Okay, so uh, yep, this short is not just named "Night of the Pumpkin" for cheap laughs, it's christened such a fun title because the monster of the show is just that, it's a freaking pumpkin! And it's all just about this demonic bloodthirsty pumpkin from hell and how, as seen in the prologue, it got that way because of the tomfoolery of two unwitting idiots that had the bright idea of holding a midnight séance in their local cemetery to summon a demon on Halloween Night - and it does work, but the problem is that the spirit they conjure up possesses the harmless regular little pumpkin that they brought along with them, which then unexpectedly springs to life, and after biting the face off one of the guys, it then proceeds to prey on the townsfolk, growing a lot bigger as it does so! And it all ends in the time-honoured tradition of a final battle against the humongous pumpkin, it which it is blown to bits and the hero who strangely no one believed wins the girl with but one final twist in the tale to cap it off... The plot is absolutely ridiculous and goofy, for this is a yarn about a bouncing evil(er)-expressioned pumpkin killing people, but the filmmakers know this, and I love the charming tongue-in-cheek way in which they play into the stupidity, where they keep the great corny dialogue and cartoon acting going, but they don't forget to make the short good and keep it fun, and that's something that you don't see too much of when people are aiming to deliberately make something with a "B-movie" feel. People can just be like "oh this is a dumb plot, let's just make a horrible movie on purpose." This is a mini B-movie but it's done in an enjoyable fashion where it knows that it's bad and it's still good, if that makes any sense! For a mere fifteen minutes, I was very entertained and I was impressed by all the little nods that they put in to popular 80's horror movies and that's what this short mainly felt like to me a homage to all of that, as well as a little bit to cheesy 50's monster flicks, especially when the pumpkin grows gigantic. And I liked how the pumpking appeared to be a practical model effect mostly and how they even did a little stop-motion animation with it at one point. I also liked the decent animated sequence after the opening scene, which I found slightly reminiscent of the intro sequence of the great anthology movie Creepshow. I thought it was cool too how at the beginning it's an old man telling the story of what happened to a group of cynical bratty kids who don't care about his tale or, after the twist regarding the identity of the old storyteller is revealed, a lot of things for that matter! Absurd, but at the same time great festive fun, watch this bad movie masterpiece in miniature today! And remember to have your pumpkins spayed and/or neutered!!
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