By Geno McGahee
One of the greatest monsters of all time is Pumpkinhead, even if the franchise he’s involved in might not be a horror standout. I have not seen any of the series outside of the original for quite some time, but I took some time to check out PUMPKINHEAD II: BLOOD WINGS, after 30 years. How the hell did 30 years go by like that?
We start in the late 1950s with a very Jason Voorhees-looking kid, Tommy (J.P. Manoux), just playing in the woods. He looked like hillbilly Jason Voorhees, not hockey mask zombie Jason. I just wanted to clear that up. A cool thing here is that Manoux that played Tommy also played Robot Man in EUROTRIP. I think it’s cool. I don’t care if you don’t. I liked both Tommy and Robot Man. Good job Manoux!
In the fifties, there were hooligans known as “Greasers”, and there is a group of these guys called the “Red Wings”. The Red Wings drive up and see poor Tommy and decide to kill the guy. This was done quite often in horror movies. HELLO MARY LOU: PROM NIGHT II comes to mind. If you killed somebody in the 1950s, they’ll be back, and unfortunately for the Red Wings, they fucked with the wrong mutated hillbilly boy.
Osie (Lilyan Chauvin) is an old witch that has been looking after Tommy and she desperately wanted revenge, but she just couldn’t pull the trigger and bring Pumpkinhead back to kick ass. That was nice of her.
Sheriff Braddock (Andrew Robinson) has just moved back into town with his teen daughter, Jenny (Ami Dolenz). As he gets a handle on the small town, Jenny meets a group of new friends. Danny (J. Trevor Edmond), Marcie (Soliel Moon Frye), Peter (Hill Harper) and Paul (Alexander Polinsky) are the new group of friends, but I don’t think this group needed Paul. He says nothing and just hangs out. At one point, he flips off Jenny’s dad, but other than that, he has nothing going. I wonder if the writer forgot about him and just focused on Danny being a bad guy and rejoicing that Punky Brewster is in their horror movie.
We get another common horror movie thing happening when the teens gather at night. Danny, being a complete shithead, is driving his car with the group without the lights on. For some reason, Osie is walking across the street and they hit her with the car. Of course Danny wants to leave her to die and isn’t worried about the old lady at all. Osie knows what they did last summer and shit is about to get real.
They bring Osie to her home and notice all the witchcraft stuff. Punky Brewster is into that stuff, so she can recognize witchcraft stuff. I knew she was going to be a resource for witch stuff just by how she dressed. She does concede that Osie is doing things that is beyond her Ouija board. I used a Ouija board once. I may or may not have contacted my grandfather. If I did, he wasn’t talkative that day.
All of the teens leave Osie to die, but Danny stays behind and beats Osie’s ass and takes a small container of blood to bring back the dead. I don’t know how he knew that the blood would bring back the dead. It may have been just a lucky guess. I found it very amusing that Osie called Danny “boy” about ten times. They go to Tommy’s grave, dig it up, and drop the blood onto the body. Those crazy kids bring back Pumpkinhead.
Whenever Pumpkinhead is on the screen, it’s great fun. It’s fair to say that he looked better in the original, but he still looks great in this one and he is just fucking people up. During this time, Osie is in the hospital, recovering, but seeing all of the carnage is making her convulse with regularity. Remarkably, the nurses don’t tend to her at all. They just let her flop around on the bed as they drink coffee.
The deaths are piling up and Braddock is starting to realize that something supernatural is going on. His partner, Pettibone (Gloria Hendry), brings up the legend of Pumpkinhead. That does something to Braddock. He goes into total serious mode and recites a poem about Pumpkinhead and it was pretty hilarious. I watched it a couple times. I wonder if other legends like the Jersey Devil or Loch Ness Monster have poems. If so, I will learn them and say them any time they are brought up.
Much like the original PUMPKINHEAD, the monster is seeking revenge here too, killing all the Greasers and also going after the teens that hit Osie with the car. Braddock eventually comes face to face with Pumpkinhead and reasons with him. I didn’t know you could do that. I thought Pumpkinhead just didn’t give a fuck, but he’ll listen to you if you say the right things.
PUMPKINHEAD II: BLOOD WINGS was tremendously fun. I won’t contend that it’s clever or written incredibly well, but it provides entertainment from start to finish. I’m now going to have to explore the rest of the franchise to see if they will bring me this much joy and laughter. I highly recommend this one.
