Census Bloodbath: It's The Not-So-Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown!

Year: 1988

Director: Stan Winston

Cast: Lance Henriksen, Jeff East, John D'Aquino

Run Time: 1 hour 26 minutes

MPAA Rating: R

1988. The year before the unironic slasher genre died its final death. In this No Man’s Land of cinema, slashers had to go weird or go home. Very few bona fide classics were born from this desperate time (though I must confess I’m partial to American Gothic and Cheerleader Camp). The only two non-Freddy/Michael/Jason movies from the entire year that still carry any shred of public respect are, naturally, also two of the last 80’s slashers to actually spawn franchises: Child’s Play and Pumpkinhead.

We’ve already talked Chucky to death, so let’s take a gander at that latter, more nebulous franchise. Pumpkinhead has three sequels, though none of them were released in theaters and a whopping two were produced for TV. There’s a reason for this sprawling but dismal legacy: Pumpkinhead boasts a terrific, instantly iconic villain, but now matter how hard it tries, it just ain’t a great movie.

But let’s pause for the plot before we bring that zinger in for the spike.

In Pumpkinhead, grocery store owner Ed Harley (Lance Henriksen – and it’s impossible not to think they’re calling him “Ed Hardy”) is living a peaceful country life out in the sticks with his son Billy (Matthew Hurley). Their rural idyll is disrupted when a group of teenage dirt biking city slickers comes to town, because this is 1988 and they just don’t make horror movies without a heaping platter of Meat. Let’s dish ‘em out.

We have Chris (Jeff East of Deadly Blessing), a dopey fella with a curly tangle of hair; Tracy (Cynthia Bain), one of those annoying girls who brings her camera everywhere and constantly forces people to pose for pictures; Maggie (Kerry Remsen of A Nightmare on Elm Street 2), who is an empty shell of a human being with the single character trait of being vaguely religious; Steve (Joel Hoffman of Slumber Party Massacre II), who rocks a tangerine sweatband; Joel (John D’Aquino), a leather jacketed douche with a probation officer and a heart of stone; and Kim (Kimberly Ross), who exists, at least according to the film’s IMDb page.

After Joel accidentally runs over Billy with his dirt bike, killing him, Ed seeks revenge, enlisting the witch haggis (Florence Schauffler) to help him raise Pumpkinhead, a local avenging demon who is sent on the warpath to wipe out the teens.

Actually, one of those would definitely come in handy in my neighborhood.

The obvious thing to bring up at the top of a Pumpkinhead review is that it was directed by one Stan Winston, the special effects wizard behind all your favorite things: Terminator, Jurassic Park, Aliens, Predator, Iron Man, Edward Scissorhands… When it comes to lifelike creatures from the pits of Hell or the far reaches of science, he’s your guy. Pumpkinhead is his first of only two directorial efforts, and you get the sense that he rather dearly wishes the human actors on set were made of latex and hydraulics, because he doesn’t seem to want anything to do with them otherwise.

Lance Henriksen does a fine job, which is par for the course, and Florence Schauffler is clearly having a blast as the reliably creepy Haggis, but the Teen Meat here is especially lean. Nobody has a distinct personality, to the point that I actually had to struggle to find ways to described them back there in the plot section. Me! I find characters to care about in Friday the 13th movies, for God’s sake! These flavorless teens are portrayed by a bevy of actors that crowd listlessly around the set like a school of minnows. And don’t even get me started on the crowd of overactors playing the hillbillies around town. With Pumpkinhead, you’re constantly trapped between too much and not enough.

It certainly speaks to Stan Winston’s priorities that Pumpkinhead, a demonic presence motivated solely by revenge, has gallons more charisma than all the people in the film combined. Of course, his design is genius, with enlarged bone spurs at the shoulders, knobbly clawlike hands, and a head halfway between a Xenomorph and the inside of a cantaloupe. He smirks, drools, and lumbers around in enough shadow that his reality is unquestionable, and unquestionably grotesque. His scenes are the only ones that really sing with anything like tension, humor, or really any emotion whatsoever, which is no small feat for what is essentially just a dude in a rubber suit.

Godzilla, eat your heart out.

I think Pumpkinhead would be a much better movie if it weren’t a teen slasher. All the elements are there: a terrific monster, a folkloric parable on the price of revenge, and a heartbreakingly sweet father-son relationship (Billy’s death may or may not have drawn a tear or two from tis hardened horror hound’s eye). Hell, it even has the hella rad exchange “God damn you!” “He already has…” This could have been a bona fide classic.

