Pumpkinhead II: Blood Wings (1993)

Pumpkinhead II: Blood Wings is the 1993 direct-to-video sequel to the 1988 horror film Pumpkinhead. In this movie, thrill-seeking teens resurrect the demon Pumpkinhead and come to regret it. The movie is barely related to others in the series. A PC game by the name of Bloodwings: Pumpkinhead's Revenge was released shortly after the movie.

Plot
In 1958 in Ferren Woods, a small backwater town, an old blind witch, Ms. Osie, feeds a deformed orphan named Tommy; he is the offspring of Pumpkinhead. As Tommy eats, a car of six teens pull up and notice him. Convinced that he is some demonic monster, they chase him with switchblade knives and baseball bats; eventually, they corner him at an old iron mine, where they bludgeon him and drop him down into the mine, killing him.

35 years later, Sheriff Sean Braddock, his wife, and his daughter Jenny have come into town. Sean grew up in Ferren Woods and returned when offered a job as the local sheriff. At school, Jenny meets a group of wild kids, one of whom is Daniel "Danny" Dixon, whose dad, (who was one of the teens who had taken part in Tommy's murder 35 years ago), is the town judge. The teens sneak off one night and pilfer Sean's car. Danny inadvertently hits Ms. Osie, and when they go to her cabin to check on her, they find a spellbook and vials of blood, which she is planning to resurrect Tommy. After Ms. Osie catches them, she orders them out. Danny knocks her down and escapes with a vial of blood.

Danny and his friends attempt to resurrect Tommy's corpse. Jenny notices Ms. Osie's cabin on fire and Danny and his friends flee. Ms. Osie is badly burnt and ends up in the hospital. Unbeknownst to Danny and his friends, the spell they'd attempted worked, resurrecting Tommy in the form of Pumpkinhead. Soon, Judge Dixon's friends begin to meet grisly deaths. Jenny's father investigates and begins to come to terms with the fact that Tommy is responsible for the murders. Ms. Osie dies, but not before revealing to Sean some clues. Sean discovers the connection between the victims and Pumpkinhead, realizing that the judge is next.

Judge Dixon calls his posse to assist him in killing whatever is murdering his friends. Before they can arrive however, Pumpkinhead brutally murders Judge Dixon. Now that Tommy has avenged his own death, he begins going after Danny and his friends (for fleeing instead of helping Ms. Osie). Sean and the town doctor go into the woods to find Jenny. By this time, Pumpkinhead (Tommy) has murdered Danny and his 3 friends. He then chases Jenny to the iron mine. Since Sean had saved his life years earlier as a boy, and because Jenny was innocent of hurting Ms. Osie, Tommy allows Jenny to step down to her father safe and sound. However, the judge's posse arrives and shoots Tommy back into the mine, where he had died 35 years earlier.

Cast

 * Andrew Robinson as Sean Braddock
 * Ami Dolenz as Jenny Braddock
 * Soleil Moon Frye as Marcie
 * J. Trevor Edmond as Danny Dixon
 * Hill Harper as Peter
 * Alexander Polinsky as Paul
 * Mark McCracken as Pumpkinhead
 * Steve Kanaly as Judge Dixon
 * Gloria Hendry as Delilah Pettibone
 * Lilyan Chauvin as Miss Osie
 * Caren Kaye as Beth Braddock
 * Jean-Paul Manoux as Tommy
 * Roger Clinton, Jr. as Mayor Bubba
 * Joe Unger as Ernst
 * Linnea Quigley as Nadine
 * Kane Hodder as Keith Knox

Production
According to director Jeff Burr on the film's audio commentary, a few seconds of footage was trimmed in order to avoid an NC-17, mainly from the scene where Pumpkinhead claws a farmer to death and the monster's own death at the end of the film.

The film was shot at Sable Ranch in Santa Clarita in a 20 Day schedule. The line producer was Michael Mandaville. The first assistant director was Jack Breschard. The witch's house was built and burned on Sable Ranch, requiring permission from the State of California to selectively trim old protected Oak trees.

Actress Soleil Moon Frye would occasionally show up with muffins that she baked to give the crew.

Reception
Scott Weinberg of DVD Talk rated it 3/5 stars and wrote that the sequel "holds up pretty darn well". David Johnson of DVD Verdict called it a "fairly entertaining" sequel that doesn't take itself seriously.

Game
A video game adaptation, Bloodwings: Pumpkinhead's Revenge, was released for DOS in 1995. The game sold poorly at the time of its release and received little attention. The game is a first-person shooter and includes several video clips taken from Pumpkinhead II.

The game earned notoriety when it was reviewed on The Spoony Experiment where it was covered by host critic Noah Antwiler. Going into the game, Antwiler had no sort of in-game instructions and was unable to advance in the game. Desperate to find some answers or explanations for the game, Antwiler went as far as to watch the first two Pumpkinhead films, however, the game had nothing to do with either film. Antwiler then did research online, but, at the time, Bloodwings: Pumpkinhead's Revenge was hardly covered by any publication (there was no mention of it on the Wikipedia article covering the film, which itself was a mere 2-3 sentences). Antwiler, in the end, only recovered a short text review, some brief footage on YouTube, and a few websites that had an image of the back of the box. Eventually he bought another copy of the game which had the instruction manual, but it didn't help much and eventually Anwiler's character, Spoony, ends the review by going into an unbridled, screaming rage. Since the review, the game has become notorious for its cryptic nature as it gives the player no in-game instructions on how to play or what the player's objectives are.

The player controls a keeper of lost souls who is sent into the spirit world to do battle with Pumpkinhead. In the first level the player travels through portals to the real world (watching clips from the movie) and collecting items from the video clips. The player then collects five glyphs- one of which must be given to the "gatekeeper" to progress. The player must then watch more movie clips depicting the deaths of characters and use a voodoo doll to keep Pumpkinhead from killing Jenny or Jane. Saving any other characters results in losing. The player then travels to Pumpkinhead's lair, where they must give Pumpkinhead his favorite childhood toy to quell his soul. The ending depicts Pumpkinhead dancing to music. Alternatively the player may fight Pumpkinhead and defeat him with physical force; this results in a bad ending where Pumpkinhead flips off the player.