Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		4.5
Overall		3.5

Pumpkinhead Blu-ray Movie Review

Revenge is a dish best served with pumpkins, evidently.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman September 6, 2014

There are only a very few individuals in the annals of film history who have had such a singular impact on their chosen field (or fields) of work as Stan WInston did in the interlinked arenas of visual effects and makeup. Winston arrived on the Hollywood scene with a bang, winning an Emmy for his first official assignment, a 1972 made for television film called Gargoyles. A number of high profile television outings ensued, including such iconic entries as The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman (for which WInston won a second Emmy) and Roots, before WInston matriculated to the world of feature films, focusing mostly again on makeup effects for films like W.C. Fields and Me and The Wiz. Even with this ever growing and impressive body of work, including an Academy Award nomination for his makeup in 1982’s Heartbeeps, Winston still wasn’t quite at the top tier of his profession, and he continued to provide uncredited assists for a variety of projects throughout the early 1980s, until Winston began what would turn out to be a long and fruitful collaboration with James Cameron, starting with 1984’s The Terminator. Over the next several years Winston’s star rose inexorably, with seemingly annual Oscar nominations and/or wins for both Cameron films (Aliens, Terminator 2: Judgment Day) and films by directors as disparate as John McTiernan (Predator) and Tim Burton (Edward Scissorhands, Batman Returns). Perhaps giving into that time honored phrase usually uttered by actors, what Winston evidently really wanted to to do was direct, and in 1988 he helmed his first feature film (of only two), Pumpkinhead. The slasher craze of that era was already showing signs of desanguination (sorry), and Pumpkinhead returned to a more traditional marauding monster approach, albeit one with a more or less clearly defined mythology which tied it to the very human need for vengeance. Winston’s special effects mastery is nicely on display here, even if a lot of the monster sequences take place in shrouded environments, but his directorial hand is a bit more uncertain, leading to an unevenness in the pacing and chills that Pumpkinhead ends up delivering.

In 1957 a young boy named Ed is terrified by an incident where a neighbor of his farming parents is refused entry into his parents’ home one stormy night, after which Ed spies the hapless—if not exactly innocent—man getting vivisected by some kind of monster. The man’s panicked confession to Ed’s father that he isn’t that guilty of having murdered a child gives the first clue that Pumpkinhead will deal largely with retribution, albeit hardly divine and instead more demonic in nature. Segue forward several years and Ed (Lance Henriksen) is now an adult with an adorable little boy of his own named Billy (Matthew Hurley).

After the film establishes the sweetly loving and nuturing relationship between Ed and Billy (without providing a whole lot of information about why they’re without a wife and mother or how they ended up where they are), a group of marauding teenagers shows up at Ed’s general store out in the country. While Ed is gone, an intended innocent frolic with some dirt bikes goes horribly wrong and Billy is left mortally injured. When Ed returns, he is obviously bereft and decides to turn for help to some backwoods folks who might have a little magic up their frayed sleeves. That introduces one of the signature makeup effects in the film, as an ancient witch named Haggis (Florence Schauffer) shows up looking like the long lost grandmother (or perhaps great-grandmother) of Freddy Krueger from A Nightmare on Elm Street (abeit without any scissorhands).

Haggis reveals that while she can’t bring Billy back to life, she can perhaps do the next best thing—summon the titular monster, who will be hell bent on revenge on those who killed (or even participated as bystanders) little Billy. A mixture of blood from both Billy and Ed is combined with a corpse dug up from a graveyard pumpkin patch, and thus Pumpkinhead is born. While the monster’s title is of course evocative of Halloween (and/or Frank L. Baum’s Oz characters), it instead turns out to be more like the Alien creature than anything.

Up to this point Winston has crafted a competent but derivative piece that has at least a baseline of human emotion making the horror elements (still more or less nascent at that point) quite effective. But once the film tips over into a pure revenge fantasy, things start to go at least relatively awry. Part of this is due to a somewhat haphazard screenplay that never provides enough backstory for Pumpkinhead or even clarifies that the beast feeds on vengeance. There’s also little knitting the prologue to the bulk of the story, something that may beg the question as to why it was even placed in the film to begin with.

