We’ve been hearing rumblings of a reboot or remake of director Stan Winston’s 1988 classic Pumpkinhead (watch it HERE) for a long time, going back to at least 2016, when Saw franchise executive producer Peter Block acquired the rights and hired Nate Atkins (A Christmas Prince) to write the script, with plans for filming to begin in 2017. Obviously that didn’t happen. In late 2019, Block said there would be “exciting news” coming soon… and we’ve been waiting for two years. Now our friends over at Bloody Disgusting are reporting that a Pumpkinhead remake is in the works at Paramount Players, a productionof Paramount Pictures.
According to Bloody Disgusting, the script for the remake has already been written and we should be hearing director news “in the coming months”.
Inspired by an Ed Justin poem, Stan Winston crafted the story for the original Pumpkinhead with Mark Patrick Carducci and Richard C. Weinman. Carducci then received screenplay credit on the film, along with Gary Gerani. Starring Lance Henriksen, Jeff East, Joel Hoffman, and Kerry Remsen, the film is described as “a terrifying parable of revenge and possession”.
The synopsis:
When a group of teenagers inadvertently kill his only son, Ed Harley (Henriksen) seeks the powers of a backwoods witch to bring the child back to life. But instead, she invokes “Pumpkinhead” – a monstrously clawed demon which, once reborn, answers only to Ed’s bloodlust. But as the creature wreaks its slow, unspeakable tortures on the teens, Ed confronts a horrifying secret about his connection to the beast – and realizes that he must find a way to stop its deadly mission before he becomes one with the creature forever.
Pumpkinhead is a very cool creature that hasn’t had as much screen time as it deserves, so I’ll gladly give a new Pumpkinhead movie a chance if Paramount Players gets it rolling.