Pumpkinhead Remake On Its Way
The folks over at EW have some interesting new this week. It looks like we are about to get a Pumpkinhead remake thanks to Saw franchise executive producer Peter Block. Block has acquired the rights to the Pumpkinhead franchise and plans on shooting a reboot of the horror series in 2017.
“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.”
I’m not a bif fan of people hyping projects based on their producer alone, and Block in not exactly a household name, but he certainly seems to appreciate the series, and is looking for a director who knows the films well.
“[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.”
The good news is that Block is a huge fan of practical effects and wants to use them as much as possible. So no fear of a CGI monstrosity, which is a relief to be sure.
“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.”
The original film was the directorial debut of practical effects visionary Stan Winston (Predator, The Thing, Jurassic Park) and starred Lance Henriksen in a breakout role. Pumpkinhead was followed by several sequeals and is still loved the world over.
Ive chucked the trailer of the original below, something to get your teeth into, whilst we await more news.