The appeal of the original "Pumpkinhead" (1988) was its creepy atmosphere, serious vibe, malevolent monster and the always reliable Lance Henriksen, but other than these factors it wasn't anything noteworthy. As far as overall entertainment goes, practically every Friday the 13th sequel was/is superior.

"Pumpkinhead 4: Blood Feud" (2007) is the third sequel and -- although it was shot in Romania rather than California -- it stays true to the original concept by having a similar revenge plot and features the three main characters of the original: Ed Harley (Henriksen),albeit now a ghost; the ugly, old witch; and, of course, Pumpkinhead itself. Although Henriksen is 18 years older he's just fine; the witch looks almost exactly the same; as does Pumpkinhead. Speaking of which, some complain about the appearance of Pumpkinhead, but he (it) looks great to me; I know it's probably done via CGI, unlike the original, but it works and I couldn't discern any strings, so to speak.

The unique thing here is that the story involves a modern-day take on the Hatfield/McCoy feud crossed with Romeo & Juliet, which I found interesting.

The creature is featured prominently throughout, as are Henriksen and the witch, and there's loads of gore, but I didn't find the story or the characters all that compelling. It's not bad, but it's not good either; it's somewhere in between. The story needed more drawing power. Still, it's a decent sequel.

GRADE: C

Pumpkinhead was in itself a decent 80s horror flick. No classic by any means, but an enjoyable piece of fluff. Why then, have we now been treated to a fourth film in this franchise is beyond me. As in previous sequels, there's nothing here to really connect the films except for the monster, the witch and Ed Harley (Lance Henriksen). This time out we follow the feud between the Hatfields and the McCoys. Part of the film is a Romeo And Juliet romance as a young McCoy boy and his Hatfield lover decide to run away to be together. Soon, however, they are torn apart and the boy's sister is killed. The boy escapes to the woods and gets the witch to resurrect Pumpkinhead for some vengeance. The acting is passable at best, amateurish at the worst. The titular demon doesn't even really show up for almost forty minutes and when it does its a pale comparison between it and the original design. Overall, Blood Feud fails to impress. It may be worth a watch once, but certainly not an addition to the collection.

Pumpkinhead, the name alone sends fond memories of the late 80's early 90's when there was still a few good horror movies coming out. Then we got into the Scream era and things got real schlocky. Things we are still trying to recover from as horror fans but anyway that is another issue. The original Pumpkinhad though not a great film still managed to put one of the wildest monsters ever created on the silver screen and though the movie was marginal the monster alone saved it from mediocrity.

In comes this the 4th installment to the Pumpkinhead series, Blood Feud. while part one was decent 2 and 3 were not so fortunate and with the 4th I really questioned if anyone could at least make a mediocre monster flick with ol' PH in it. At its onset we start with some killing and Pumpkinhead which is always a good thing if you ask me, then we get to the opening portions of the "story". We begin with a wedding celebration that gets ruined by a feuding family, sounds like the Hatfields and McCoys right well the cheesy thing is IT IS!!!! For some reason of shear lunacy the writer, director and all involved agreed to give the feuding families these names. Once I hears that I began to laugh at how corny and cheesy that is, let alone totally unoriginal. Well after an accidental death and someone calling up Pumpkinhead for revenge we get back to some killing which does happen frequently especially toward the end. It is this reason that I can say that saves Pumpkinhead: Blood Feud and makes for one of the more entertaining Sci-Fi Channel movies I have seen.

One thing that Sci-Fi for the most part has been liberal with is the gore and they did a nice job here, from bear trap head crushing to Human head stomping there are some nice gruel being thrown around here, not to mention Lance Henriksen reprising his roll of Ed Harley, as a tortured spirit who tried to warn others of the true cost of summoning the demon. Also the last 20 minutes we get a final stand of sorts that has a nice body count by the time it ends.

Though P:BF will not earn points for originality and that crappy decision to name the families Hatfield and Mc Coy I was entertained by this one. The CGI is kept to a minimum and I would have liked to have seen it none at all but compared to the previous installment they did do a lot better job of sidestepping the CGI and only using it in the dark sequences. Old school monster fans will like that this one for about 90% of the time is all man in suit style effects which again saves it from another damaging mark I have against Sci-Fi Channel movies, Crappy CGI.

In the end if you want a monster film with a better than average body count and you can forgive the movie for its shortcomings I would say give this one a shot. The monster FX are handled well and the kill scenes were rather nice. I give Pumpkinhead: Blood Feud: 5/10: a middle of the road example of monster action which is better than I was expecting. Monster Fans give it a shot you may very well enjoy this more than you thought you would.