Overrated and overhyped

It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

One of the true teen-horror classics, with a good story and where the evil is justified. The visual and creature effects are amazingly realistic and scary. The cast is very good, especially Lance Henrikssen in a very demanding role, which he does brilliantly. The film is tense, thrilling and offers loads of great scares. This is one of my all-time horror favorites.

Lance Henriksen stars as a single dad operating a small store out in the boondocks. When a bunch of kids from the city accidentally kill his son, he goes to a local witch to invoke the demon Pumpkinhead for revenge. He comes to regret the decision. Effects dude extraordinaire Stan Winston's directorial debut would have been a fairly average monster stalker film were it not for two things ... his dynamite practical effects work and Henriksen's superb performance.

Let's face it, it's incredibly difficult to make a good horror movie. Pumpkinhead is not only a good horror flick, it actually excels! With a good concept, a great script, and with wizard effect specialist Stan Winston in the corner, what can possibly go wrong? From my perspective, very little. This was put together quite intelligently. The violence and gore is just enough to satisfy its target audience, and yet is certainly tame enough to not abuse its authority. When a fathers son is accidentally killed by a group of young bikers, a father is left craving some pretty strong vengeance. One of the bikers claimed it was an accident. Not good enough, boys. It's just not good enough. A trip to a witch leads daddy to an interesting relic called Pumpkinhead, a tall, beastly creature that has a long history of settling some uneven scores with many of its "clients". Okay, so he's got his revenge, the question is...how do you put this monster back in its box? Heh heh heh, my friend...let me explain something to you. See, Pumpkinhead doesn't work like that. Your revenge came with a price, a very HIGH price, and he learns all too late, how Pumpkinhead works. With a unique sacrifice, Pumpkinhead will continue to please for years to come. My only complaint with the movie, is the night time scenes, when the action really gets intense, its kind of hard to see and make out what is going on...you mainly hear just a bunch of screaming, but its much too dark to make out what is going on ( Who knows? Maybe that was what was intended. Stan was very good at what he did for a living!) All in all, this movie was a treat, and I do not follow the sequels, I can't imagine any of them trying to live up or triumph the original, so I just simply won't waste my time. I recommend you don't waste yours.

I pretty much only watch horror movie (I don't know why) and this has always been one of my personal favorites. Though it does follow the old formula of a stalker slashing screaming teens, there is more to it than JUST that.Start with Lance Henriksen, who is an amazing actor and so much better than he is given credit. He is natural and emotional and he makes you feel sadness and regret and things you don't normally get out of B horror.Of course, Stan Winston, who was a genius in special effects and creature design and did not disappoint with the Pumpkinhead creature. It is not your typical rubber hand puppet. It IS a character in the movie with facial expressions, body gestures, and a quality that is not typically found in movies of this level. It is easy to forget it is an actor inside, and that is hard to come by.Story / Characters - some are great. I wish the movie would have steered clear of the stereotypical snotty teenagers on a party weekend, because it has more potential than that. I'm not sure if that was the only group of people that it was OK to kill in movies at the time - partying teenagers...? It makes it difficult to illicit any kind of emotion for them either positive or negative, because it tries so hard to make you hate them that by the time it wants you to feel bad for them, its too late. The whole movie is about regretting your wrath and vengeance, so I always felt like I should feel worse for these people, and never really did. Regardless, the locals are pretty great and remind me of some actual people I know, or have known. Mr. Wallace is a classic to me.The biggest issue for me, and this is stupid, was the setting and the lighting! After you have watched a movie 100s of times, you notice when there are two moons, and they are both neon blue. Or that backwoods West Virginia seems to look a lot like Barstow, California. Or random lightning with no source and no thunder. I understand the lighting (and lightning) is for effect, and it is a pretty strong visual effect combined with the awesome Pumpkinhead creature, if you're not thinking about it. I started to think about it...