Directed by the late, great special effects titan Stan Winston (his first feature as a director) based on the poem by Ed Justin, 1988's Pumpkinhead is the tragic tale of a man named Ed Harley (Lance Henriksen) who owns and operates a local grocery store in the deep south. He lives alone with his son, Billy (Matthew Hurley), and they have a quiet life until a bunch of city slickers on dirtbikes show up and accidently kill poor Billy while he's out playing. Ed is, quite understandably, distraught but so too is he angry. Rather than take this to the local authorities to sort out, he decides to visit a local swamp witch named Haggis (Florence Schauffler) with the express intent of conjuring up a demon known to the locals as Pumpkinhead. As the legend goes, if one man does another man wrong, the wronged party can summon the demon to take revenge on his behalf.

But what of those city folk? There's an even half dozen of them, made up of three couples. First is their de facto leader Joel (John D'Aquino) and his pretty girlfriend Kim (Kimberly Ross), then there's Joel's kid brother Steve (Joel Hoffman) and his girlfriend Maggie (Kerry Remsen), and last but not least, Chris (Jeff East) and his girlfriend Tracey (Cynthia Bain). They're aware of what they've done but have no idea what's in store once Haggis helps Ed in his quest for unholy vengeance. For that matter, Ed has no idea what he's in for either, as he starts to experience himself their murders at the hands of the monster he has unleashed. When Ed tries to have Haggis send the monster back to whence it came, she lets slip that this is not possible, leaving a very weary Ed to deal with the demon all on his own…

Pumpkinhead is a low budget triumph of creature effects and atmospheric set design. Granted, a little more character development would have gone a long way, particularly in how we are meant to regard the six city folk Ed deems responsible for Billy's death, but putting that issue aside for a moment there's a lot to like about Winston's film. Plenty of fantastic colorful lighting and loads of foggy locations help to entrench the picture in the traditional visuals you'd associate with folk lore, from the eerie cemetery where the titular beast rises to the ancient church where a key set piece plays out. All of this is ‘stuff' is ripe with southern gothic mood all of which serves to aid in ramping up tension and suspense. The monster effects help in this regard too, with Pumpkinhead looking a little bit like Giger's Alien but with more of an organic feel in place of the cold, smooth, sleek look of his interstellar counterpart. The beast is impressive when he comes to life, leering with cold, dead eyes and towering over his human prey with dead flesh clinging tightly to the skeleton that protrudes from it.

As far as the cast go, Henrisken does most of the heavy lifting here. His Ed Harley is a tortured soul to be sure and he carries the film with his performance. As an actor, he's always had a knack for darker roles and he definitely gives this one his all. Florence Schauffler is also quite good in her heavily made up turn as the witch. Maybe she overplays it a bit but this is not a part that calls for subtlety so it works. The rest of the cast… they're fine, they're just not given nearly as much to do, they're basically just there to serve as fodder for the beast. There are moments where the script toys with adding depth and looks like it's going to maybe delve into themes of redemption and sacrifice but it never really gets into it the way a really intense and intelligent script could have.

Pumpkinhead is content to remain a picture that plays more to its strengths as a monster movie than anything else and there's absolutely nothing wrong with that. In fact, when you get right down to it, Pumpkinhead is a monster movie done right. It offers up scares, atmosphere, a great lead character and some excellent effects work. If it doesn't pull back the layers and delve deep under the surface of its ideas, so be it, because this is a genre film that does what it does very well.

Video:

Pumpkinhead arrives on Blu-ray in an AVC encoded 1080p high definition transfer framed at 1.85.1 widescreen. Despite the fact that this is a very dark movie filled with shadows and beams of light and plenty of atmospheric fog, the film is also a pretty colorful on in its own odd way and this Blu-ray release replicates the film's swampy color scheme quite nicely. Blacks are nice and deep and while there is some minor crush and some minor compression evident on the transfer detail is typically pretty solid. The source material used shows no serious print damage of note, just a few minor specks here and there, while skin tones look lifelike and natural when they're supposed to an properly sickly and pale when they're not. Grain is present throughout as it should be but never overpowering or distracting and all in all, the movie looks good.