Pumpkinhead

Watched October 27, 2015

1988
Starring: Lance Hendrikson, Jeff East, Kerry Remsen, Florence Schauffler,

I first saw this at a slumber party in 6th grade and it scared the crap out of me. This was my first revisit since then, and while not as scary as I remembered it, it's still a solid monster movie.

Ed Harley (Lance Hendrikson) and his young son Billy run a rural general store. A group of city teenagers stop by the store on their way to a vacation cabin in the woods. They have motorcycles with them and while stopped two of the guys start riding around the dirt field nearby. 

A local customer stops by to pick up some things and it turns out that Ed forgot some feed or something that the customer ordered. Ed leaves to get the feed from his house, leaving Billy and his dog to mind the store, which is nuts. Not too long after Ed leaves, the dog runs after the motorcycles and Billy runs after the dog. The first guy on his motorcycles goes off a dune, does a jump, sees Billy and dog and manages to turn out of the way. Right behind him comes the second motorcycle, which doesn't turn in time and hits the kid. The guy that hits the kid freaks out because he's had a couple of beers and is on probation anyway. He grabs his girlfriend and they speed off in his sportscar to the cabin.

The rest of the group is concerned but they can't find a phone to call anyone from the General store. Two of the teens stay with the kid while a couple others drive off to find help. Ed comes back to find his son mostly dead and he is devastated. He wraps his son in a blanket, doesn't try to take him to a doctor, instead he goes to the rural farmer and delivers the feed like he promised.While at the farm Ed asks some kids about Pumpkinhead, a local revenge demon legend. The farmer won't have anything to do with it, but one of his kids tells Ed that he will show him where to find Haggis, the old crone witch.

Haggis (Florence Schauffler) lives in a dilapidated old shack on a swamp. Ed is so distraught he will do anything to get revenge. Haggis warms him that this is not what he really wants, but Ed is adamant. She tells him to go to a specific old pumpkin patch/graveyard and dig up a specific site. He digs up a skeleton and brings it back to Haggis. She begins the spell that uses Ed's blood to bring Pumpkinhead, the revenge demon to life.

Pumpkinhead comes to life and begins to kill the teens one by one. But as Pumpkinhead kills, Ed feels and sees through Pumpkinhead's eyes the murders, which is more intense than he imagined. Ed quickly gets sick of the revenge killing and helps the last two kids who weren't terrible survive. Ed kills himself to destroy Pumpkinhead since they were connected.

After watching so many really low budget terrible movies this one is pretty good. The effects hold up. The plot is very simple but at least makes sense and all the actors do a good job. It's a nice country versus city slickers tale with a super weird monster thrown in. It really made me think about the crone Haggis and how she got to be an old conjurer. What was she like when she was young? Who trained her in revenge spells? Why does she still do this if she knows it always turns out bad? Maybe someone will make a movie about her.