Title: Rant not review. Pumpkinhead sequals.
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Blog Entry: This is not really a review, but a pissed off, irate, act of total carp. In other words, as well as for the lamen. I'M BITCHING! The 1988 horror film Pumpkinhead head is one of my most favorite films. I have two copies of it. Directed by John Carpenter, the movie was basically a southern tale, folklore. Basically, if someone wrongs someone else, that wronged person can take revenge by ressurecting a demon from hell, and in their name torture and kill everyone involved in the wrong doing. Wrong doing is of course usually murder. A comic series later came out, as well as two songs. Such as the Pumpkinhead song by the punk band Misfits. The sequal came out in 1994. Instead of following the actual folklore of the first movie, it is about a deformed boy who is brutally killed by a group of kids. His body later forms into pumpkinhead due to his caretaker who is a witch. He is accidently ressurected [I wonder if his name was jesus?] by troubled teens and so he goes after the grown up kids who killed him years before. It has more kills and is more brutal then the original film, but lost many of the elements that made the original great, as well as the actual story/folklore. It was also B movie ish. I have since been waiting for a decent sequal, a sequal that kept up with what made the first great. In 2006, Ashes to Ashes came out, and it was a sci fi made movie, clear sign it might just turn out to not be so good;it would suck. The CGI really really REALLY fucked the movie for me. Also, the witch, did not look like her self. Not dark like the first film. So even bringing back the witch was a let down. The plot was okay, but it missed the element that the sequel missed. One of my favorite things about the 1988 movie, was that they gave the demon Pumpkinhead a personality. He was callous, cruel, and when you watched him torture the victims, he intentually prolonged it, Pumpkinhead even smiles when torturing one victim. Both sequals miss this. Pumpkinhead's callous, sadistic personally is not found. As well as the fact that none of the deaths are prolonged, instead he kills them on the spot in a brutal way. The very beginning of the 1988 film shows a man running in a corn field, and pumpkinhead grabs him by the leg and breaks it, then lets him run off, then breaks another limb and lets him run off again to get help. He prolonged it, and continues to prolong the future deaths. So basically his personality and his cruelty are unfound in the sequels. The part where he pushes one of their heads against the bars and starts ripping his face apart. Brutal, but I think the real pumpkinhead would of stopped and started breaking his bones, hell even pull his eye out and crushed it, watch him squirm and then off him after letting him scream for help for a minute. Or maybe even carry his body so his brother and sister could see him suffer. The 1988 Pumpkinhead obviously liked to kill the victims infront of their loved ones. There are two deaths in the 1988 film that prove this. In all the sequals, he just goes for the kill. Missing one of things that makes Pumpkinhead Pumpkinhead. At least they tried to keep up with Pumpkinhead's satanism by having Pumpkinhead throw a priest in fire. The fourth sequal in 2007 is just about the same. Bad acting, and CGI again fucked it up for me. The kills are basically kill, and never prolonging, accept for the bear trap scene, but of course that wasnt due to Pumpkinhead's doing. Would of been really Pumpkinhead if he went up and taunted him while he was down. Also the part where the victim cut's his own foot off with a knife was very unrealistic and very B movie. I like some B movies, but of course the original wasnt a B movie. So we have the original John Carpenter Pumpkinhead, and three B movie sequals. At least the last two tried to live up to the original. What pisses me off is, why can't they make one decent fucking sequal? Just one, ONE! That is all I fucking ask. They've had three and all three lack what made the original good. So inconclusion, the people making the sequals are incompetent, and I am pissed off because of that incompetence. Pumpkinhead 1988 get's 8 out of 10. Pumpkinhead 1994 gets 4 out of 10. Pumpkinhead 2006 gets 4 out of 10. Pumpkinhead 2007 gets 4 out of 10.
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