Can Black Pumpkin carve out a spot among Halloween horror or does it collapse in on itself like a jack o lantern in November?

As with most Halloween horror films, Black Pumpkin starts on said holiday when two people lose their lives to a mysterious assailant. Jump ahead ten years and we meet the Peterson family who now live in the murder house. With just two days until Halloween, the Petersons learn firsthand there’s more to the local legend of Bloody Bobby as they race against time and a killer to make it to the end of night in one piece.

Though not the best or strongest, the acting could have been worse. All in all, the performances were a little odd. What I mean is that the side banter felt genuine and natural, but the main dialogue was all over the place and wooden. It was almost like the actors were given the green light to improvise the smaller interactions but had to stick to a script for the main beats.

As for the actors themselves, they were overall fine. No one really stood out in either a negative or positive way. Special shout out to Grayson Thorne Kilpatrick and Gemma Brooke Allen, though. As Porkchop and Regan Peterson, respectively, they handle their roles very well. Child actors can be hit or miss, especially in horror, but these two are in the former category as they were able to be lighthearted or scared as needed without becoming eye rolling.

As the action and body count ramp up so do the poor effects and shoddy editing. Some of the gore and kills are okay, however the rest were subpar with a lot being relegated to the random spraying of fake blood on walls or splashing all over an actor. While the effects could leave something to be desired, it wasn’t as distracting as the editing. Jumping from one scene to another could be rather jarring as you weren’t always sure if it were a continuation of the previous scene or a whole new one–more than once I had to stop to see if I had accidentally missed a scene somehow.

Anyone who knows me or has even read my reviews knows sound design is a big deal to me, from the quality of the soundtrack and how it’s used to the ambient sound & queues. I feel the audio mixing and sound can have a huge impact on the viewing experience, even more so for horror. With that said, Black Pumpkin utilizes its sound design very well. The soundtrack itself is used sparingly and had a few tracks that I found myself bouncing along to while the volume was consistent and clear.

Black Pumpkin wants to stand next to modern Halloween classics like Trick r’ Treat so much so that Bloody Bobby can’t help but come off as a cheap imitation of Sam and that speaks to the overall issues with it. It tries so hard to be like other films that it bites off more than it can chew which is a shame as the sound is top notch and there are small  acting moments that shine. Like the awkward black pumpkin in the beginning, however, you know what this is trying to be and it’s just not doing a very good job of convincing you.

5 out of 10