pumpktoberfest #20 - la tête de citrouille.

film: pumpkinhead
beer: shipyard pumpkinhead ale

they sure don't make horror movies like they used to. these days, they're all about gore gore gore but back in my day, horror movies were chock full of ridiculous killers & creatures who preyed on teens. perfect example: the 1988 film pumpkinhead. it's the directorial debut from stan winston, who's better known as a special effects expert. dude's been nominated for TEN academy awards for his work, winning for aliens, terminator 2: judgement day & jurassic park. pumpkinhead stars lance henriksen, who's acted in a ton of notable sci-fi & horror films over the years (close encounters, the terminator, aliens), as ed harley, a storekeeper who lives with his son & their dog in a cabin in the backwoods. it also features a bunch of teens who basically went on to do nothing spectacular with their acting careers.

the story: as a young boy, ed harley witnessed a man being chased down & killed by pumpkinhead, a demon who's become the local boogeyman. as an adult, he & his son billy live alone & have a heartwarming father-son relationship. one day a group of city kids who've come out to the country to ride their dirt bikes & chill out stop at his store on the way up to their cabin retreat. when ed leaves his son alone at the store for a moment while he runs out to make a local delivery, the boy ignores his father's advice to stay put, chases his dog outside of the store & gets hit by one of the teens' dirt bikes. one of the teens stays behind with the boy, but the rest of them take off. when ed returns & finds his son's body, he's wicked pissed.

his reaction? he goes to the local witch & while she's not able to resurrect billy, after he tells her that he saw pumpkinhead kill a man as a kid, she decides to help him get revenge on the teens by conjuring up pumpkinhead. she warns him that doing so will have grave consequences though, but she doesn't say what those consequences will be. he finds out soon enough, as pumpkinhead starts enacting revenge on the teens & ed starts having crippling visions of the teens' deaths, visions that get more & more crippling as time goes on. he asks the witch to call the whole thing off & send pumpkinhead back to where he came from but as you might expect, when you conjure up an evil demon, it's not all that easy to get rid of it. as such, the killing continues & things get worse for both ed & the teens.

while it's not the greatest horror movie ever made, it's definitely better than a lot of the blood-splattering horror schlock that's out there these days. sure pumpkinhead has its faults (like the fact that you can see that pumpkinhead is totally wearing nikes in one scene), but it's a great example of 80's horror & over the years, its become quite the cult classic. it was followed by three more pumpkinhead movies, but one went straight to video & the other two went straight to tv, so they're not as awesome. to be honest, i wouldn't even bother with them.

of course, nothing goes better with pumpkinhead than a bottle of shipyard pumpkinhead ale, brewed by portland, maine's shipyard brewery. shipyard's pumpkinhead character is more of a headless horseman than an evil, teen-killing demon, but that's cool. i'm a fan of their beers & covered their pumpkinhead ale in the inaugural edition of last year's pumpktoberfest. i'd yet to watch pumpkinhead at the time though, so i paired the beer with maximum overdrive, a sweet horror film by long time maine resident stephen king. shipyard's been brewing the pumpkinhead ale since back in 2002 & like most pumpkin beers, it's a seasonal beer, one that's only available in september & october.

although my pumpkin beer palette has definitely expanded over the past year, my thoughts on the shipyard pumpkinhead have not. it's a pale orange ale that's flavored with "hints of pumpkin, cinnamon and nutmeg aromas and flavors" & when they say "hints," they mean hints. both the pumpkin and the spices are barely noticeable. it's not a bad beer but it's extremely light & as a pumpkin beer it's rather boring, so if you're looking for a good pumpkin beer from shipyard, go for their shipyard smashed pumpkin. it's ridiculously flavorful & last pumpktoberfest it earned my rating of "seven thumbs up." as for the pumpkinhead ale, it only gets a paltry "one pinky up."