Pumpkinhead: Ashes to Ashes

Perhaps a better sequel than Blood Wings, but still not a good movie. Those who are invested enough in practical effects might enjoy the return of the titular creature itself, but if you're looking for success in plot, acting, direction, etc. then seek it elsewhere.

Final rating:★★ - Had some things that appeal to me, but a poor finished product.

A lukewarm and unmemorable resurrection for a horror monster who spent too much time asleep.

It's been many years since Pumpkinhead 2, a movie that virtually ruined any prospects for short-term continuity, with a frankly weak story. The introduction of new technical resources, such as CGI and others, allowed this to be rethought and eventually led to the production of this film, which largely ignores its immediate predecessor and seems to be trying to be a continuation of the initial film, from 1988.

The film takes place in a rural American area where the Pumpkinhead is a legendary creature that some believe. The creature will be awakened to kill the owners of a local crematorium, after it becomes public that they were also heads of an organ trafficking business made at the expense of the locals' corpses, which were not cremated, as previously thought, but abandoned there, rotting in muddy ponds or in a half-abandoned tool shed. What follows is a bath of blood and mutilated bodies, in which the dialogue is poorly written, the situations are quite cliché and the lack of logic reigns. Indeed, how could all those bodies be there without there being, all around, the smell of a nauseating and incriminating corpse? If just one corpse exhales a terrible odor, dozens make a place, even outdoors, unbearable.

In addition to the script flaws, the film is also not particularly happy in the performance of its cast. Almost all the actors stand out for their exaggeration, for their bizarre way of acting, for their surreal or histrionic ways or even for an erasure that almost seems to ask to be taken out of there. The exceptions to this truly embarrassing panorama are veterans Doug Bradley and Lance Henrikssen. Bradley was very convincing and competent in the role of the doctor, the film's true villain, and his performance was only marred by a costume that looks recycled from a spaghetti western. Henrikssen, for his part, returns to the films that made him minimally famous, again in the shoes of Ed Harley, the protagonist of the first film.

Technically, it's clearly a cheap movie and in which money doesn't abound. Even so, the film manages to fulfill the minimum prerequisites. It never truly scares us, but gore connoisseurs will find some carnage enjoyable. Cinematography is not the film's strong point, the filming work feels quite amateurish at times and there are clearly ill-framed scenes. The editing is mediocre, the effects are acceptable but not particularly brilliant, and the costumes are decent enough. The best are the sets, even though some of those houses are too European for a movie that wants to be set in the USA.