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Pumpkinhead
(1988)
Director: Stan Winston
Director Stan Winston had been responsible for The Terminator's look as well as serving as James Cameron's right hand man for several films - utilizing make-up and prop effects.
In his directorial debut he shows a firm hand at pacing as well as choosing the perfect script for a halloween morality tale.
Teenagers on dirt bikes accidentally cause havoc to a rugged country store owner and his fuse it lit to the point of seeking hell-bound revenge. He visits an old witch and she tells him how to unleash vengeance (the most venomous of man's sin). Once the curse is in place bad things happen.
I liked this movie not only because it was spooky and atmospheric, but also because it deals (very well) with the characters and how they change throughout the film. I was just reading some discussion on character arcs not necessarily making a film great, but in this case the changes in attitude of people are what sets this movie apart from a standard, run of the mill horror film.
The effects and creature design is second to none because, well, it's Stan Winston making it. Everything has an organic and deliciously fiendish air about it - including the graveyard, which looks beautiful and classically stagy. I love things like this.
I also enjoyed how it ended. Again, this is where the editing was elegant. The scenes during the film kind of layer themselves to not only show an event happening, but rather to build some tension with a simultaneous scene and then a revisit to see what will happen. At the end, the film just kind of nods on to credits, and the slight but almost poetic way the white letters crawl against darkness basically told me that whoever pieced this together had a golden touch. This all felt like a real story. Not real as in "realistic", but real as in - it's a scary tale to tell around the camp fire, and no goofy things got in the way. Winston did good work here, and I'd go so far as to say, considering the teenage cast and typical cliches present, his first effort as a director did not at all seem shaky or unsure of itself.
Pumpkinhead
(1988)
Director: Stan Winston
Director Stan Winston had been responsible for The Terminator's look as well as serving as James Cameron's right hand man for several films - utilizing make-up and prop effects.
In his directorial debut he shows a firm hand at pacing as well as choosing the perfect script for a halloween morality tale.
Teenagers on dirt bikes accidentally cause havoc to a rugged country store owner and his fuse it lit to the point of seeking hell-bound revenge. He visits an old witch and she tells him how to unleash vengeance (the most venomous of man's sin). Once the curse is in place bad things happen.
I liked this movie not only because it was spooky and atmospheric, but also because it deals (very well) with the characters and how they change throughout the film. I was just reading some discussion on character arcs not necessarily making a film great, but in this case the changes in attitude of people are what sets this movie apart from a standard, run of the mill horror film.
The effects and creature design is second to none because, well, it's Stan Winston making it. Everything has an organic and deliciously fiendish air about it - including the graveyard, which looks beautiful and classically stagy. I love things like this.
I also enjoyed how it ended. Again, this is where the editing was elegant. The scenes during the film kind of layer themselves to not only show an event happening, but rather to build some tension with a simultaneous scene and then a revisit to see what will happen. At the end, the film just kind of nods on to credits, and the slight but almost poetic way the white letters crawl against darkness basically told me that whoever pieced this together had a golden touch. This all felt like a real story. Not real as in "realistic", but real as in - it's a scary tale to tell around the camp fire, and no goofy things got in the way. Winston did good work here, and I'd go so far as to say, considering the teenage cast and typical cliches present, his first effort as a director did not at all seem shaky or unsure of itself.