Pumpkinhead II: Blood Wings

Pumpkinhead II is interesting because it succeeds where its predecessor failed and where that one succeeded, this one fails. Pumpkinhead II , contains better acting, a more interesting back story, while at the same time, it is noisier, less stylish and unconvincing in special effects. As a result Pumpkinhead II is no better or worse than Stan Winston's film. It is just another low budget horror which offers some charms for the monster fans.

Getting a little carried away one night, a group of kids resurrect a body which is buried on the property of the town's fabled witch. As it happens, the body they dig up is deformed boy who in the 1950s was killed by a group of town ruffians. Now with the boy's soul inside him, Pumpkinhead goes after his killers (now middle aged) and his awakeners. As the killings start to occur, Sheriff Braddock tries to piece this whole mystery together amidst an agitated and highly superstitious town. Both Pumpkinhead and the town want to kill each other, whose gonna live?

I'll give this movie credit for one thing, it increases the monstrosity from the first. Although still far from scary, this monster is far more aggressive than his predecessor, and he kills with great ferocity, clawing, gnawing dismembering his victims. On the negative side, the special effects have fallen a bit. The first Pumpkinhead may have been a slow mover, but his movements were rather fluid, and muscular and like a creature. This one moves like a guy in a suit and is shot from too many bad angles which ruins the scale of the creature.

If you liked Pumpkinhead, then I don't think you will be too disappointed in this. Maybe as a whole, it is slightly less accomplished than the original. but it's sufficient for a sequel.

I'm going to preface this by saying, I enjoyed Pumpkinhead I. It was a good story about backwoods lore. Though the camera found the monster a little too often (Stan Winston can be forgiven for falling in love with his creation, though) it was a good 80's popcorn horror flick.

Having said that, the people who made Pumpkinhead 2: Bloodwings, should be skinned alive, strapped to a chair with their eyelids peeled open and forced to watch this ridiculous piece of garbage again and again. Did Andrew Robinson even read the script before he showed up to shoot this train-wreck?

You were in Hellraiser for God's sake, have some pride!

Did these idiots even watch the first film? Was that old woman supposed to be the same witch that stole Lance Henricksen's soul? I hope not--because otherwise, it's quite an accomplishment that she was suddenly good, and that her name was changed.

The fifties flashback? The mullet-ed mayor with the guitar? The annoying medical examiner who--for some strange reason is ALWAYS at the sheriff's house? And the idea that this new Pumpkinhead was the hell-spawn of the old Pumpkinhead and some "not so special woman" is idiotic. What? Are you trying to tell me they slept together? Did you see the first movie? If you look closely, you'll notice that ol' Pumpkinhead isn't exactly anatomically correct.

The absolute most horrendous part of this movie came in the character of Paul--otherwise known as the friend who didn't get any throughout the whole film. I want to say something to Paul right now, are you listening? You had no point at all in this film. You deserved to get killed for those stupid clothes you had on. Your one job was to go and get the car from around front--you couldn't even do that right. May God have mercy on your soul.

I don't know why God let this movie get made. My buddy Marc told me I had to watch it because it was so stupid. I believed him beforehand, but--in a Twilight Zone-ian sense, I had no idea HOW RIGHT he was. I want to conjure Pumpkinhead to come get him for having brought it home from the video store.

I feel like having watched this movie, I've somehow been exposed to some great and terrible contagion that will make me incapable of appreciating a good movie ever again.

Right, well five years after the original 1988 original "Pumpkinhead", the world was given "Pumpkinhead II: Blood Wings" from writers Ivan Chachornia and Constantine Chachornia. Oddly enough, I never actually got around to watching this 1993 sequel before now in 2021.

And as sequels usually have a tendency of turning out, so was it also with "Pumpkinhead II: Blood Wings". This was not up to the standards set by the predecessor from 1988, not even by a long shot. Sure, "Pumpkinhead II: Blood Wings" was watchable, but it just felt like a movie with a script and storyline that was written in haste, as to not let the audience forget about the Pumpkinhead creature and cash in on the success of the previous movie.

The storyline told in "Pumpkinhead II: Blood Wings" was bland and mediocre, and didn't have the appeal or the impact that the first movie had. Sure, it can be watched and enjoyed for what it was, but it was generic and rather mundane. So the writers didn't really manage all that well here.

The cast in "Pumpkinhead II: Blood Wings" was adequate, but again, it wasn't matching the previous movie, and while lead actor Andrew Robinson was okay here, he was no Lance Henriksen. But I will say that the actors and actresses managed well enough, taking into consideration the limitations of a subpar script and some dubious dialogue.

Visually then "Pumpkinhead II: Blood Wings" was good, definitely up to the previous movie, and the Pumpkinhead creature is actually sort of the main attraction of the movie, thanks to the amount of on-screen time it is given. And truth be told, of course I watched this sequel because of the creature.

All in all then "Pumpkinhead II: Blood Wings" is a watchable, albeit mundane horror experience. The movie doesn't offer things to the horror genre that movies before it hadn't already delivered.

My rating of "Pumpkinhead II: Blood Wings" from director Jeff Burr lands on a mediocre five out of ten stars.

Crazy high school kids get into something they don't understand and release the soul of Tommy, a boy killed in 1958. Of course, we know who the monster is after, but the Sheriff (Andrew Robinson) is going crazy trying to figure it out.

And, does the town doctor (blaxploitation star Gloria Hendry) rent a room in the sheriff's house? She sure seems to be there a lot.

I have to say that the monster was certainly creatively done and provided some gory action. I find the fact that he can respond to the sheriff's pleas to be stretching it a bit.

Ami Dolenz and Soleil Moon Frye provided enough eye candy to keep viewer interest.

Good in its own right, but not as a sequel. Instead, it plays more like a prequel. This film is more of a slasher, although justified since the murders are not random and well explained. The plot is not that great either, but the film was nevertheless still enjoyable.