‘Pumpkinhead’: 10 Things You May Not Know

Pumpkinhead‘s origins begin with a horrifying poem written by poet Ed Justin. Tailor-made to inspire a horror film, the poem is incredibly eerie, concluding with, “Bolted doors and windows barred, guard dogs prowling in the yard, won’t protect you in your bed, nothing will, from Pumpkinhead!”

The poem has also served as inspiration for the Misfits’ song, “Pumpkinhead.”

Considering the source material, Pumpkinhead is a natural name for the movie. Still, the film was originally titled with this bizarre name: Vengeance: The Demon. Fortunately, the name didn’t stick, leading to United Artists renaming the film with the title we all know and love. Pumpkinhead might be a peculiar name, but it’s certainly not as goofy as Vengeance: The Demon.

Do you recognize the little dog named Gypsy in Pumpkinhead? You should. This is actually canine actor Mushroom, who previously appeared in Gremlins as Billy’s dog, Barney. These are Mushroom’s only two on-screen roles, but they’re both really good ones!

These days, Mayim Bialik is very rich and famous, largely due to her role on the popular sitcom series The Big Bang Theory. Her roots are in the horror genre, however, as the first acting role for the future star came in the classic horror film Pumpkinhead.

In the movie, Bialik plays Christine Wallace, a young girl whose family meets a group of teens at Ed Harley’s grocery store at the beginning of the film. Noticing how one of them is carrying a camera, Bialik’s character has her photo taken after asking what it is. She can then be seen taunting her little brother, along with their other siblings, about the legend of Pumpkinhead.

If you’re a big fan of the Friday the 13th films, the cabin the teenagers stay at in Pumpkinhead should look incredibly familiar. In fact, it’s very same home used as the Jarvis house in The Final Chapter. An iconic franchise location, the Jarvis house was even adapted with incredible detail for Friday the 13th: The Game.

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In reality, the cabin is located at Kelly Gulch in Topanga, California. The beautiful building has been used in many other movies as well, including Eraser, My Girl 2, and Ed Gein. It can also be seen in many TV shows, such as Parks and Recreation, Entourage, and This Is Us.

It might not have obliterated the box office at the time, but horror fans took a shine to Pumpkinhead and made it a cult favorite. In 1994, the film would receive the direct-to-video sequel, Pumpkinhead II: Blood Wings, from director Jeff Burr. The film has little in common with the original and doesn’t have any returning actors reprising their roles.

However, two made-for-TV sequels were released by Syfy in 2006 and 2007. Subtitled Ashes to Ashes and Blood Feud, both films feature the return of Lance Henriksen as the spirit of Ed Harley. However, Henriksen is embarrassed about his involvement in the movies, bluntly saying in an interview with Yahoo! Movies that the films “were so shitty.” Henriksen further revealed that he once was supposed to do a Q&A at a movie theater after a showing of one of the sequels but literally snuck out by crawling on his hands and knees because he couldn’t bare to face the audience.

Pumpkinhead II: Blood Wings, like the later sequels, doesn’t quite get the same admiration from horror fans as the original movie. Still, it was thanks to this movie that the franchise was able to get its one and only official video game. Called Bloodwings: Pumpkinhead’s Revenge, the computer game was released for DOS in 1995.

Like the movie, the tie-in game was met with poor reception, and hardly any copies of it sold. The adventure game is a first-person shooter, with players entering Pumpkinhead’s dungeon in their quest to put the mythical creature’s spirit to rest. Portions of the game require interacting with Full Motion Video sequences of clips from the second movie, and you can see it in action on YouTube.

While Lance Henriksen regrets coming back for the Syfy sequels, the actor remains proud of his work in the original Pumpkinhead. However, he was initially unsure about accepting the role when he first got the script, confused by its quirky title. Flipping through its pages, Henriksen was then sold after being unnerved by the scene where Ed hallucinates his dead son speaking to him.

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“And then I got to that scene — when my son is dead, and I’m on a country road, and he sits up and says, “What have you done, Daddy? What have you done?” — and it made the hair on the back of my neck stand up,” Henriksen explains. “It made me do the movie, that one scene.”

Over the course of the movie, Pumpkinhead’s appearance gradually changes as it claims the souls of its victims. Closer to the end of the film, the creature’s face begins to look a little less like a monster and much more human.

If you look closely, you’ll see that Pumpkinhead particularly starts to look like Ed Harley, the man responsible for its resurrection. This is because Lance Henriksen’s facial features were actually used as the basis for the monster’s design.

We’ve spoken about the three sequels given to Pumpkinhead, as well as the tie-in video game. The mythical creature has appeared in several comic books as well. Still, despite its maintained status as a cult favorite, Pumpkinhead was able to somehow avoid the horror reboot trend for all these years and is one of the very few franchises to do so.

It’s not for a lack of trying, however. In 2016, Saw executive producer Peter Block was reportedly spearheading a modern reboot of Pumpkinhead with S. Darko scribe Nate Atkins penning the script. The plan was to begin shooting in 2017, but as of late 2018, progress still hasn’t been made on the project. With two years having passed since the last update on the film, the reboot now currently resides in development hell, and it’s unclear if we’ll ever see it happen.