Carved

A group of people find themselves trapped at the Cedar Park historical reenactment village on Halloween after a mutant pumpkin springs to life and goes on a bloody rampage.

Had I noticed that D. J. Qualls was in Carved, I might have passed on it, but I'm glad I didn't: after a rather bumpy start, the film eventually kicks into gear when the killer squash goes on the hunt, making people pay for taking a knife to its fellow pumpkins - and the rest of the film is a delightfully daft and surprisingly gory treat. Hell, there's even a reasonable amount of tension as the handful of survivors put into action an ingenious plan involving walkie talkies.

The acting is passable for this kind of nonsense (even Qualls), writer director Justin Harding injects just the right amount of humour, and the special effects - a mix of CGI and practical - are fairly impressive, the pumpkin scuttling along on its tendrils, which it also uses to impale and dismember its victims.

I rate Carved 6.5/10, rounded up to 7 for IMDb.