Pumpkinhead (1988)

Film of 2012 #70


Directed by Stan Winston, one thing you know about this film is that the creature effects are going to be good and they certianly are. It opens with a man knocking on a door and the family in the house ignoring him and off camera he is dispatched. You then cut to Lance Henrickson as a country hick with his young son, he is a single father but you get no more story than that. You can simply see that he is working hard to earn enough to look after his son and he loves him very much. You then have a group of clearly well off youngsters who turn up with dirt bikes and disaster strikes when little Billy ends up getting struck and killed accidently by one of the bikers.

Lance Henriksen in his grief ridden state then seeks vengeance by getting an old witch woman to raise Pumpkinhead to seek his revenge and the film goes from there. There are some cool death scenes in what is a monster movie with a slight difference. With the teenagers being killed off one by one, they soon realise what is happening and then when Lance Henriksen realises what he has done he then tries to help and the film comes to a dramatic conclusion and there is a nice little point at the end.

This is an 80's horror film that is worth seeing, I know that it has built a bit of a cult following and for historical purposes is worth seeing. Overall though the film is not that strong and is a bit dated, however as it falls in the horror genre which I love and Lance Henricksen is brilliant in this it is a 3 star recommend if you like the same sort of films that I do.