Pumpkinhead (R)
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streaming sites: Amazon; Fandango; YouTube

This came out in 1988, but I didn't see it until 2025. For a long time I had it listed on both my "B-movies I want to see" page and "monster movies I want to see", but just before I watched it I started thinking I was unsure of whether I'd put my review on one or both of those pages, or something else like "supernatural" or "folk horror", or maybe even something else, I dunno. But ultimately I went with good ol' "monster movies" and "B-movies". I suppose most if not all monster movies are supernatural, anyway. Anyway, I thought the movie was okay. I wasn't wild about it, but I guess I liked it. It was directed by Stan Winston, who is well known for his special effects work, but he wasn't involved in that aspect of this film.

It starts in 1957, when Ed Harley was a young boy. A man comes running up to the house, begging to be let in because something was chasing him, but Ed's father refused. Ed watched through the window as a monster killed the man.

Then, in "the present", Ed has grown up to be played by Lance Henriksen, and he has a son of his own, named Billy. Ed runs a small grocery store in the country. One day, some teenage city folk stop at the store, at the same time as a local man, who had ordered some feed for his farm. Ed had left that at home, and goes to get it, leaving Billy at the store. A couple of the teenagers start riding their dirt bikes nearby, and Billy's dog chases them. Billy chases the dog, and ends up getting hit by one of the dirt bikes, which was driven by a jerk named Joel. He's scared of what will happen to him if the kid is dead, because he's already on probation, and he's been drinking. So he and the rest of his friends, except for his brother Steve, all leave to go to a cabin where they're staying. Steve stays with Billy until Ed returns, and he wants to help, but Ed just glares at him. One of the girls at the cabin wants to call an ambulance for Billy, but Joel won't let her. One of the guys gets in a fight with Joel, who locks him and the girl in a closet.

Ed takes Billy's body to an old mountain woman named Haggis, hoping she can bring him back to life. She can't, but what she can do is summon a demon to take revenge on the teenagers. She sends Ed to dig up a corpse that's buried in a pumpkin patch, and bring it to her. She resurrects it with some blood from Ed and Billy, and it takes off and starts killing the teenagers, one by one. Ed can feel pain whenever the monster kills someone, and eventually changes his mind about wanting revenge. That seemed odd to me, but whatever. He tries to stop the monster, which is called Pumpkinhead just because it comes from a pumpkin patch. (Its head is nothing like a pumpkin.)

And I won't spoil any more of the plot. I will say I felt bad for everyone except Joel, because everyone else tried to help Billy, and didn't really deserve to die. (After watching the movie, I skimmed a review on Kindertrauma, and the reviewer felt very differently than I did; he hated all the teenagers and thought they did deserve to die, which I don't understand at all.) Anyway... I don't know what else to say, except I kind of wish I could see a fight between Pumpkinhead and a Xenomorph.

There's a direct-to-video sequel and a couple of TV movies, none of which I have much interest in seeing.