Unclean & Unseen! – PUMPKINHEAD (1988)

In a way, this is the first and possibly best adaptation of Stephen King’s “Pet Sematary”. 

From horror films to sex comedies – rich city kids were always finding themselves the antagonists of 1980s movies, and PUMPKINHEAD is no exception. 

After our salt-of-the-earth protagonist, Ed Harley, has his son accidentally killed by some preppy motocross jagoffs already on probation for pulling this same kind of shit a few months earlier, the grieving father begs a reclusive sorceress to avenge his boy’s death. This ends up being a deal with the devil as his revenge comes in the form of an eight-foot demon, Pumpkinhead, a local legend that turns out to be all too true. 

Four-time Oscar winner Stan Winston moves from special effects to directing, showing off enough visual pizzazz to enliven a routine tale of violent retribution. Here, he favors a high-contrast tableau of misty mountain fog, chattering cicadas, and twisted tree branches, while additionally demonstrating the good sense to keep his sneering goliath mostly in the shadows for the first half of the film. 

In retrospect, it’s tough to think the mix of gory vengeance, creature effects, and rising genre actor Lance Henriksen wasn’t enough to entice audiences. That is, until you know the movie’s troubled history. PUMPKINHEAD shuffled through multiple studios and titles (including the terrible early moniker, VENGEANCE: THE DEMON) for more than a year before landing at United Artists, who unceremoniously dropped it into a couple limited runs around the same time as other unsung genre offerings like THE LAIR OF THE WHITE WORM and HALLOWEEN 4: THE RETURN OF MICHAEL MYERS. 

Its lack of box office impact undoubtedly stunted Winston’s directorial career, but the story has a happy ending. PUMPKINHEAD’s disappointing theatrical run allowed Winston to move on to some of his greatest career successes, overseeing effects for such mega-blockbusters as TERMINATOR 2: JUDGMENT DAY (1991), INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE (1994), and AVATAR (2009).

It may have a slasher mentality at its core, and the story achieves a lowest-common-denominator kind of pathos, but there’s a perverse thrill watching a towering, bony monstrosity stomp the fuck out of these guilty city kids. Maybe that’s why PUMPKINHEAD has ultimately inspired multiple sequels, a video game, and even a comic series over the years. Reboot plans via Paramount floundered during the COVID-19 pandemic, but hopefully we’ll get an update in the coming months as to the franchise’s next step. For now, enjoy the original.

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