Virtually everything about director Jeff Burr's creature-feature "Pumpkinhead 2: Blood Wings" is abysmal aside from some of its cast. This uninspired straight-to-video sequel generates only a tenth of the atmosphere of its predecessor. Furthermore, the production design and set decoration are far more superficial, and the creature looks like a big rubber monster. Indeed, a man stomps around in that monster suit. Anybody who loved the original will have a tough time tangling with this exercise in tedium. Andy Robinson, Steve Kanaly, Gloria Hendry, Hill Harper, and Joe Unger deliver solid performances, while the remainder of the cast is strictly amateurish. The slipshod screenplay by Constantine Chachornia and Ivan Chachornia unfolds with a rural black & white sequence set in the 1950s. A bunch of despicable, well-to-do teens wearing jackets with a Red Wings logo on the back slash up a harmless deformed kid and dump him into a bottomless well. This scene sets up the half-baked monster melodrama/police procedural that occurs some twenty years later. Afterward, the action shifts to the present day as a former NYPD cop, Sean Braddock (Andrew Robinson of "Hellraiser"), relocates his wife and wayward daughter Jenny (Ami Dolenz) to his old hometown. Jenny falls in with the wrong crowd of low-lifers led by the mayor's son, Danny Dixon (J. Trevor Edmond), who skip school openly, smoke dope, and get drunk. Naturally, Sheriff Braddock doesn't approve of Jenny's new friends or their miscreant behavior. Several murders take place after a carload of kids smash into a blind woman and later burn her up at her spooky residence. The idiotic kids resurrect Pumpkinhead, and monster attacks six of the obnoxious characters from the 1950s. Ultimately, another group of rednecks catch Pumpkinhead in a cross-fire and kill him. The creature's point-of-view shots are good, but little else merits mention except Gloria Hendry who is cast as a medical technician. Jeff Burr has acknowledged the many shortcomings of the film, and he has made better movies like "Stepfather 2" and "Straight into Darkness." Don't waste your time on this offal unless you want to get first-hand advice from Burr on his director's commentary track.
Review of Pumpkinhead II: Blood Wings
