Pumpkinhead 4: Blood Feud (2007)
- written April 2007
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Summary: Jodie and Ricky love each other but their families just don’t approve of this. Of course when your families names are “Hatfields” and “McCoy’s” then that makes things all the more interesting. When Ricky McCoy’s sister gets hurt by the Hatfield clan while trying to be a lookout for their burdening love...Ricky calls on Pumpkinhead to take revenge. Everyone but Jodie is targeted...but soon both families realize that Pumpkinhead will get anyone in it’s path regardless of who they are and soon the feud will break out into an all-out war!
Overall: Although I saw no reason for a 4th pumpkinhead movie...I might have bought this film…if not for one thing…the “feud.” Ok, seriously. Hatfields vs. The McCoy’s. Has no one over there any originality? Any imagination? The film is basically written via the history books with some supernatural being thrown in to justify the carnage. But it’s the same damn story. And that’s just pathetic. But since ya’ll come to my website for something different, I figured you deserved a true summary of what really happened way back when. McCoy’s and Hatfields lived on opposite sides of the Tug River separating Kentucky and West Virginia. Bottom line, the Civil War starts up in 1860’s, each side ended up on opposite sides of the war. War ends but the families are intermarried and also a bit bitter about who picked which side. Then as time goes on, the feud starts to simmer...picking up with a court battle over who owns which piece of land (when a stray hog goes a’ wandering). It so happens the judge happens to a member of the winning side’s family...and soon enough people start to die off. The Governors of each state both send in militia...the militia men end up dead and the National Guard is needed to restore order. A Couple trials and convictions later, peace is restored and the families have been at peace for 100 years at this point! My abbreviated version did leave out that there was a particular romance between a girl and a boy of opposite families that all was part of the feud, especially when the Hatfield boy ended up marrying a McCoy cousin of his original fiancée... Anyway, the film basically replicates part of the romancy part to give us our feud...what gets me though is that the film’s writers were so lazy and incompetent that they basically are using the viewers knowledge (or lack thereof) to fill in for the fact they have more than a few plot holes and slow parts. I’d have respected the writers a bit more if they at least changed the names and made an effort to be moderately original. If you can’t do any better than copy an idea that has been previously done by Abbott & Costello (among others), then go back to writing school and return your degree and apologize for wasting their time!!! Oh and we have 3 movies now basically in the exact same area (parts 1, 3 & 4)...and assuming this is the same monster, the same witch, the same Ed Harley (which they are)...then how come no prior films included any Hatfield/McCoy names before? In fact the first film was quite modern in it’s look for cars, the town, etc. and this family everything looks 19th century? Does anyone care about continuity? Comparison: None |
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