JACK-O
A film review by Andrew Hicks
Copyright 1996 Andrew Hicks / Fatboy Productions
1/2
When I rented PUMPKINHEAD a few years back, I was hoping for a slasher movie where a killer monster with a jack- o-lantern for a head decapitates people. I got it with JACK-O (as in "Lantern"), but the movie was just as bad as PUMPKINHEAD. I knew it would be bad, but there are different degrees of bad. Some bad movies you can laugh at and crack a lot of jokes about; others are so bad you can't even find humor in the awfulness. JACK-O falls into the latter category.
It looks promising on the box, where a menacing pumpkinhead wields a scythe and the subtitle promises "It's harvest time!" There's even a stupid little poem on the back about how Jack-O's gonna get you, but after watching the movie you realize the poem should have read, "This movie sucks and that's no lie; Talent was the first thing to die. Decapitations and cheap boob shots abound; And the acting is better if you turn off the sound."
Standard horror plot: A bunch of horny kids go into the woods and pull the cross out of Jack-O's grave. The pumpkin monster arises from his grave and slits throats, cuts off heads and picks up women with his scythe, hurling them across the woods. Then he heads off to town on (of course) Halloween night, where he kills a grumpy old man who refused to give candy to trick or treaters, then goes after the descendants of the family who originally buried him.
Before too long, a Wiccan witch realizes what's going on and leads Jack-O back into the woods, with the usual mumbo-jumbo spells and stakes-through-the-heart crap. But the door is left open for a sequel, one the direct-to-video market will surely produce with the title JACK-O 2: HE'S BACK-O! I should probably stop now before I give the producers too many more ideas. Just one suggestion to elevate the sequel to the level of laughably bad instead of just bad -- Next time make Jack-O talk. That way, before he slays his first victim, he can ask, "Orange you glad to see me?"
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The PUMPKINHEAD Review (written Halloween 1993)
"There are bad horror movies, then there are BAD HORROR MOVIES! PUMPKINHEAD gets the all-caps distinction. While the name itself might suggest a giant jack- o-lantern that eats unsuspecting trick-or-treaters, we aren't that lucky. Pumpkinhead is some sort of demon or something that you can invoke and sic on people who have done very bad things like murder or directing bad horror movies. "So, unless you are in the mood for something completely devoid of any entertaining value, I strongly recommend staying farther than a pumpkin's throw away from this movie."
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