Well, the dark and eerie atmosphere of Stan Winston's monster/revenge horror blast is long gone. Director Jeff Burr (Leatherface: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre III) takes a once intimidating Alien-esquire looking demon and tosses him under some really bad lighting in outdoor nighttime settings, giving him away way too much; making him look so damn rubbery and corny that The Gil-less Man from The Creature Walks Among Us would laugh his a** off ... for days. The bleakness is gone. The feeling of Unstoppable carnage and revenge that emenates in the first film is made into a hokey crapfest (almost Unworthy of having a drinking game created for it, where every time you see the actor playing Pumpkinhead's f***ing Nikes, you take a swig).<br /><br />The acting is as plastic as it gets to begin with, and the story does no justice for character development either. The writers had previously done work strictly for television, I'm guessing Public Access. This comes off as a bad TV movie, which would explain why Sci-fi seemed to enjoy playing it frequently in the past. A new girl in town clinging to the local badboy (who is responsible for hospitalizing an elderly lady, and burning down her house. Oh, and stealing a page from her copy of The Book of Shadows, along with a vial of blood needed for a vengeful resurrection) and putting all of her trust in him within a day is highly unlikely; no matter what kind of connection she feels she has with the geek. I was also put off by the attempt at making said local badboy's (J. Trevor Edmund- Return of the Living Dead 3) persona distinctly familiar to the jerk character in the first film. It didn't work here to the same effect, due to the whole film being such a joke.<br /><br />Perhaps the worst addition here is trying to display Pumpkinhead as a sympathetic character, beneath the surface. This is right away experimented with flash back sequences from a deformed, backwoods kid's past. And the struggle to pull this off is butchered, due to a horrendous finale, in which Pumpkinhead is hinted to be doing friendly deeds; such as returning a toy fire truck that fell in a well to its rightful owner. f***ing ridiculous. Oh, to make things worse, this Pumpkinhead is actually the son of another Pumpkinhead. Yeah, that's right. Thankfully, not much detail is given to this part of the plot. Last thing I need is to see a back story of Pumpkinhead getting his f*** on, taking his girlfriend to Lamaze class, having a baby freak or whatever other s*** they could throw into that whole mess of a story. Though, it could make for a highly viewable sequel, for the worst reasons imaginable.<br /><br />The sad thing is, the film does contain some moments that could've been parts of a good (or at least passable) sequel. Actually, if you just take out all the sequences that involve the story, you'd be good to go. There are some really elaborate shots (the POV camera work of a shovel digging up Tommy's grave is honestly quite refreshing to uncover through the lot of this mess) and kill scenes here, to be truthful. They are aimed more for a horror romp effect than the deaths in the first film; but from that point-of-view, they are pretty entertaining. <br /><br />Although I am more than disappointed with Pumpkinhead's appearance here, I am pleased with K.N.B.'s bloodletting. The movie isn't cream filled with nastiness, but there are some fun moments. Seeing the demon rip one victim's head clean off and toss it through the woods is worthy of at least a few hits of the rewind button, I promise.<br /><br />Andrew Robinson (Hellraiser) could be noted as the film's only saving grace in the acting department; he could've been sleepwalking and gave a better performance than the rest of the cast. But even he's not in top form. His greatest moment would be when he rehearses the famously bad rhyme from the first film, and this is a pretty embarrassing moment, to say the least. <br /><br />Ami Dolenz is no stranger to the genre. Having previously played in Children of the Night, Witchboard II and Ticks (aka Infested, a Clint Howard guilty pleasure), she has all the right ingredients to be a B-Movie Scream Queen. However, her appearance as Jenny strongly conflicts with the vaguely talked about character's troublesome past. I mean c'mon, she looks goody two shoes as all hell.<br /><br />There's quite a few familiar faces to take note of, other than the few I've already mentioned. For one, Punky Brewster herself, Soleil Moon Frye. She plays Marcie, part of the town bad-a** crew, and she knows a great deal about witchcraft; because one of these dim wits really NEEDS to be smart enough in the field of witchery to resurrect a dead person; the movie calls for it. She was said to have been instructed to gain 20 pounds for her role in this film. Why this was a necessity or how it has any significance to the film, I'll never know. Kane Hodder plays an incestuous redneck that hosts chicken wars with his brother in their backyard for all the local rednecks. Linea Quigley also shows up for a cameo sex scene, of course. And we are blessed with Roger Clinton, as the town mayor; whom really has no significance what so ever.