Pumpkin spice latte please, double the syrup. Actually, just pump it into my vein coffee slave! That’s how I imagine every Starbucks employee this time around.
The premise is simple yet surprising. A local redneck runs a shop. City kids with bikes show up and try to do some wicked cool tricks and BAM. They hit the local redneck’s kid. Stricken with grief and anger he seeks revenge through an old lady that will grant him his wish for revenge. Enter the Pumpkinhead revenge plot.
First things first. I love me a good slasher. But in order for me to really enjoy a slasher, I need to care about any of the characters, see dumb boob scenes, or have some really good death scenes. Sadly Pumpkinhead does not deliver on any of them. The monster design is there but that’s about it.
The characters are plain cardboard cutouts. The evil grandma has a cool voice and some good oneliners but that’s pretty much all of the characters I could find in any of the actors. They feel generic with their Christian chick, cool chick, dorky dude, and a dude with a “dark” past. No empathy when Pumpkinhead rips and tears them to shreds.
But I do love the alien-looking monster that is Pumpkinhead. It is really what makes this movie semi worth watching. Sadly his glorious kill scenes feel uninspired and without any character connection I couldn’t really muster up any reaction other than “welp that’s the dorky dude gone”.
Do I recommend this movie? Not really unless you wanna enjoy some good monster design and use up an hour and a half of your time. But maybe there is some value to the franchise because I am off to watch the second movie straight after this one. I feel the masochistic calling since there are four movies, every one with a decreasing IMDB/rotten tomatoes score. Pray for me!
