the audience applauded

Simply Perfect

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

Blistering performances.

Good in its own right, but not as a sequel. Instead, it plays more like a prequel. This film is more of a slasher, although justified since the murders are not random and well explained. The plot is not that great either, but the film was nevertheless still enjoyable.

Virtually everything about director Jeff Burr's creature-feature "Pumpkinhead 2: Blood Wings" is abysmal aside from some of its cast. This uninspired straight-to-video sequel generates only a tenth of the atmosphere of its predecessor. Furthermore, the production design and set decoration are far more superficial, and the creature looks like a big rubber monster. Indeed, a man stomps around in that monster suit. Anybody who loved the original will have a tough time tangling with this exercise in tedium. Andy Robinson, Steve Kanaly, Gloria Hendry, Hill Harper, and Joe Unger deliver solid performances, while the remainder of the cast is strictly amateurish. The slipshod screenplay by Constantine Chachornia and Ivan Chachornia unfolds with a rural black & white sequence set in the 1950s. A bunch of despicable, well-to-do teens wearing jackets with a Red Wings logo on the back slash up a harmless deformed kid and dump him into a bottomless well. This scene sets up the half-baked monster melodrama/police procedural that occurs some twenty years later. Afterward, the action shifts to the present day as a former NYPD cop, Sean Braddock (Andrew Robinson of "Hellraiser"), relocates his wife and wayward daughter Jenny (Ami Dolenz) to his old hometown. Jenny falls in with the wrong crowd of low-lifers led by the mayor's son, Danny Dixon (J. Trevor Edmond), who skip school openly, smoke dope, and get drunk. Naturally, Sheriff Braddock doesn't approve of Jenny's new friends or their miscreant behavior. Several murders take place after a carload of kids smash into a blind woman and later burn her up at her spooky residence. The idiotic kids resurrect Pumpkinhead, and monster attacks six of the obnoxious characters from the 1950s. Ultimately, another group of rednecks catch Pumpkinhead in a cross-fire and kill him. The creature's point-of-view shots are good, but little else merits mention except Gloria Hendry who is cast as a medical technician. Jeff Burr has acknowledged the many shortcomings of the film, and he has made better movies like "Stepfather 2" and "Straight into Darkness." Don't waste your time on this offal unless you want to get first-hand advice from Burr on his director's commentary track.

I like this movie. I know a lot of people don't. I can kind of understand. I didn't like that Pumpkinhead was Tommy's dad. Pumpkinhead looked kind of fake. The way they brought back Pumpkinhead was different. It was a different witch. I thought Pumpkinhead was invincible. I thought the only way for him to stop was for him to finish his mission or to kill the person that had him conjured up. In the first movie Pumpkinhead was shot multiple times and was shot in the head and still lived. Ywt in this he was shot and he died. It liked that it was gory. It had a high body count. Andrew Robinson was in it. It was a good movie but really had nothing to do with the original. It was good.

While I have to admit that Pumpkinhead is one of my favorite demonic creatures from the movies and I have to add that Jeff Burr is an underrated director, "Pumpkinhead II" is far from a great cinematic accomplishment. As a stand-alone film about a vengeance demon, it still might be a bag of silly horror-fun, but unfortunately it has to carry the burden of being an inferior sequel to a much cooler & better original. One of the biggest faults, was showing the creature too much (each time using dizziness-inducing strobe-effects to light it, for some reason). Then again, thankfully there's enough creature-action in this flick. Still, Stan Winston managed to make the monster look much more menacing in the first film, by not showing too much of it - some well-crafted shots aside - until the very end of the movie. In "Pumpkinhead II", it's all to evident too many times that we're dealing with an actor in a rubber monster suit. The story in this sequel is mildly amusing and moves at a decent pace, but it's full of clichés and highly predictable. The fact that most characters are spelling everything out for the viewer - who's always a couple steps ahead of the plot anyway - gets annoying enough really fast. For a lower budget production it's fairly well made and the KNB Effects Group did the best with what limited means they had (the creature also got a little bit re-styled; I liked the look of Stan Winston's design better). Sure, this sequel might have its heart at the right place (they even got Linnea Quigley to do a sex-scene and Kane Hodder to do a cameo), but in the end it's not a winner. It's got all the elements it needs to entertain, but the whole film just doesn't work too well. Nevertheless, I can't help having some love for this B-movie quickie. Just be sure to watch the original movie from 1988 first before you contemplate picking up a copy of this first sequel.