Pumpkinhead: Blood Feud (2007)

You won't be disappointed!

The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

As somebody who had not heard any of this before, it became a curious phenomenon to sit and watch a film and slowly have the realities begin to click into place.

I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

After their blood-feud prevents their love, a man raises the demon Pinhead to kill off his rival's family to save her for himself which drags the rest of his family into the struggle to prevent the creature from finishing it's work.This here was perhaps the best sequel in the franchise and had a ton to love about it. What really gives this one a lot to love is the strong story-line here, with the obvious ploy here about the long-standing blood feud between the two families which gives this one plenty to work with here. The beginning impact of the feud, from the opening introduction of the wedding that degenerates into a full-scale barroom brawl between the family's in grand Western-style tradition, kicks it off nicely while the different incidents between them throughout history that are piled on adds to the whole story that is continually added on into the farther sections of the film that simply fuels the revenge part of the story-line. Almost as much fun as the story-line here is the absolutely fun and over-the-top confrontations here which generates a lot of stellar stalking scenes. The opening chase through the forest chasing after the bikers is really fun generating a few enjoyable scenes, and once it starts in on the vengeance against the family there's a lot more to like here as it features a strong series of shorter ambush attacks on the family. The first sequence of it attacking the two at the moonshine farm that results in some brutal deaths, the absolutely fantastic scenes of it taking out the posse in the woods which feature insanely brutal kills on top of the fun the fun of the psychic connection coming along at the most inopportune places that allows this one plenty to like. The film's two biggest scenes here are where the feud leads to the best moments here with the retribution attack on the house setting it on fire and forcing the rescue that is really thrilling, as they battle against the encroaching flames that gives the scene a lot to really enjoy about it, while the film scores incredibly well with the finale house ambush. With the creature delivering full-on justice to the two family's in grand fashion with tons of utterly brutal gore-drenched kills, some fun encounters and plenty of tense stalking that shows the creature coming along and generating some fun here doling out not just justice to the other family but finishing off the other other side-plots featured here. Along with the brutal and gory kills here, the film's other big positive here is the absolutely amazing looking main creature here as the design is creepy, the suit is superb with lots of details and it never really looks bad here for an overall spectacular-looking creature. These here give this enough to really hold this off against the film's lone flaw. The film is yet another variation on the same them now and really doesn't do anything new, not only with the return character here spelling out the franchise rules without doing anything else, just running through the same story-line without much deviation. Along with a few scant scenes of noticeable CGI, these are the film's true flaws.Rated R: Graphic Language and Graphic Language.

I enjoyed the original Pumpkinhead, but the three sequels are not as good. The best for me was this one, though Ashes to Ashes isn't bad either. Blood Wings was severely lacking for me. What I did like about Blood Feud was that it wasn't too bad visually. The effects are a little better than they were in Ashes to Ashes, the scenery is appropriately eerie as well as looking beautiful and the photography is thankfully not as frenzied. The music is haunting, what ties this movie with the original are used well and while the titular character doesn't show up for at least 40 minutes, while not having the impact he makes in the original, he is at least frightening. Lance Henrikssen is very good, he puts a lot of effort into the role and it shows. However, I was largely uninterested with what was going on until he showed up. The story of the Hatfields and McCoys is clichéd and often unbelievable, and is further hampered by plodding character exposition, and even then the characters felt under-written. The writing is rather trite and sometimes cheesy and most of the acting apart from Henrikssen is poor, sometimes even amateurish. All in all, the best of the three sequels but also could have been much better. 5/10 Bethany Cox

This fourth entry in the "Pumpkinhead"-saga (damn, that's kind of a depressing thing to write) finally goes for the element we've all been waiting for in this series: a Romeo and Juliet storyline. This movie provides us with an important lesson: if there's one thing that can truly express how much you really love a girl, it's by summoning a demon and instructing it to kill her entire family. Duely noted. Other than that the movie doesn't really provide much new, but it's entertaining and gory and just good enough for a lazy evening. It all seems to be in good fun, even the scene where the monster advances on a dude in a wheelchair is suspiciously humorous. The highlights of the movie are Lance Henriksen's interventions though, when it comes to delivering random wise-sounding monologues in rarely-seen genre movies he can't really be topped. Overall "Blood Feud" is a decent sequel, nothing less nothing more.

Pumpkinhead, the name alone sends fond memories of the late 80's early 90's when there was still a few good horror movies coming out. Then we got into the Scream era and things got real schlocky. Things we are still trying to recover from as horror fans but anyway that is another issue. The original Pumpkinhad though not a great film still managed to put one of the wildest monsters ever created on the silver screen and though the movie was marginal the monster alone saved it from mediocrity.In comes this the 4th installment to the Pumpkinhead series, Blood Feud. while part one was decent 2 and 3 were not so fortunate and with the 4th I really questioned if anyone could at least make a mediocre monster flick with ol' PH in it. At its onset we start with some killing and Pumpkinhead which is always a good thing if you ask me, then we get to the opening portions of the "story". We begin with a wedding celebration that gets ruined by a feuding family, sounds like the Hatfields and McCoys right well the cheesy thing is IT IS!!!! For some reason of shear lunacy the writer, director and all involved agreed to give the feuding families these names. Once I hears that I began to laugh at how corny and cheesy that is, let alone totally unoriginal. Well after an accidental death and someone calling up Pumpkinhead for revenge we get back to some killing which does happen frequently especially toward the end. It is this reason that I can say that saves Pumpkinhead: Blood Feud and makes for one of the more entertaining Sci-Fi Channel movies I have seen.One thing that Sci-Fi for the most part has been liberal with is the gore and they did a nice job here, from bear trap head crushing to Human head stomping there are some nice gruel being thrown around here, not to mention Lance Henriksen reprising his roll of Ed Harley, as a tortured spirit who tried to warn others of the true cost of summoning the demon. Also the last 20 minutes we get a final stand of sorts that has a nice body count by the time it ends.Though P:BF will not earn points for originality and that crappy decision to name the families Hatfield and Mc Coy I was entertained by this one. The CGI is kept to a minimum and I would have liked to have seen it none at all but compared to the previous installment they did do a lot better job of sidestepping the CGI and only using it in the dark sequences. Old school monster fans will like that this one for about 90% of the time is all man in suit style effects which again saves it from another damaging mark I have against Sci-Fi Channel movies, Crappy CGI.In the end if you want a monster film with a better than average body count and you can forgive the movie for its shortcomings I would say give this one a shot. The monster FX are handled well and the kill scenes were rather nice. I give Pumpkinhead: Blood Feud: 5/10: a middle of the road example of monster action which is better than I was expecting. Monster Fans give it a shot you may very well enjoy this more than you thought you would.