13 Days of Halloween: Horror Movie Review: Black Pumpkin (2018)

A sequel to the 2016 movie that nobody saw, Bloody Bobby (re-released as The Legend of Fall Creek in 2021), Black Pumpkin comes from writer and director, Ryan McGonagle.

So, just who is Bloody Bobby? He’s a kid who was chased into Devil’s Den and promptly disappeared. He was never found and his disappearance became an urban legend. Many years later, he returned on Halloween to dish out some bloody vengeance.

Opening with a solid double death, Black Pumpkin seems like a promising slasher at first, even if it hasn’t a single bone of originality in its body. However, as we jump 10 years forward in time, things start to go off the rails and quickly.

Elliot (Dogen Eyeler) and his friend Laurence aka Pork Chop (Grayson Thorne Kilpatrick) accidentally awaken Bloody Bobby after going into Devil’s Den to film something for a school project. As Halloween comes around, Bloody Bobby rises and targets the two kids. As well as Elliot’s sister Laurie (Ellie Patrikios), her friends and some partying people in the woods. After all, it is a slasher movie and we need a body count.

However, someone has been waiting for Bloody Bobby to return. Someone who has had dealings with the evil before.

It’s aspects like this that confuse because many people will not know that this is a sequel or that the film that preceded it has been re-released under a different name. This movie is called Black Pumpkin. The first film now goes under the name of The Legend of Fall Creek and was released after this movie. Do you see the problem? It means moments that reference the original movie are completely lost on most.

Thankfully, it’s not a severe problem and it’s easy to watch and believe that the story of previous Bloody Bobby dealings just exist within this world. The film does a decent enough job of filling in the blanks.

Not that it matters as the film doesn’t boast a thrilling script or characters you can get behind. Most are faceless caricatures, here just to be killed. Which is an area that Black Pumpkin does at least do well. For the most part. Some of the deaths look good. Some not so good and some are aftermath only but with some decent effects.

Its biggest fault is that there’s nothing memorable here. The strong smell of ‘seen it all before’ hangs over it heavily. While it’s not a bad slasher movie, it’s not a good one either.