Unfortunately, even though the genre was dying off, nobody in the late 80’s could possibly be allowed to make a cerebral supernatural flick without some of that sweet, sweet teen killin’. The body count is rather clumsily jammed into a twenty minute segment of the third act, mowing down tissue paper teens in a rather pretty but unmoving display of bloodshed that, for all this film’s effects budget, is positively miserly when it comes to dishing out the gore. It’s dissatisfying and it defies the laws of cinematic geography and logic, but even more dismaying, it’s just dull. In the wise words of Sergio, “this would be better if it was worse.” At least then we’d be able to laugh at it.

It’s a real shame Pumpkinhead turns in such a wan, empty effort at storytelling and performance because – visually speaking – Stan Winston is up to some great work here, along with The Ring cinematographer Bojan Bazelli. Winston’s woods explode with otherworldly blues and blacks, the interiors smeared with blood red. Light, color, and smoke perform an elegant dance across the frame, especially during the scenes that take place in Haggis’ hut or the abandoned, blasted-out church tucked into the wilderness. It’s a genuinely beautiful movie, if a little too pop arty to be truly timeless.

I thank Pumpkinhead for delivering a deliciously strange, otherworldly villain in the titular demon, but I’ll never feel the need to visit its arid patch ever again. There’s enough in there to more-or-less require a one time viewing from horror fans, but it’s ultimately a heady disappointment.

Killer: Pumpkinhead (Tom Woodruff Jr.)

Final Girl: Tracy (Cynthia Bain)

Best Kill: Joel is impaled on his own shotgun. You gotta love kills that use weapons in unintended ways, and Joel certainly deserved one.

Sign of the Times: Steve’s death is indicated by a bloody headband hanging from a tree branch.

Scariest Moment: Pumpkinhead creeps around outside the window of the cabin while Maggie prays.

Weirdest Moment: While on a grocery stop, Joel instantly decides it’s a good time to go dirt biking.

Champion Dialogue: “If you wanna stay here and play with the vegetables, that’s fine with me.”

Body Count: 7; Not including Pumpkinhead, because y’all know that sucker’s got three sequels.

1. Prologue Man is eviscerated by Pumpkinhead.
2. Billy Harley is run over by a dirt bike.
3. Steve is eviscerated by Pumpkinhead.
4. Maggie is eviscerated by Pumpkinhead.
5. Kim is dropped out of a tree.
6. Joel is impaled on a riddle.
7. Ed Harley is shot to death.

TL;DR: Pumpkinhead is a disappointingly empty supernatural slasher that doesn't deserve its terrific villain.

Rating: 6/10

Word Count: 1276

Census Bloodbath: Amish Paradise

Year: 1981

Director: Wes Craven

Cast: Maren Jensen, Sharon Stone, Ernest Borgnine

Run Time: 1 hour 40 minutes

MPAA Rating: R

Wes Craven directed four slasher films in the 1980’s. Two of them were forgettable piffle, and one of them changed the genre forever. Really, that’s not a bad track record. But today we’re here to talk about that fourth slasher, a little-discussed 1981 flick called Deadly Blessing.

Deadly Blessing was Craven’s third theatrical outing following the grisly grindhouse duo The Last House on the Left and The Hills Have Eyes, and it finds him flexing a lot of the same muscles he would later use to carve out the more refined Nightmare on Elm Street. Though it is notable mostly as a breeding ground for the more sophisticated ideas he would mull over in the future, Deadly Blessing nevertheless has its share of indelible horror moments.

Like that outfit. Ick.

Deadly Blessing regales us with the tale of Martha (Maren Jensen), a young city woman who is celebrating her first anniversary with her husband Jim (Doug Barr of The Unseen) in their country home. Their property is located close to a group of devout Hittites, a religious group that “make[s] the Amish look like swingers,” who have banished Jim from their town for going to college and embracing modern technology. The group is led by this father Isaiah (Ernest Borgnine), who insists that Martha, Jim, and their secular neighbors - Louisa (Lois Nettleton) and her daughter Faith (Lisa Hartman) – have been brought here by the Incubus, a demonic boogeyman he uses to frighten people into following his rules. 

After Jim mysteriously perished in the middle of the night, Martha’s friends Vicky (Susan Buckner) and Lana (Sharon Stone of Calendar Girl Murders and, you know, Sharon Stone) come to visit. Before long, the ladies and the Hittites find themselves beset by a shadowy killer. Both assume that the murders are being perpetrated by the opposite group.

