The Pumpkin Karver (2006)

Directed by Robert Mann [Other horror films: R BnB (2023)]

I’ve known about The Pumpkin Karver for a long time, and in fact, way back in 2009, I made a list of about 150 or so horror films I wanted to see. That list has grown to 529 at the time of this writing, but the point of this is that from the beginning, The Pumpkin Karver was on that list.

I don’t really know why. If I had to guess, I heard it was a Halloween-themed slasher, and that was all it took to create interest for me. I doubt I heard much more about it, and really, aside from seeing a consistently low rating on IMDb (right now, on March 29th, 2022, it holds a 3.3/10 with 1,546 votes), I’ve not heard much about it since.

Honestly, though, after seeing it, I can see why.

This movie is rather poor. Sure, the budget is low, but the bigger issue is that the script is rather horrible, and the story doesn’t really make a lot of sense, at least not to me. That ending was absolute shit, also, which didn’t help. Even worse than the poor plot, though, is the fact it’s often boring. The film follows a group of teens as they party, and it’s not until half-way through the film that things really pick up, and I use ‘pick up’ loosely.

A few of the kills are okay, and by a few, I mean two. There’s a decapitation, which was simple, but always effective, and far more memorable was someone who was forced into a drillbit, which impaled the individual and revealed their organs for the world to see. It was really the only gore in the film, and it didn’t actually look that bad, so minor kudos for that.

And speaking of kudos, while most of the cast is rather unspectacular, I sort of dug Michael Zara as the lead. He had that quiet, brooding vibe you’d expect from John Shepherd’s Tommy from A New Beginning. It wasn’t great, but it was tolerable. Minka Kelly (who later played Dawn Granger, or Dove, in Titans) was pretty cute here, and one of the few characters who actually seemed okay.

Amy Weber (Dangerous Seductress) starts off pretty horribly, at least as far as her character goes, but doesn’t turn out half-bad come the end. Playing two utterly intoxicated fellas, David Phillips and Alex Weed were incredibly annoying most of the time, but they did provide some amusement in an otherwise dragging film. Oh, and Terrence Evans was overly silly, and while some of his dialogue was amusing, it didn’t do much to endear me to him.

Overall, The Pumpkin Karver is pretty awful, it’s biggest sin being that it’s dull. It’s a lower-budget slasher, so if you’re into that type of thing, it might be worth checking out if you can catch it free, but I really don’t think it’s worth it, and it didn’t do much for me at all, if truth be told. In the right mind-set, though, I suppose it could be fun.

4/10