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Monday, July 21, 2014

Pumpkinhead: Ashes to Ashes Review


Disclaimer: Contains spoilers!

Plot Summary: More idiots summon Pumpkinhead or whatever.

Review: I thought part two was bad, but at least that had Ami Dolenz's hotness to hold your hand through the experience. As for this film, oh man, it was painful to say the least. I guess this was made for TV and created for the godforsaken Sci-fi channel. This fact alone should clue you in on the level of quality (or lack thereof) you should expect. What happened to that channel? I remember it used to be the main thing I'd watch as a kid. Oh well.

They did try to create continuity between this film and the first, but I must emphasize the try part. It doesn't matter though because the story is a fucking mess. There's something about the dumb mountain people from part one all grown up and stealing organs. Honestly, this movie doesn't even know what it's trying to say. I'm going out on a limb here and declaring that the kid that helped Ed in part one (his name was Bunt) is now the main character although that is questionable. Bunt and the other flunkies work for Pinhead, aka Doug Bradley, who plays a guy named Doc. Their stupid little scheme is something along the lines of they run a crematorium and are taking organs from the recently dead and selling them for drugs followed by dumping the bodies randomly...I guess. It seriously doesn't add up, and I highly doubt that the writers gave it any thought at all. So let me get this straight...they take organs from the dead, which would also be dead and useless, trade them for drugs, then take the time to dump the bodies rather than cremating them to hide the evidence? On top of that, the guy they give the organs to is a middleman yet we never hear jack about what he does with it and he lives out of a hotel where nobody notices him cooking meth. Ughhh. The characters themselves laugh at how stupid this scenario is at one point.

Anyway, the flunkies are caught by some random dude roaming the woods at night and try to kill him in an overly roundabout way. This leads to the stupid townspeople discovering the situation and are rightfully angry. By the way, the town doesn't look anything remotely similar to part one. Wanting revenge, a group of four summon Pumpkinhead after that dumb witch from part one realizes they mistook Ed's body as one of the dumped corpses. Big shock, the Pumpkinhead effects look like shit with horrendous CGI; they couldn't afford to do the walking typhoon effect I'm guessing. Shenanigans ensue as Pumpkinhead kills Doc's flunkies while Doc realizes that if the ones who summoned Pumpkinhead are killed it will defeat Pumpkinhead. Another stupid thing going on during all of these antics is we see the ghost of Ed taunting Bunt which is stupid since Lance Henriksen is so old-looking now. Wait, let me guess, his ghost has been aging like fine wine in hell? Blah blah blah, pretty much everyone dies but the last summoner jumps into the crematorium once again killing Pumpkinhead. The only survivors are Bunt, and some dude I could never keep track of who the hell he was, just as the least believable FBI agents show up. The witch then shows up conveniently and takes the charred body of the last summoner and uses her as the next host for Pumpkinhead. Okay, that was cool in the original but not here.

This movie sucks. It's not even opinion at this point--it's a fact. There is this horrible dubbing to the dialogue probably due to the horrifically fake country-bumpkin accents. No one can act to save their miserable life, and the emotionless line delivery is atrocious. There were also like a million characters accompanied by lots of failed background drama that no rational person would care about. The story is nonsensical with one of the most brain-dead schemes in recent memory that doesn't even appear to make money or have a goal. There are blatant plot holes and glaring continuity errors for a film trying desperately and failing to follow the original's mythos. Pumpkinhead looks like shit and hardly does anything; this is inexcusable as he's the point of the franchise. Adding to this are the laughably bad special effect moments like when Doc is seemingly blown up. Everything is horrible. Why was this made?

Notable Moment: I was going to say the best moment was when we see a few Lament Configurations lying around Doc's office, but that was greatly overshadowed by a scene of Doc flying through the air. Pitiful. Just pitiful. Besides, don't tease the audience with an idea that would have made for a better film: Pumpkinhead vs Hellraiser.

Final Rating: 3.5/10

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