Sung to the tune of “The Muffin Man”:
Do you know the pumpkin man
The pumpkin man, the pumpkin man
Oh, do you know the pumpkin man
In Jack-O, he’s very lame
Because good Christians in the olden times don’t cotton to sorcerers, a man by the last name of Kelly kills a warlock. To get revenge, that wizard, played by (visibly deteriorated stock footage of) John Carradine, conjures up a scythe-swingin’ man with an oversized pumpkin for a noggin. Call him Jack-O if you like, even though the movie Jack-O never does.
As Halloween nears in modern-day Florida, Jack-O (née Lantern) goes after a grade schooler in glasses named Sean (Ryan Latshaw, son of Jack-O director Steve Latshaw) because he’s the last of the Kelly clan. In the climactic scene, li’l Sean even goads his monstrous pursuer with, “Come and get me, pumpkin man!” Them’s fightin’ words, kid.
Meanwhile, babysitter Linnea Quigley takes a shower; Cameron Mitchell posthumously appears on TV via leftover footage; Sean’s ineffectual father (one-and-doner Gary Doles) turns his garage into a spookhouse; and Sean’s mom (Rebecca Wicks, Latshaw’s Biohazard: The Alien Force) forever looks like an unblinking deer caught in headlights. I dunno, maybe it’s just her perm.
It shouldn’t be hard to make a passable horror movie out of a gourd/guy hybrid, yet for about an hour and a half, Latshaw and his frequent producer, Fred Olen Ray, show you how soundly they failed. Their monster (Patrick Moran, Latshaw’s Dark Universe) looks cool, but — like the flick itself — barely bothers to move. —Rod Lott