Director: Justin Harding
Year: 2024
Country: USA
Alternate Titles: N/A
Genre: Creature Feature Slasher
Plot:
Preparing for an annual tradition, the festivities of a local Halloween festival are turned into chaos when a mutated pumpkin springs to life and strikes out at the gatherers with the intent of going after those who desecrate pumpkins forcing several survivors to stop the creature.
Review:
This was a fantastic offering that has a lot to like about it. One of the strongest features of this one is the immensely effective setup that allows for a serviceable story to be told throughout here. The main gist of this is the influence of the tradition in the community and how it sets everything in motion as the initial celebrations trying to get over the local accident before the film starts that hangs over the intention behind everything which is seen in how they treat mentions of it. As it goes through the various introduction scenes about the town’s celebrations and how they’re getting prepared for everything about the special festival it also brings about several bits about the different characters being involved in their personal issues around town or wanting to leave it. This all comes together, along with the creation of the killer pumpkin as a result of the chemical spill which gives that a strong connection as well, to give the story a strong general starting point.
That brings up the fantastic series of actions depicting the pumpkins’ rampage across the festival. The resurrection sequence in the middle of the carving ceremony where its spouts come to life and attack the others around it in graphic fashion before turning to the onlookers fleeing which enables them to get taken out as the few survivors scramble to safety makes this an immensely fun start to things. The behavior and powers of the pumpkin are kept in fine order throughout as the animalistic instincts hunting them down, setting up traps, and striking others when they least expect it bring about some fun encounters here as it takes over the farmhouse and stalks the group into the adjacent rooms making for a couple of great deaths along the way.
The final half where the few remaining survivors try to get away from the creature and hatch an escape plan has quite a lot to like as well. Putting a complicated and effectively ingenious plan together, the idea of what transpires here is quite good, using the tools at their disposal and the animalistic behavior to lure it around the festival grounds for a genuinely suspenseful sequence that brings about some frantic scenes putting it into practice while letting the series of escape attempts and combat practices to get foiled in clever means as well as bringing about some creative practical deaths with the appearance of the practical pumpkin. This is a bit too long with the escape plan taking up a long stretch of film without much in the way of deaths to help spice up the action, but it’s the main flaw to be had with this one.
Overview: *****/5
An incredibly effective and likable genre effort, there’s quite a lot to enjoy with this one as the few issues don’t mean much in the long run leaving it a spectacular effort overall. Give this a shot if you’re intrigued by this style of genre effort, are curious about it, or don’t mind the issues all that much while those turned off by those factors are the only ones that won’t enjoy this one.
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