Stan Winston is a sci-fi legend, renowned for bringing to life such mainstream movie monsters and machines as the Terminators, the creatures of The Monster Squad, and both the Aliens and the Predators! The guy’s an industry standard when it comes to making bad-ass monsters a reality… moreso before every jackass with a PC decided it gave them license to make piece-of-shit aliens and ancient evils for their “movies”. Anyway, Pumpkinhead is ol’ Stan’s directorial debut, so let’s see if the artist who gave life to some of moviedom’s most memorable menaces can figure out what to do behind the camera too.
Based on a poem by Ed Justin (check it out here if you’re interested) and written by Mark “Neon Maniacs” Carducci; Gary “Vampirella” Gerani; Richard “Hunter’s Moon” Weinman, and Stan Winston himself. Yes, that’s right, it took FOUR people to write this Appalachian revenge fairy tale, Carducci and Gerani of which I wouldn’t trust to come creatively within a hundred feet of any movie project I was working on. The only reason I don’t include Weinman in that statement is because I’ve never seen either of his two other movies, but I’ve got a sneaking suspicion he’s disposable, if not just as “spit in the face of his audience” as the other two are, but for now he’s got a pass. And what sweeping epic does this quartet bring to us with all of their hard work and passion?
Billy Harley, four-eyed son of widower hillbilly Ed Harley (Lance Henriksen before he sold his dignity) and illegitimate brother of that annoying little shit from Jerry Maguire, gets hit by a drunken asshole driving his dirt bike near Ed’s roadside fruit stand. It’s easy to blame the driver for being a drunken asshole, but I’d also like to blame Billy for being an little moron and chasing his dog out into the path of the dirt bike, as well as the drunken asshole’s shit-for-brains friends who stand back and watch the kid wander into their pal’s intoxicated path without grabbing him. Anyway, the spud gets his skull cracked and the drunken asshole packs up his bike and his punching bag girlfriend and they drive off to hide from persecution as he’s currently on probation for, surprise surprise, getting drunk and running over a kid. Remind me again why it is that marijuana’s illegal while alcohol stills flows freely down the gullets of millions everywhere?
Drunky leaves his younger brother behind to face the death stare of father Ed while the rest of their friends try to call for help from their cabin in the woods. But, Drunky tears the phone out of the wall and locks the friends in a closet at gunpoint, still refusing to let even his own brother out of his sight when he comes back, holding a shotgun bead on him while they try to figure out what they’re supposed to do. Meanwhile, Ed takes his little boy’s corpse to a witch named Haggis (yes, like the boiled sheep stomach “delicacy”) who lives in the mountains. After Mr. Harley exhumes a deformed hillbilly corpse from a nearby pumpkin patch/redneck cemetery for Haggis, she transforms the shriveled cadaver into a 7ft tall juggernaut of vengeance named Pumpkinhead who won’t stop until he’s killed each of the six rowdy youngsters who have wronged Ed by killing his son. Once he realizes that he suffers each time Pumpkinhead kills though, Ed’s enraged vengeance quickly becomes dulled and he wants the beast put down. When the thirty-somethings-trying-to-be-twentysomethings are unable to do much beyond getting their spines broken and their throats maimed by the monster, Ed resorts to a flamethrower (which he keeps around for burning dead brush… because hillbillies can’t do anything unless unnecessary overkill is involved… *cough*George W. Bush*cough*) and shotgun that have little effect, even when he unloads a round from his pistol through his skull. It’s up to the last surviving girl (don’t remember her name, it wasn’t really important) to finish off Ed herself and through him destroy Pumpkinhead. The flick ends with the remains of Mr. Harley contorting and shriveling up into a new baby Pumpkinhead and being buried by ol’ Haggy in the pumpkin patch. Cut, print, it’s over.
In my original review for Pumpkinhead, I babbled on about how cool the movie was and how bad-ass Pumpkinhead himself/herself/itself was and how I was borderline aroused by all the spinal abuse that happens in the 86 minute running time. Well, now that it’s been 8 or 9 years since then, I can finally see all the chinks in the armor (not a racist joke, but an incredible simulation). The movie’s not incredibly original. Underneath the hillbilly horror story façade it’s little more than a vigilante tale. It’s kinda like I Spit On Your Grave, only all the rape and genital mutilation has been replaced with a giant pumpkin-lizard thing that apparently swallowed someone’s maracas as it hisses and shakes upon stalking it’s prey. As for Pumpkinhead itself, he reminds me of the title beasties in the Alien franchise, only taller, with a shriveled gourd-like head, backwards legs, no “second-jaw”, and far less mobility. As for all that beloved spinal abuse, well, I’m not quite sure what I was raving about back then. I noticed two instances of spinal abuse: one guy gets tossed against a tree and it’s implied that his spine might’ve been severed, while another guy gets his back stepped on and spends the rest of the movie trying to drag his sorry ass around the woods. We get more broken backs from Steven Seagal on his laziest day than what Pumpkinhead gives us. Maybe when I wasn’t seeing broken spines every time I close my eyes it was just more impressive…
For a special effects guy, you’d think Winston would’ve picked up a little something about trying to conceal the reality of the movie world and help contribute a little to the whole “watch this like it’s happening in reality” illusion. Instead what we get are streams of blood dripping from small tubes stuck to the backs of knife blades and bad shots of Pumpkinhead making very minor and very stiff movements (like the animatronic that he is) that cut to bad shots of people pretending they’re being hit by something other than a rubber arm being held by an intern. I half expected a boom mike to come swinging in and bop Pumpy on the puss at some point. Sorry Stan, Spielberg you’re not. Hell, at this point, you’re not even Albert Pyun…
I want to say that it’s unfortunate that Mr. Winston’s follow up projects as director only took shape in the form of a Michael Jackson music video, a short action piece for a Terminator themed amusement park ride and, well, A Gnome Named Gnorm. But, given the lackadaisical approach the man took with Pumpkinhead, I can’t really say Stanley deserves to step out of his workshop and behind a camera anyway. So, if you’re reading this Mr. Winston (and I know you’re not), take my advice: an apple shouldn’t pretend it’s a pear, because at the end of the day it’s still an apple and it will never be accepted as an apple. Stop trying to be a pear Stan, just be the glorious apple everyone loves you to be… not that you’ve tried being a pear for over a decade now, so I probably didn’t need to say that anyway. Sorry, but when I think about A Gnome Named Gnorm… uggh.
Oh yeah, and in closing, check this out: for all you (z-grade) star watchers out there, Dick “Halloween II” Warlock appears in the movie as, what else, another hillbilly, while a pre-“Blossom”ing Mayim Bialik also earns a hot sandwich and bus fare as, yes, a little hillbilly girl. And so it goes…
