connection to the beast.  Once Ed realizes the true cost of summoning Pumpkinhead, he races to the teen’s aid in hopes of stopping the monster’s onslaught. 

            This movie really only exists for two reasons: the monster and Lance Henriksen.  Winston does a fine job with his first movie, but he focuses the picture on those two and lets everything else fall by the wayside.  The teen are forgettable and the actors playing them feel very green.  The supporting cast does better, especially Florence Schauffler as the witch.  And the script itself is alright, it just needs a few more passes on the dialogue.  The mode and tension are quite good.  The rural area where this all takes place is dripping with dread.  The story is told well enough and keeps the suspense building all the way to the final confrontation.  Winston got it done effectively and adeptly.  What makes you interested, however, always comes back to those two things. 

A Southern Gothic fairytale with excellent special effects, Pumpkinhead is an admirable directorial debut from Stan Winston.  The creature design and effects are strong, making for a memorable antagonist.  You can see bits of Giger’s influence, along with a feeling that the effects team wanted to create something visually arresting.  And its face has  a lot of emotive power, hinting at something deeper in the beast.  Lance Henriksen finally has a chance to showcase his talents and he does not disappoint.  As Ed Harley, Henriksen is the center of the story.  He feels like a real parent and his grieving for his son looks authentically dreadful.  It is a good performance from a man too regularly relegated to supporting actor status. 

Pumpkinhead is a fun, bloody little movie.  It does what any viewer wants to do at some point during a creature feature: put less attention into the supporting players and more attention into the main man and the bid bad.  If you want a monster movie that you have not seen before, you could do a lot worse than this. 

7 out of 10

31 Horror Movies in 31 Days: Feast

Feast (2005)

Directed by John Gulager

Starring Balthazar Getty, Henry Rollins, Navi Rawat, Judah Friedlander, Josh Zuckerman, and Jason Mewes

            In a bar in the middle of the desert, patrons and staff go about their routines.  Suddenly, a man burst through the door with the head of a monstrous beast.  He tells them they have to secure the bar, and that if they listen to him they will survive the night.  The movie stops to pull up a plaque identifying this man as “Hero”, and that he will probably live through the movie.  Immediately following this, Hero is pulled head first into a window by a monster arm, than decapitated.  What follows is the efforts of the people inside this bar to fend off the hideous beasts and live to see the morning.  However, it all goes down in the same fashion as the Hero.  It is going to be a long night. 

            Billed as a cross between Evil Dead and Diner¸ Feast does not quite live up to either.  It is a confident film from a first time director and writing team, but I cannot help but feel that confidence is misplaced.  As the winner of the third and final season of Project Greenlight, Feast should have been the best of the best that series could produce.  Instead, the movie does almost everything it can to obscure what happens in every scene of action and horror.  It is still funny, but enough to make the rest of the movie worthwhile. 

Nearly every shot in this movie looks handheld, and it gets jitterier as time goes on.  When the creatures attack, the shots become manic and incomprehensible.  There are scenes that I know have some great effects and would look awesome if it were not for the camera moving around so violently.  It really hampers the enjoyment of the movie.  The writing is good in spots and has some interesting ideas, but it does not make for a good film overall.  The characters are all horror stereotypes and they are played with in surprising and amusing ways.  But once these characters have a moment to themselves, things start to fall apart.  There is no depth to support them, no real layers to make them interesting.  As splatter fest cannon fodder, they work wonders.  But they are nothing more than that. 

            There is a lot to like about Feast.  The cast is filled with great choices that make their sometimes limited time count.  Henry Rollins, Glu Gulager, Jason Mewes, and Judah Friedlander all have fun with their roles.  They ham it up and make every moment of screen time enjoyable.  The creature designs and makeup are excellent.  They look fierce and frightening when the camera can steady itself to get a shot.  Also, there are title cards that come up with every character that are genuinely funny.  They explain who these people are in horror movie terms and their life expectancy.  These add to the humor when the following scene turns that information on its head.  You cannot see everything coming in Feast, and that adds some welcome fun to the film.

            There is a lot of Feast that needs some serious work.  But, there is a good bit of it that is an enjoyable creature feature.  Only genre fans and those with the patience to try out a first-time effort should look this up.

5 out of 10