The 1988 Horror Film PUMPKINHEAD Is Getting a Remake
Saw franchise producer Peter Block has picked up the rights to the 1988 horror film Pumpkinhead, and he plans on rebooting the horror franchise. According to EW, he’s currently on the hunt for a director to take on the project, which he is planning as a theatrical release.
The original film was directed by the great Stan Winston and starred Aliens actor Lance Henriksen, and I thought the original film was a great and fun horror flick. The story centers on a man who summons a terrifying demon called Pumpkinhead to destroy the teenagers who killed the man’s son in a tragic accident.
In regards to the film project, Block told the outlet:
“Pumpkinhead is one of my favorite horror films of the late ’80s, early ’90s. Stan Winston sits on that Mount Rushmore of iconic filmmakers because of his creature designs, and that was his first directing effort. The creature’s great but the emotional story is wonderful as well. I got the rights to Pumpkinhead, and hooked up with a great young writer called Nate Atkins, and we developed our script, which is really solid.”
Block went on to talk about his plans for the film, explaining that it will have a similar theme and story, but it won’t be a point-by-point remake:
“There is a similarity of theme and a similarity of story. There’s a lot of Easter eggs for people who know the original — iconic shots and iconic lines that we’re going to use. But we’ve enhanced the setting, and we’ve expanded the characters somewhat, to give it a different kind of experience.”
The producer said that he hopes to start shooting next year and talked about the kind of director they are currently looking to hire:
“[We need] somebody who really understands why the first one is terrific, the emotional beats of ‘Is the revenge you seek worse than whatever befell you in the first place?’ But it’s also somebody that wants to embrace what I think audiences really want these days — a really scary, fun thrill-ride. You get a lot of people who want to be in this genre because they see the commercial opportunities. I’m looking for a director who has a love for the genre and knows how to get those beats for the audience.”
One of the things that I love about the original film were the creepy effects. Back then they didn’t have CG effects to create monsters, it was all done practically, and Block is looking to honor that in the remake:
“I am a big proponent of practical effects. That was the great thing about the original. A lot of the films I still respond to most today, it’s because of the practical effects. We think that it’s going to be a nice slow reveal, lots of scares and lots of action in the beginning, and a great creature in the end, which everybody should be able to look at and say, ‘Oh, that’s Pumpkinhead!’ It’s not like you’re all of a sudden going to find that it’s some amorphous, nebulous, CGI wispy thing. You’re going to know it came from the Pumpkinhead family lineage.”
He seems to have a solid grasp on what he wants to do with this movie, and I hope it turns out to be a decent remake.