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As Good As It Gets

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

Not sure how, but this is easily one of the best movies all summer. Multiple levels of funny, never takes itself seriously, super colorful, and creative.

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.

After a group of bikers accidentally kill Billy Harley, his father Ed is devastated and the only thing he wants is revenge.He goes to an old woman who is said to be a witch, and conjures up the titular demonic creature and with revenge on his mind unleashes him upon the bikers.....It's not the breaking the mould for horror films, but Winston has crafted a fairly decent film, with wonderful puppetry of the titular character.When you can get over the fact that Billy looks just like the Milky Bar Kid, what you get is an enjoyable over the top horror film that crosses Death Wish with The Keep.Henriksen is wonderful as the grieving father, and puts in a really good performance in what could have easily have been a coasting role for him.The rest of the cast unfortunately, are nothing more than your atypical horror film teen fodder, and you can more or less guess which ones get killed and in which order.It's a pretty gory film considering when it was made, and how restraint horror films were because of the over the top censoring film boards were at that time (thankyou James Ferman), but they are inventive, and the film doesn't hide the fact that Pumpkinhead looks so good.There is a little twist at the end which is quite impressive, and a scene that refers to the cold opening, but other than that, it's just a perfectly perfunctory horror film with wonderful special effects.

PUMPKINHEAD is one of those distinctly lacklustre horror films that populated cinemas in the late '80s, marking the end of what I consider to be a boon for the genre in the first half of the decade. Come 1985, horror films just fell apart, with endless cheesy sequels and a reliance on special effects over genuine storytelling. This film is a case of the latter in point – a film hosting a decent monster in search of a decent script. The story involves the kind of rural witchcraft we're familiar with from the likes of CHILDREN OF THE CORN, with a curse revisited on the usual bunch of unlikeable overage teenagers who soon find themselves being offed, one by one, by the menace.Pumpkinhead looks a lot like the alien from ALIEN, but he's still the best thing in the movie – along with Lance Henriksen. The B-movie favourite has a great starring role as a father determined to avenge his son, and it's just a shame that his considerable talents are wasted here (as in so many of his movies). Henriksen and, to a lesser extent, George Buck Flower, are the only interesting actors in the movie. The rest give horrid performances.The first half of the film offers a lengthy set-up which might have paid off had the denouement possessed one ounce of wit, originally or intelligence. It doesn't, ending up as a typical stalk-n-slash outing – without any decent gore to recommend either. The presence of FX supremo Stan Winston as director is a novelty, but he really should have stuck to making monsters rather than trying to direct them; his task is doomed from the outset. It all ends unsurprisingly enough, leaving the viewer wondering why on earth they just wasted an hour and a half of their time on this. Incredibly, three sequels followed.

Wait. THIS is who Linus van Pelt was writing his annual Halloween letter to? Don't know what's so great about this pumpkin.Man, do I love 80s horror. It seemed so diverse back then. You had demons, slasher-killers, holiday themed massacres, ghosts, dolls, everything and all rated R. Nowadays, it a rarity to get any horror film that doesn't involve ghosts or possession from ghosts or ghosts in a house or found footage of ghosts. And almost all PG-13. Too bad.Now, Pumpkinhead is definitely cheesy at times – some of the reactions from our "heroes" had me unintentionally laughing out loud a few times, but damn, did they work on this story. While it's the basic Twilight Zone/Tales from the Crypt story, unlike most horror movies during that timeframe (late 80s,) this one took it's time setting up everything and the lure verses making it all a monster/demon movie.Apparently, there's this demon whose name only describes his resting place and is called upon to seek revenge upon what evil one man had committed to another man. Or so they tell me. I guess females are off the hook.In this case, a man's tragedy spurs him conjuring up the demon to exact revenge on the "people" responsible. There was really only one involved out of six young adults, but my guess, giving the movie the benefit of the doubt, is that Pumpkinhead carries out revenge on who the innocent man *thinks* is guilty.This is strictly for fans of 80s horror and, namely the always incredible Lance Henriksen and Stan Winston. If you just want gore and the monster throughout, you'll be disappointed. But, if you're looking for a little more depth, setup suspense and a change, this might be for you.***Final thoughts: 'Cheesehead: The Revenge' was the movie title I was thinking throughout, even though I don't do football. 'Cheesy Bread: The Movie' might have also worked, but now I'm getting hungry. Excuse me.