Instead, the film attempts to work up a supposedly noble thesis that seeking revenge is the monster in us all (or at least Ed), as it becomes apparent that Ed and Pumpkinhead have become inexorably linked together. If we cared more about Ed by that point, it might have made a difference, but the film has already glossed over his past and whatever brought him and little Billy to that point, and so there’s really no “hook” here other than the scare scenes, which Winston manages effectively enough. Perhaps if the film had detoured briefly into some memories of Ed in happier days, his current plight would have had more emotional heft; as it stands, he's simply one of several generally unlikable people who kind of deserve to be snatched away and made mincemeat out of.

Pumpkinhead Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Pumpkinhead is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Scream Factory (an imprint of Shout! Factory) with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.85:1. It's probably helpful to keep several things in mind when analyzing the image quality of this film. Probably around 4/5 or so of Pumpkinhead is cast in very low light, an aspect further skewed with two primary tints, one kind of orange-red and the other cool blue. All of these tendencies can be seen quite clearly in many if not most of the screenshots accompanying this review. Therefore, it's unrealistic to expect huge amounts of fine detail or even much shadow detail in some of these scenes. That's why the fine detail and shadow detail that are on display here are so generally commendable. When Winston and DP Bojan Bazelli backlight Haggis, for instance, though the entire scene is drenched in that odd orange-red hue, there's still rather remarkable fine detail where virtually every scraggly hair on the witch's head can be clearly seen. The outdoor daylight footage in the film shows off what a nicely saturated and clear image is actually here, with an accurate looking palette and commendable amounts of detail. It's clear Winston didn't really want to show too much of the titular beast, and so it's actually rather difficult to catch more than a passing glimpse throughout the film. While elements have occasional very minor blips like little white flecks, overall things are in great shape. Grain is always evident, and in fact spikes appreciably in some of the tinted sequences especially. But here there's good news again—there's no problematic noise or compression artifacts. Yes, Pumpkinhead is generally a fairly soft looking film and, yes, there's not mindblowing amounts of detail in some of the darkest sequences, but this is a nicely organic looking image that should please most fans.

Pumpkinhead Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Pumpkinhead offers a DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 mix for "purists", and a nicely done DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 mix for those wanting a more contemporary sounding field. Both tracks offer great fidelity and wide dynamic range, though the 5.1 added low end ups the anxiety level measurably courtesy of well placed sound effects and some rumbly score cues. Dialogue (and all important hysterical screaming) is presented cleanly and clearly, and there are no issues of any kind to warrant concern.

Pumpkinhead Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Pumpkinhead Unearthed (1080i; 1:03:59) is another first rate assemblage of interviews, production photos and scenes from the film, all woven together to give a great account of the genesis and filming of this project.


• Behind the Scenes (1080i; 7:11) has some great archival footage of things like fabricating and testing the monster. Some of this was obviously sourced from old and problematic video elements.


• Night of the Demon with Richard Weinman (1080p; 16:29) is an enjoyable interview with one of the film's story co-writers. There's more information on the supposedly mysterious Ed Justin, author of the original "Pumpkinhead" poem, in this interview.


• The Redemption of Joel with John D'Aquino (1080p; 14:02) has D'Aquino rationalizing why his character gets punished by nasty old Pumpkinhead. Seriously, though, D'Aquino offers a nice set of reminiscences of not only the shoot but some tangential items like the marketing push.


• The Boy with the Glasses with Matthew Hurley (1080p; 14:30). Adorable little Billy is a middle aged guy now, and he talks about being a child actor on the set.


• Demonic Toys (1080i; 4:50) looks at some latter day product tie-ins.


• Remembering the Monster Kid: A Tribute to Stan Winston (1080p; 49:11) is the second "must see" piece about Winston we've had from Scream Factory recently, after a recent similar piece found on Leviathan. This one includes fantastic interviews with people who knew and worked with him.


• Still Gallery (1080p; 13:39)


• Theatrical Trailer (1080i; 1:32)


• Audio Commentary with Co-Screenwriter Gary Gerani and Creature and FX Creators Tom Woodruff, Jr. and Alec Gillis, Moderated by Scott Spiegel. Despite being fairly "crowded", Pumpkinhead uber-fan Spiegel keeps the participants nicely corralled here. There's both anecdotal and production information galore here, including yet more information on the enigmatic Ed Justin.

Pumpkinhead Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Pumpkinhead has some interesting mythic building blocks, but it never connects the dots fully enough to really burst into the top tier of eighties' horror. Still, it's moody and has a fair amount of chills, even if just about everything here has been seen before, often by the hands of Stan Winston himself (as a special effects wizard if not as a director). Technical merits here are very strong, and the supplementary package is absolutely outstanding. Recommended.