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PUMPKINHEAD Will Be Rebooted!

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Stan Winston's 1988 Horror Classic PUMPKINHEAD is a film in the category of they don't make 'em like that anymore. It managed to pull all of the components together. It had a creepy environment, an awesome villain, and a slew of amazingly cruel kills.

EW is reporting that PUMPKINHEAD will be receiving the reboot treatment very soon. SAW executive producer Peter Block has acquired the rights to the franchise and will be producing the new movie. The plan is for filming to begin in 2017 with the intention of having a theatrical release.

Block promises a "different experience” for the reboot as he tells EW:

“Pumpkinhead is one of my favorite horror films of the late ’80s, early ’90s. Stan Winston sits on that Mount Rushmore of iconic filmmakers because of his creature designs, and that was his first directing effort. The creature’s great but the emotional story is wonderful as well. I got the rights to Pumpkinhead, and hooked up with a great young writer called Nate Atkins, and we developed our script, which is really solid.”

He adds:

“There is a similarity of theme and a similarity of story. A lot of Easter eggs for people who know the original — iconic shots and iconic lines that we’re going to use. But we’ve enhanced the setting, and we’ve expanded the characters somewhat, to give it a different kind of experience.”

On the plan to use practical effects:

“I am a big proponent of practical effects. That was the great thing about the original. A lot of the films I still respond to most today, it’s because of the practical effects. We think that it’s going to be a nice slow reveal, lots of scares and lots of action in the beginning, and a great creature in the end, which everybody should be able to look at and say, ‘Oh, that’s Pumpkinhead!’ It’s not like you’re all of a sudden going to find that it’s some amorphous, nebulous, CGI wispy thing. You’re going to know it came from the Pumpkinhead family lineage.”

As of now there has been no director selected, but Block is currently on the hunt for one saying:

“[We need] somebody who really understands why the first one is terrific, the emotional beats of ‘Is the revenge you seek worse than whatever befell you in the first place?’ But it’s also somebody that wants to embrace what I think audiences really want these days — a really scary, fun thrill-ride. You get a lot of people who want to be in this genre because they see the commercial opportunities. I’m looking for a director who has a love for the genre and knows how to get those beats for the audience.”

The original PUMPKINHEAD was directed by makeup effects legend Stan Winston. It told the story of a man who summons Pumpkinhead to wreak vengeance on the teenagers responsible for his death of his son. The flick developed a major cult following over the years and managed to have one straight to video sequel, PUMPKINHEAD II: BLOOD WINGS. There was also the release of the Syfy channel movies PUMPKINHEAD: ASHES TO ASHES, as well as PUMPKINHEAD: BLOOD FUED.

We will continue to bring you more on this story as it unfolds.