Horror Challenge #83: "Pumpkinhead 4: Blood Feud"

I mistakenly thought I had access to the third and fourth installments in the Pumpkinhead series, which I've heard are better than the second movie (which disappointed me) but when I looked, I only had the fourth movie.  I decided to watch it anyway to see if there was anything I could find to like about the movie, and I actually did like it a lot better than the second movie.

This sequel follows events in a small southern town where the Hatfield family and the McCoy family have been feuding for years (so long that no one even really remembers why they're feuding anymore) and they still hate each other, except for two teens, one from each family, who have fallen in love and are determined to be together no matter what their families say.  One night the young lovers sneak away to see each other, with one little McCoy sister standing lookout, and two older Hatfield brothers hear about it and run off to stop it, but they decide to make a pit stop and rape the lookout girl first, and while she's running away from them, she falls to her death in the woods.  The Hatfield boys find their sister and drag her home, her lover finds his sister's dead body and pledges to get revenge, and before you know it, Pumpkinhead is back to his old antisocial tricks.

Lance Henrikson, who played the grieving father in the first movie, appears in this movie as a ghost who only reveals himself to certain characters so he can warn them to stop what they're doing and not pursue vengeance, since it won't be worth losing their souls over trying to get revenge.  No one really listens to him much though, which is a shame, because of course things don't work out happily (stories of blood feuds and vengeance never really do).  This movie has an obviously low budget, but because the actors appear to take their roles halfway seriously, the movie works much better than the second installment.  I'll have to dig up the third sometime and see if that one is any good.