Pumpkinhead 2 (1994) Review

They couldn't leave dead enough alone.

It should come as no surprise to horror fans that popular horror franchises are littered with terrible B-movies. These franchises often start with a surprise hit, think A Nightmare on Elm Street, Friday the 13th and The Texas Chain Saw Massacre . These were all iconic films. Now think Freddy's Revenge, Jason X and Next Generation . These were all terrible, terrible films. Pumpkinhead was an iconic film. Pumpkinhead 2  was not.

Pumpkinhead was about a demon who was buried in a hidden graveyard in the middle of nowhere, occasionally summoned by a witch, on behalf of revenge seekers, to exact revenge on people who had done them wrong. The cost for using Pumpkinhead for revenge seeking was a damned soul. Pumpkinhead 2 did not share anything in common with this storyline. In this sequel, Pumpkinhead wasn't really a demon, he was just a deformed mentally disabled kid who got lynched by a local mob. Then a few decades later a bunch of bored teens resurrect him and then he goes after them, maybe thinking they were the same lynch mob? Who knows. Oh, and once he's resurrected he just happens to become a Pumpkinhead looking creature, for no explicable reason.

I personally gave up trying to make sense of this one after maybe 20 minutes. It's so B-movie that the beer the delinquent teens are drinking literally says "Beer" on the can. And when I say delinquent I mean it. They're apparently just supposed to be some bored teens looking for fun. So they hit and run an old lady, then go and break into her house, steal her shit, burn her place down and resurrect her dead kid using black magic... because you know, teenagers.

I'm not really sure if this movie is supposed to be serious or a comedy. If it's supposed to be serious it's not very. If it's supposed to be comedy it's a weak attempt. There's only one scene that's definitely comedy. A family is sitting around the dinner table talking current events when somebody mentions Pumpkinhead. The dad zones out and starts spewing out some nursery rhyme he heard when he was a kid (all the while the camera zooms in obnoxiously close to his ugly mug):

"Bolted doors and windows barred... guard dogs barking in the yard.. won't protect you in your bed, nothing will... from Pumpkinhead."

Worth Watching?