This movie begins with a teenager by the name of "Jonathan Starks" (Michael Zara) sitting at the dining room table on Halloween night carving a pumpkin. Also at home with him is his older sister "Lynn Starks" (Amy Weber) who is waiting for her boyfriend "Alec" (David J. Wright). Upon getting there he essentially acts like a jerk and is told by Lynn to come back later. Sometime later, a man wearing a pumpkin mask, sneaks into the house and attacks Lynn with a knife. Jonathan hears her screams and kills the intruder with the knife he was using to make a jack-o-lantern. However, it's only after stabbing him multiple times that both Lynn and Jonathan realize that the intruder was Alec playing a prank. The scene then shifts to one year later with Jonathan having undergone counseling and now moving with his sister to another town to start a new life. Upon arriving they are greeted by several people including one older man named "Ben Wicket" (Terrence Evans) who appears to have some emotional issues of his own. Likewise, another young man by the name of "Lance" (David Austin) also quickly develops a disliking to Jonathan due to his former girlfriend, "Tammy" (Minka Kelly) showing a romantic interest in him-and trouble soon starts not long afterward. Now rather than reveal any more I will just say that this film started off pretty well and showed some good potential. Unfortunately, the director (Robert Mann) seemed to lose control after the first 30 minutes or so and the plot went seriously off the rails after that. Along with that, I didn't especially care for the acting on the part of Michael Zara who seemed totally inadequate for the task at hand. On the other hand, I thought both Amy Webber and Minka Kelly performed reasonably well as did Charity Shea (as "Rachel") to a lesser degree. Even so, it wasn't enough to overcome the flaws just mentioned and I have rated this film accordingly. Below average.
Review of The Pumpkin Karver