But just like Lost fans, it’s dubious if they’ll ever discover what’s really going on.

The core of Deadly Blessing is 100% grass-fed Craven, from the diad of opposing mirror-image families to the callous and controlling father figure and the repressed truths in a community erupting into violence and terror. In this film, he tackles the organized religion that dominated his sheltered early life and cements in his intent to flush all the skeletons from the closet of the American family. Unfortunately, the halting, stop-and-go pace prevents the film from being thoroughly entertaining, but as an intellectual catalyst it’s superb.

Deadly Blessing teeters on a dangerous precipice between the jagged mountains of insightful fright and the loamy valley of early 80’s mediocrity. For every step up (Craven’s audacious ideas and sterling kill sequences), there is an equal and opposite slip down (low budget TV movie-esque sets, plodding conversational scenes). But we all have our flaws. Hell, I’ve seen Jason X three times. This flick certainly has its share (and damaging ones, at that), but there are a handful of moments so unequivocally stunning that I want to et the negatives out of the way right now before we push on.

First off, man oh man does Ernest Borgnine not give a crap about this movie. He goes through the motions, puffing himself up like an indignant frog, but one gets the sense that his soul has completely vacated his body and is currently 30 feet away at the craft services table deciding between a raspberry of cheese Danish. Then the film is assaulted by an opening narration so cheesy you could melt it and pour it over nachos and a smattering of gaudy effects that would hardly impress in a community theater production.

That said, if anybody wants to produce a musical based on the collected works of Wes Craven, I will buy a ticket for opening night.

But for all that Deadly Blessing feels like a low-fi slog, there’s a sinister power that fuels the horror sequences. Craven elegantly frames a chilling nightmare that directly informs his future dream logic aesthetic for Freddy Krueger’s domain, and every death hits with the impact of a cannon blast. Whether it’s the delicate reversal of the sinister William Gluntz (returning Cravenite Michael Berryman) finding a knife sheath on a window sill before being butchered, or a hideously prolonged snake attack in a bathtub, every single moment of terror excels, jam-packed with thrilling switcheroos and hair-raising layers of tension added with each passing moment. One scene in particular, a knock-out, drag–down fight between two women, is the most kinetic, fast-paced, harrowing combat sequence of the year, hands down. With its strict realism and maniacal energy, it wouldn’t be out of place in a kung-fu movie.

Every one of these sequences is remarkably crafted, proving Craven’s acumen for high-wire thrills, but they are scattered at great distances between long swaths of stuffy religious drama. Until the absolutely bonkers final twenty minutes, watching the film is akin to the experience of sitting through a History Channel documentary with shoddy period reenactments, during which random scenes from The Texas Chain Saw Massacre have been spliced in. It’s decidedly off-kilter, but the sheer power of those moments when they finally arrive is worth every politely strained second.

And though the Hittite scenes are a challenge to get through, there is at least a slight reprieve in the form of the three women, whose chemistry is top notch. There are some genuinely sweet undercurrents about the strength of female friendship and each woman has her own distinct, shaded personality. Mind you, it’s not Little Women, but Craven has always had a specialty for strong female characters and eloquently expresses that.

When it comes down to brass tacks, Deadly Blessing is certainly one of the weaker Wes Craven efforts, but there’s enough stimulating material to keep a seasoned viewer invested. If you’re a horror newbie, stick with the Nightmares and the Screams, but for anyone of an irrationally analytical bent, this flick might just answer your prayer.

Killer: [Faith (Lisa Hartman) and Louisa (Lois Nettleton)]

Final Girl: Martha (Maren Jensen)

Best Kill: [Martha is abruptly dragged into Hell by the Incubus who, it turns out, actually exists.]

Sign of the Times: Martha digs up a grave while wearing a fringed patent leather jacket.

Scariest Moment: Sharon Stone has a nightmare about a spider falling into her mouth while a grey-skinned demon caresses her.

Weirdest Moment: Faith says she understands Martha’s grief because her pet bird died once.

Champion Dialogue: “You are a stench in the nostrils of God!”

Body Count: 7; not including a snake beaten with a poker.

1. Jim is run over with a tractor.
2. William Gluntz is stabbed to death.
3. John is stabbed to death.
4. Vicky dies in a car explosion.
5. Louis is shot to death.
6. Faith is stabbed in the back.
7. [Martha is dragged into Hell.]

TL;DR: Deadly Blessing is an intellectually stimulating, if slow, early Craven effort.

Rating: 6/10

Word Count: 1161