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

Life Finds A Way

Year: 1993

Director: Steven Spielberg

Cast: Sam Neill, Laura Dern, Jeff Goldblum

Run Time: 2 hours 7 minutes

MPAA Rating: PG-13

This review is an epic adventure two years in the making. You see, back when I was first starting my blog in 2013, it was right around the time that Jurassic Park was re-released in theaters in 3D. During that time, I was still using my training wheels. I was still transitioning from my cruddy, Tumblr-based format, and it would be a couple months before I made the kamikaze commitment to pen a review of every movie I watched.

Unfortunately, a lot fell through the cracks, though it did lead to some very strange and insightful articles that are far from disappointing. Anyway, this all comes back to me sitting in that dark theater, re-experiencing Jurassic Park for the first time since childhood on the big screen. All big, puffed-up talk about Spielberg and popcorn blockbusters and the rise of the film school generation aside, that is the kind of experience that you can’t fail to be profoundly affected by. You wanna know why? I’m just gonna say it, professionalism be damned: Jurassic Park is freaking awesome. And I’m sorry I didn’t find the time to review this back then.

Yes, it has a brain in its head, yes, it’s marvelously composed and shot, and yes, the computer imagery is revolutionary, but before we get down to brass tacks, let’s take a moment to step back and look at the big picture that those tacks are pinning up.

Jurassic Park is freaking awesome.

Of course, Jurassic Park has the audacity to open straight onto its very worst scene: A tragically silly raptor attack littered with an uncomfortable profusion of extreme close-ups of mouths. But the effect of that front-loading means that it’s only uphill from there, and between this scene and the film’s grand finale, that slope is like Mount Frickin’ Everest.

When the movie settles down into its plot proper, we learn several things. John Hammond (Richard Attenborough) is a man with a dream. And a bank account that would make Donald Trump weep tears of liquid gold. His life’s ambition is to create an unforgettable theme park populated with live, cloned dinosaurs on the South American island Isla Nubar. When his investors demand a thorough inspection of the site before opening it to the public, they call in prominent mathematician Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum). 

For his defense, Hammond brings in famed archaeologist Alan Grant (Sam Neill) and his wife/girlfriend/general long-term commitment person, the paleobotanist Ellie Sattler (Laura Dern). To his dismay, his guests don’t want to play on his elaborately-designed rides, rather preferring to marvel at the science behind the cloning and discuss just how dubious an idea it is to toss kids onto an island with a herd of hungry velociraptors.

Right on cue, Hammond’s grandchildren – Tim (Joseph Mazzello) and Lex Murphy (Ariana Richards) arrive. Together with the inspection team, they set out on a jeep tour of the park that goes horribly wrong when a bit of subterfuge by disgruntled employee Dennis Nedrey (wayne Knight – Hello, Newman) causes the gates to malfunction, setting the ravenous dinos on the rampage. Dr. Grant finds himself stranded with the kids and, in the process of escorting the little buggers across the island, begins to shake his firm resolve against ever having one, because Steven Spielberg.

Also, Laura Dern could teach Bryce Dallas Howard a thing or two about sensible footwear in survival situations.

At its core, Jurassic Park is an astounding act of creation. Combining top dollar animatronic effects supervised by SFX superstar Stan Winston with an extremely clever, tastefully discreet use of nascent CGI technology, Jurassic Park brings prehistoric mayhem to impossible life. Computer graphics were about as sophisticated as a Nintendo game back in 1993, but by using them to augment brilliant practical effects and disguising the biggest deficiencies beneath the cover of night, the film holds up mind-bogglingly well. The dinosaurs here have weight and autonomy bestowed upon them thanks to the tender, loving care of the filmmakers, making Jurassic World’s collection of pixels look like a kids’ cartoon. 

Jurassic Park is ultimately a celebration of what technology can achieve* when it’s applied with some good, old-fashioned elbow grease. And that’s the thing about the film that makes it such an enduring classic: Yes, it’s an enormous popcorn spectacle, but the showstopping effects are generously ladled over what is already a terrifically solid film qua films.

*Ironically, the story is staunchly anti-science, but that’s more Michael Crichton’s fault than anything.

I would say that the movie would be just as good without the dinosaurs, but even I know that would be going at least a smidge too far.

Beneath the wondrous layer of dino mayhem, Jurassic Park is an appallingly clever film. The subtext (which is largely about chaos theory and how any manmade attempts to alter the course of nature are bound to go horribly wrong) manifests itself in a variety of subtle, layered ways, many of which are achieved with the help of ace cinematographer Dean Cundey (who also did Halloween and everything else that matters). In moments like a computerized DNA pattern being projected onto the rough, scaly skin of a hunting velociraptor, or the billowing “when Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth” banner that flutters from above a roaring T-Rex, Jurassic Park is both rapturously beautiful and visually inventive.

And this rampant creativity doesn’t just stop at frame composition. The film’s action sequences are among the best ever committed to celluloid, ranging from the unbearably tense (the raptors in the kitchen), the heroically cool (the jeep crashing down the cliff face), and the intoxicatingly intense (the kids fighting to keep the jeep’s glass ceiling between them and the T-Rex’s slavering jaws). All this cinematic carnage is peppered with instantly iconic shots that any movie producer would sell their left lung just to have one of, pushed over the edge with bombastic glee by John Williams’ brassy, epic score.

After all this time, we’re still trying to break through the glass ceiling.

Now here’s the part where the imperfections hiding in the shadows come out to pounce now that our guard is down. This was a film made in the early 90’s after all, and the only unquestionably perfect thing to come out of that entire period is me. As such, Jurassic Park hails from the early days of home computers, in which thriller directors found endless captivation in lavishly depicting people clicking through blocky filed systems.

But there’s one thing that betrays the film’s 1993 vintage above all else…

Hold onto your butts.

That’s right, Samuel L. Jackson is cast as the resident computer nerd. Pulp Fiction was a year away, so nobody could quite figure out what to do with him. This is mystifying, but it’s also a good segue into the acting, another unfortunate victim of the stranglehold of the 90’s. Along with a slate of malnourished characters that are more broad strokes than nuance, there are wild peaks and valleys in the film's overall performance quality. Attenborough, Dern, and – shockingly – Knight make it through without a scratch, but Sam Neill is a little too puffed-up, the kids are a little too shrill and wheedling, and I hate to admit it, but I’ve never uh… been um- a huge fan of –uh… Jeff Goldblum.

I appreciate that his acting style emulates the natural processes and rhythms by which actual real people formulate their speech. I really do. But if I had a nickel for every godforsaken syllable he uses to infinitely prolong his (admittedly well-crafted) dialogue, I’d make more than his entire salary. Plus residuals.

But aside from these slight speed bumps, Jurassic Park is and will always remain an indefatigable classic of popcorn cinema. It’s a superbly crafted work of art with a beating human heart hidden beneath its shining, high-tech exterior. And, after my next entry in this marathon, we’ll find out once and for all if quality blockbusters do move in herds.

TL;DR: Jurassic Park is an epic, delightful popcorn adventure.

Rating: 9/10

Word Count: 1359
Reviews In This Series
Jurassic Park (Spielberg, 1993)
The Lost World: Jurassic Park (Spielberg, 1997)
Jurassic Park III (Johnston, 2001)
Jurassic World (Trevorrow, 2015)
Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom (Bayona, 2018)