Pumpkinhead

From the awesome Movie Maniacs 2 comes one of my personal favourite figures, the almighty Pumpkinhead. Straight from the decent horror film with a silly name, this demonic beast is one of the best sculpted and articulated figures ever made, and one of the first McFarlane Toys I bought. According to the original film, Pumpkinhead is the Demon of Vengeance, brought forward from his grave to take the revenge of his summoner, to reap forth and kill at his master's will - in this case, the father of a boy whose life was tragically taken by irresponsible teenagers. The man summons Pumpkinhead, who begins killing his victims mercilessly, until he loses control of it and it starts killing at random, slowly taking on the man's form... the film is actually pretty good - the sequel, on the other hand, is easily one of the worst films ever made and belongs floating in the toilet with other poor horror sequels like Halloween 2, I Still Know What You Did Last Summer, and, of course, Bad Boys 2. Anyway, the figure Pumpkinhead is the biggest in the regular Movie Maniacs series, standing over 8" tall. He fits well into the line, alongside the other slashers, monsters and demons - others in this series include killer doll Chucky, maniacal slasher Michael Myers, teen killer Ghostface and psycho-maniac Norman Bates - and Pumpkinhead towers over all of them. His scaly, vein-like skin is well detailed, shaded and washed all over in dark brown to yellow tones. His face is painted very professionally, with excellent detail on the eyes, mouth and forehead, which looks perfect in terms of shading and shadowing. Pumpkinhead's sculpt is dead on to his film self - his huge, lumbering legs stand tall below his bony body; enormous boned shoulders stretch out to his wide arms and thick, nasty claws. His ribs are exposed against his skin, and his spine runs down to his bendable tail, which can be posed in any way. I love the demonic look on his perfectly sculpted, skull-like face - the blood in his mouth looks very realistic and blatantly creepy. Overall, Pumpkinhead is excellent in paint and sculpting - full marks to McToys. Articulation cuts the beast down a little - Pumpkinhead is articulated at the torso, legs, wrists, and also has ball joints at the shoulders. This isn't a lot of articulation for such a big figure, but it all suits him - the arms are poseable in any direction, giving him some brutal poses and some play - he can swing those huge claws to rip basically any figure, no matter how short, to pieces; his arms are over 5" long and almost reach to the ground. But it'd be better if he had elbow joints, which would make him a little more poseable. His legs don't need the poseability, since he only really stands, and the torso articulation is useful to have him face in any direction, but some neck articulation would be nice. His face seems to have been designed with the intent of having mouth articulation, but it's been removed, which is a shame. The bendy tail is nice, and it can be posed in any direction. Overall, the articulation isn't bad, but there's room for improvement. It doesn't wreck an awesome figure, though - this baby is the bomb. As far as accessories go, Pumpkinhead is almost barren. He comes with the Movie Maniacs Marquee that come with all of them, that I quite like, but I think the poster that comes with his is exceptionally cool - it's similar to the actual Pumpkinhead poster, with the tagline "A Grim Fairy Tale." at the top, and a picture of Pumpkinhead's claws about to shred a screaming girl's face above the title Pumpkinhead written in blood. It's awesome! Pumpkinhead looks excellent on display with it, although I wouldn't mind a couple more accessories (like a victim's head or torn limb or something) but as it is, he's a huge figure and another accessory would probably raise his great, cheap price. Pumpkinhead is a figure that oozes cool, especially if you're a fan of the film. He's a highly durable figure; apart from his tiny fingers being a bit fiddly, he's almost unbreakable. Despite being unsuitable for children, he's full of play, as he rips the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles limb from limb and then moves onto poor Legolas, who doesn't stand a chance. Then watch as he does a number on the original Spawn, who stands itty-bitty tiny against him! Pumpkinhead remains my favourite figure against the 200 or so I've purchased since picking him up just under 3 years ago. I definitely recommend; especially for the price of which you'll find him nowadays; since Pumpkinhead was one of the pegwarmers of the series, you should be able to find him very cheaply online or at toy stores. Why do horror sequels suck? Tell us on our message board, the Loafing Lounge.

Tweet