The Pumpkin Karver starts one Halloween night as Lynn Starks (associate producer Amy Weber) prepares for a party, her younger brother Jonathan (Michael Zara) carves spooky faces in Pumpkins because, well, that's what he likes to do I suppose. Lynn's annoying jerk of a boyfriend Alec (David J. Wright) decides to play a Halloween prank on her & attacks her with a fake knife, Lynn is scared & calls out for help & Jonathan comes running with a very real knife of his own & stabs Alec to death. Jump forward One Year Later & Lyn & Jonathan are moving to the small town of Carver in order to forget the terrible events of a year ago, once there the first thing they do is prepare for another Halloween party with some local teens but that tragic events of a year ago still haunt Jonathan & when someone in a mask similar to what Alec wore starts killing people no-one is safe but who is it? Is it Jonathan? Is it the crazy old man? Is it the ghost of Alec? Who know's...
Co-written & directed by Robert Mann this is your typical teen slasher that happens to be set around Halloween so comparisons to John Carpenter's seminal classical Halloween (1978) may arise but the two films are very different in terms of style & tone, while nowhere near the worst teen slasher I have seen that's by no means any sort of recommendation as The Pumpkin Karver is still a pretty damned bad 90 odd minutes. The script has some silly theme about Pumpkin carvers (the whole town is called Carver & the guy who founded it is a top Pumpkin carver himself) running through it, seriously the way some of these character's go on you would think it's an Olympic sport! The plot here is fairly basic with some sort of prank going horribly wrong & someone ending up dead or seriously injured & then on the anniversary of the accident teens start getting killed off, it's very familiar teen slasher territory to be honest & The Pumpkin Karver adds nothing to the mix. The body count isn't particularly high, the murders are forgettable & the character's are all horror film clichés although the girls do look very nice I have to say. I would say that the biggest problem with The Pumpkin Karver is the confusing narrative, the ending is supposed to be a twist but it's poorly done & you never quite know whether it's going for a supernatural angle or an unstoppable undead killer one, the whole body switching twist revealed at the end could have been used more effectively that's for sure.
There's not even more gore to compensate for the lame & predictable story, a woman has her face cut with a knife, a guy is impaled on a huge drill, a guy is decapitated while taking a leak & ends up urinating on his own severed head (don't ask) & there's a bit of blood splatter but overall The Pumpkin Karver is pretty tame. There's zero nudity as well & I can't believe the makers killed off the best looking girl in the whole film so early, just another reason to dislike it I suppose. Generally speaking the film is competent & reasonably well made for what it is but there very little tension, hardly any build-up to the kills & scares are limited to people suddenly walking into shot & scaring various people who weren't expecting them. The whole film looks too bright & being set in a small desert town there's no Hollween late autumn feeling or atmosphere. The killer mask which looks like a rotten Pumpkin face is sort of cool & there's a amusing little Men in Black (1997) parody at the start but their hardly worth the effort of seeing the film for.
With a supposed budget of about $1,000,000 it's competent as I said but bring nothing new to the slasher genre & doesn't particularly make a good job of ripping-off other better films. Apparently filmed in Lancaster in California. The acting is alright, as I said the girls her are very hot looking so that helps but not enough in the end.
The Pumpkin Karver is a basic teen slasher film that can't decide if it wants a rational explanation to the twist ending or a supernatural one & in the end just feels like a mess. The fact there's hardly any kills doesn't help either.
Co-written & directed by Robert Mann this is your typical teen slasher that happens to be set around Halloween so comparisons to John Carpenter's seminal classical Halloween (1978) may arise but the two films are very different in terms of style & tone, while nowhere near the worst teen slasher I have seen that's by no means any sort of recommendation as The Pumpkin Karver is still a pretty damned bad 90 odd minutes. The script has some silly theme about Pumpkin carvers (the whole town is called Carver & the guy who founded it is a top Pumpkin carver himself) running through it, seriously the way some of these character's go on you would think it's an Olympic sport! The plot here is fairly basic with some sort of prank going horribly wrong & someone ending up dead or seriously injured & then on the anniversary of the accident teens start getting killed off, it's very familiar teen slasher territory to be honest & The Pumpkin Karver adds nothing to the mix. The body count isn't particularly high, the murders are forgettable & the character's are all horror film clichés although the girls do look very nice I have to say. I would say that the biggest problem with The Pumpkin Karver is the confusing narrative, the ending is supposed to be a twist but it's poorly done & you never quite know whether it's going for a supernatural angle or an unstoppable undead killer one, the whole body switching twist revealed at the end could have been used more effectively that's for sure.
There's not even more gore to compensate for the lame & predictable story, a woman has her face cut with a knife, a guy is impaled on a huge drill, a guy is decapitated while taking a leak & ends up urinating on his own severed head (don't ask) & there's a bit of blood splatter but overall The Pumpkin Karver is pretty tame. There's zero nudity as well & I can't believe the makers killed off the best looking girl in the whole film so early, just another reason to dislike it I suppose. Generally speaking the film is competent & reasonably well made for what it is but there very little tension, hardly any build-up to the kills & scares are limited to people suddenly walking into shot & scaring various people who weren't expecting them. The whole film looks too bright & being set in a small desert town there's no Hollween late autumn feeling or atmosphere. The killer mask which looks like a rotten Pumpkin face is sort of cool & there's a amusing little Men in Black (1997) parody at the start but their hardly worth the effort of seeing the film for.
With a supposed budget of about $1,000,000 it's competent as I said but bring nothing new to the slasher genre & doesn't particularly make a good job of ripping-off other better films. Apparently filmed in Lancaster in California. The acting is alright, as I said the girls her are very hot looking so that helps but not enough in the end.
The Pumpkin Karver is a basic teen slasher film that can't decide if it wants a rational explanation to the twist ending or a supernatural one & in the end just feels like a mess. The fact there's hardly any kills doesn't help either.