Pumpkinhead is one of the scariest horror films I’ve seen, and now Dynamite Entertainment is bringing the horror to comics. The publisher also announced it has hired Cullen Bunn to write the series.
Cullen Bunn may just be the most prolific comic writer in the last decade. The scribe is cranking out titles left and right, and it seems at times he has a project in the works or recently released from every publisher out there. Now, he’s taking on MGM’s Pumpkinhead.
“I watched Pumpkinhead on opening night in a little two-screen movie theater outside Berkeley Mall in Goldsboro, North Carolina,” said writer Cullen Bunn in a press release from Dynamite Entertainment. “To say it helped cement my love of horror (and, in particular, ‘rural horror’, which I write a lot of these days) would be an understatement. I can recite the poem from memory. I even play the soundtrack while writing my own stories. The pacing, the eeriness of the setting, the interplay of weird light and shadow. These are all elements I hope to capture in the comic. As a longtime fan of horror, I hold this movie in high regard, and I couldn’t be more thrilled to be contributing to the backwoods mythos of Haggis and Bunt Wallace and the Demon of Vengeance his own self.”
In the original Pumpkinhead film, a group of teenagers inadvertently kill a young boy in rural Appalachia, and his father seeks the powers of a backwoods witch to bring the child back to life. Instead, she invokes The Pumpkinhead – a monstrously clawed demon which, once reborn, answers only to Harley’s bloodlust. As the creature wreaks its slow, unspeakable tortures on the teens, Harley confronts a horrifying secret about his connection to the beast – and realizes that he must find a way to stop its deadly mission before he becomes one with the creature forever. A “vivid, stylish, atmospheric” film as described by The Hollywood Reporter, the Pumpkinhead film features a hypnotic, heart-rending performance by Lance Henriksen and the directorial vision of special effects master Stan Winston, and spawned three sequels.
“The 1980s was a renaissance for horror films, introducing thrill-seeking audiences to so many iconic murderers and monsters. Pumpkinhead is not only one of the most visually terrifying of the breed, but also one of the most tragic – it’s the very definition of a Revenge Tragedy,” said Nick Barrucci, CEO and Publisher of Dynamite. “There’s a human story to it that affects us so deeply, so profoundly – how grief can unlock an insatiable darkness within even the noblest person. Dynamite’s proud to resurrect this demon of vengeance, to explore the murky depths of the human soul in all-original comics, coming soon!”
According to Dynamite, Pumpkinhead will arrive in stores in February 2018.
