The Good: I remember visiting the Canadian side of Niagara Falls as a kid, and going through Madame Tussaud's Wax Museum, and every single time, being utterly terrified of the "horror section" of the museum. Of all the wax figures, Pumpkinhead always scared me the most.
Since then, I guess childhood fear and literally thousands of other options meant I never ended up watching Pumpkinhead. Now that I have, I can say this movie really surprised me. I really liked the folksy, dark fantasy aesthetic, I think it begs for the movie's universe and lore to be expanded on. I left the movie wondering about how many other human dramas Pumpkinhead intervened in. I wonder about where he came from and how the townsfolk knew about him. That's the sign of a great horror concept.
Lance Eriksson is phenomenal here; he grounds the movie in a sort of realism and pathos that you don't often get with these types of movies. The relationship between his character, Ed, and his son, Billy is sweet and effective; you understand the man from the first 5 minutes, and can immediately understand the depth of his pain. Which, makes his summoning of the demonic avenger Pumpkinhead at least seem...understandable.
I also liked the tension generated by the tragic incident, where a group of (mostly) insufferable teens accidentally kill Billy. I like how there's another layer of the story, namely, how these people are going to figure it out and what they're going to do to fix the situation. Maybe I expected them to be a bunch of bodies for Pumpkinhead to kill or something, but I found the film way more interesting because of how their story develops.
But of course, Pumpkinhead himself. He has such screen presence, viewed so terrifying by everyone around him, there's no way you don't buy into him and get a little spooked yourself. He's treated as all powerful, unstoppable, and I can totally see why he's a key figure in the horror pantheon.
The Bad: Stan Winston's weaknesses as a director do kind of show here. There's some truly baffling acting at times, a lot of bad editing, and the first portion of this movie just feels...off. There are moments that end unexpectedly, where the music is too loud and inappropriate...just little aesthetic things that annoyed me throughout the movie. It definitely gets better as the movie goes on though.
I also felt the music needed a more ethereal and fantastical than it ultimately was. I couldn't help but feel the Hellraiser music would work super well here.
I also hate to say this, but as cool as Pumpkinhead is, the technical limitations the filmmakers had in 1988 means that we often can't or don't see Pumpkinhead kill anyone. He often seems like he's standing above or around people, but clearly not interacting with them, if that makes sense? I know it's not really fair, but being so used to contemporary CG, where you see fantastical creatures interact with regular people all the time, it's just kind of distracting.
This movie has the longest opening credit sequence I've seen in a long time. It's not only long, but it's really bad too.
The Ugly: Pumpkinhead, as I mentioned before, should've been a bigger and better franchise than it ended up being. The studio, MPCA, did not have confidence in the film and literally released it the same weekend as another film THEY PRODUCED, called...Child's Play. One became a major horror franchise that continues today, and the other never really got a chance to be.
Instead, Pumpkinhead has a direct-to-video sequel and two TV movies. All, i have been told, are pretty trash. It sucks because there's a lot of potential with this franchise and I wish there was more to it, honestly.
But it's also a testament to this film's quality that despite having ONE good (if imperfect) film to its name, Pumpkinhead is still considered by horror nerds to be one of the most iconic movie monsters ever.
