Ahoy, squirts! Quint here with the latest Scream and Shout column. If you're new 'round these parts, Scream and Shout takes a detailed look at the Blu-Ray releases of Shout Factory and its horror arm Scream Factory.
I promised Phantom of the Paradise in the last installment and I totally plan on covering it (I mean, I did watch all the commentaries and stuff), but it's October and I really want to focus on some of them nasty horror pictures, so I've bumped Phantom to November. Today we are going to revisit a flick that was a particular favorite of this '80s kid: Stan Winston's PUMPKINHEAD!
THE MOVIE:
I was probably 8 or 9 years old when I first saw this movie. As you can imagine, it kind of fucked me up. There was a tone to Pumpkinhead that made it feel more dangerous than the other horror films of the time (like the Friday the 13th sequels, which I also consumed at a way too young age).
It could have been something as simple as the film stock, it could have been the child death, it could have been the design of the title creature, it could have been the photography or it could have been the overall revenge story itself... I'm sure the reason it was so effective to young me is a little bit of all the above, but as much as I loved the movie it has been a while since I have watched it front to back, so I was excited to revisit it.
Low and behold the tone that filled young me with dread was still there. Some of the other aspects of the film didn't hold up quite as well, but the tone is right on the money. As is the man-in-suit work. Pumpkinhead himself is an incredibly well-designed creature and Tom Woodruff Jr works it masterfully.
I'm going to talk pretty freely below, assuming that most of you have already seen this movie. If you haven't, you might want to steer clear as I'll be talking about a lot of the plot, including the end of the movie.
The concept itself is so damn creepy with a perfect payoff. Pumpkinhead is the personification of the damnation of revenge and his final form underlines that better than most films that try to make that point. The idea that a man can summon a demon and that demon slowly takes that man's form? Terrifying. And the design they came up with the Lance Henrickson face on the Pumpkinhead monster is truly the stuff of nightmares.
One of the thoughts that kept going through my mind when I revisited the movie was that it felt like the best Tales From the Crypt movie never made. It really does feel like a long episode of the show, with the EC Comics-ish color palate and semi-twist ending.
Some of the wonky acting also rings of TV genre of that era. Lance Henriksen isn't to blame in this department, naturally. The man was in a groove at this point in his career and even when he slipped out of that groove in terms of the quality of film he was appearing in, he never once turned in a boring, thoughtless performance.
Winston chose a few iffy line deliveries for Henriksen that maybe he should have gotten another take or two on, but on the whole Ed Harley is an incredibly memorable character; a grieving father that has enough of a soul to recognize when the uncrossable line has been stepped over.
Harley's a simple man, but a wise one and when he decides to step in and try to help the very people who killed his son it's a pretty radical character decision. It's complex in a way many horror films of the time weren't willing to bother with.
The big fault of this adult viewing is in the performances of the stupid teens who are the focus of Pumpkinhead's reign of terror. The broad strokes are there for multilayered characters, but the dialogue that ended up on the screen is pretty typical and I felt more that we were supposed to not hate these guys instead of actually not hating them.
The instinct to run when Henriksen's kid gets accidentally murdered with a motorcycle is explained well and the way that divides the group or young adults is good in theory, but the acting is so bad and some of the motivations are so unclear that the empathy I was supposed to feel for these guys really just became vague and distant for me.
Joel Hoffman is probably the worst offender here because his character, Steve, is supposed to represent the responsibility and integrity missing from his dickhead brother Joel (John D'Anquino), the one who actually ran over the kid and decided to run instead of try to find help and face up to the consequences of his thoughtless actions.
Because Hoffman does a poor job of portraying this character we're pretty much just left with a crazy religious chick, a psycho who has dug his heels in so bad that when he decides to redeem himself it's such an abrupt 180 that you don't buy it for a second and the rest of the group who talk about not being comfortable with this, but still aren't willing to actually stand up to the big bad guy.
So while the message of the movie may be that revenge is bad you really kind of want Pumpkinhead to get these shitheads. Winston also shoots the cabin stuff like a typical slasher, so the message gets even fuzzier with the more gory, exploitative deaths.
But I'd rather they went for those gray areas and were only partially successful than if they didn't try at all, so while some of those points stood out to me a bit on this viewing I still enjoyed the movie on the whole.
Outside of the doofus twenty-somethings-playing-teenagers the casting is incredibly strong. Buck Flower in particular gets some time to shine... well, moreso than in most of his Carpenter flicks. He's such a great presence that I kind of wish the movie was more him and Henriksen, to be honest. The hillbilly family Flower runs aren't dummies, either, which is a nice twist on the kind of broad strokes these movies usually paint in when it comes to hill folk (looking at you Friday the 13th Part V).
One of my favorite people in the movie this time around ended up being one of those hillbillies, actually. Brian Bremer plays the curious teenage grandson of Buck Flower's character and he's a little mischievous, but his heart's in the right place. I cared about him getting through the third act more than just about anybody else. Plus he has some of the best work with the creature, including a scene with him hiding in a closet that has easily one of the top ten best practical creature effects shots of all time in it. The shot is simply Pumpkinhead looking into the door, pretending not to see the kid and then whipping back fast, swiping open the hanging clothes he's hiding behind and moving his head in close with a “Gotcha!” grin on his kisser, but it's done so perfectly that every time I see it I believe 100% that Pumpkinhead is a real creature.
THE SPECIAL FEATURES:
The commentary track with screenwriter Gary Gerani and FX guys Tom Woodruff Jr. and Alec Gillis didn't blow my hair back, but it's a fun listen when the effects guys start talking about some of the pains of bringing Pumpkinhead to life.
As far as the docs, there are many and they cover pretty much everybody in the makeup effects world who worked on the movie who give their impressions of Stan and his prowess as a director. It's sad that we live in a world where Stan himself can't comment on his first picture, but he's as well represented as he could have been by his peers and friends.
Like most good effects guys of the '80s there was a lot of home video taken during the creature building process, so you'll see a pretty thorough evolution of Pumpkinhead from concept to final creature. Some of the docs cover the same material and I really didn't need to see a long interview with the guy that sculpted the toy, but I'm glad they have as much on here as they do.
THE TRANSFER:
Great, as usual. No complaints on my end.
FINAL THOUGHTS:
While this revisit highlighted some of the film's weaknesses I overlooked as a young wide-eyed scaredy cat it also underlined everything that makes it such a gloriously weird and off-kilter hunk of genre entertainment. The creature work itself deserves all the gold stars and smiley face stickers, but add in a tone that will make you feel dirty, some fun atmosphere and an unhinged Lance Henriksen at the height of his powers performance and you get a movie that I'm still proud to admit deeply disturbed me as a kid... and maybe a little bit as an adult. Maybe.
THE NEXT TITLE(S) WILL BE...
One of the reasons I've been so tardy in getting these Scream and Shout columns up is I've been pouring through the Halloween Box set. Man oh man do I have some stuff to talk about with this one. It'll be epic and I guess I now have a deadline I really can't fudge. What good is a revisit of the Halloween series if it posts on November 1st?
Stay tuned!
-Eric Vespe
”Quint”
quint@aintitcool.com
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Previous Scream and Shout Columns:
-Southern Comfort
-Lake Placid
-The Final Terror
-Psycho II
-Battle Beyond the Stars
