This movie starts out with an obvious and long standing premise that bad boys (and girls) are the only ones who can start occult trouble. I guess I can forgive this film for using that tired old premise, if it only stopped there. Unfortunately it doesn't, Roger Clinton as "Mayor Bubba?" Who's idea was that? He didn't look like a Mayor of a dusty old town, let alone that dusty old town. He neither acted like a mayor, nor added anything to the film. At best he could be called a stupid, trivial and distracting interlude.
Jumping back to the black and white beginning (rip off of the technique first used by the Wizard of Oz), I know we watch these movies for blood and gore, but the opening scene when the deformed Tommy is chased down hanged, sliced and diced, then dumped down the old iron mine was truly shocking, I found my mouth hanging open and I am no pansy when it comes to violence, blood and guts. It was gratuitously violent, left nothing to the imagination and never even satisfied with a good explanation for why it occurred. Yes, we know in real life that there is gratuitous violence, some even unexplained as to its origin, but in the movies I think I'm entitled to an explanation why a group of teenagers in a dusty old town suddenly maim and lynch a deformed outcast.
I won't go into the acting--can't expect much in the way of great acting in a slice and dice horror flick. That hair style of Caran Kaye! Whew that broom on her head that passes for bangs--I actually found them distracting, staring to figure out how they got the hair to stand out like that.
I put this one right down there with Mom & Dad Save the Universe. Pass it up. The better movie is the original Pumpkinhead, holds together much better.
Jumping back to the black and white beginning (rip off of the technique first used by the Wizard of Oz), I know we watch these movies for blood and gore, but the opening scene when the deformed Tommy is chased down hanged, sliced and diced, then dumped down the old iron mine was truly shocking, I found my mouth hanging open and I am no pansy when it comes to violence, blood and guts. It was gratuitously violent, left nothing to the imagination and never even satisfied with a good explanation for why it occurred. Yes, we know in real life that there is gratuitous violence, some even unexplained as to its origin, but in the movies I think I'm entitled to an explanation why a group of teenagers in a dusty old town suddenly maim and lynch a deformed outcast.
I won't go into the acting--can't expect much in the way of great acting in a slice and dice horror flick. That hair style of Caran Kaye! Whew that broom on her head that passes for bangs--I actually found them distracting, staring to figure out how they got the hair to stand out like that.
I put this one right down there with Mom & Dad Save the Universe. Pass it up. The better movie is the original Pumpkinhead, holds together much better.