Halloween has always been my favorite holiday and I usually glut myself on horror films during the whole month of October. This long procession of cinematic and horror-related indulgences will be topped off tonight with a Blu-Ray screening of Hitchcock’s Psycho (advance word on the transfer is very positive), but my Morlock contribution today will focus on the double-feature I put on last night titled Head to Head. Allow me to now assume the tone of a carnival barker at a freak-show wrestling match that pits two disturbing creations against one another…

In one corner of the ring, representing traditional narratives and horror tropes, coming in 9 feet tall and weighing about 600 pounds: Pumpkinhead.

On the other side of the ring, representing the avant-garde and coming in at, oh, I dunno, 5′, 6″ or 5′,9″ (depending on whether you measure the hair) and weighing in at 160 or 154 (depending on whether weighed before or after his decapitation): Eraserhead.

Although both films were relatively obscure at the time of their release, they both built cult followings and now comfortable inhabit different corners of pop culture. Pumpkinhead has spiders, owls, witches, and careless teenagers out in the boonies getting picked off one-by-one during the night. Its storyline of revenge gone awry is as old as the hills that it seeks to represent.

Eraserhead, on the other hand, came out of nowhere and has industrial landscapes that give way to gloomy interiors with inexplicable art direction at every turn. Between the mewling mutant baby and the pouchy-cheeked blonde singing in the radiator, you’d be hard-pressed to find any easy precedents.

Pumpkinhead was the 1988 directorial debut of special effects artist Stan Winston. Eraserhead was David Lynch’s directorial debut, which was begun in 1971 with the help of a $10,000 grant from the American Film Institute, but wasn’t completed until 1976 and was released in 1977. Financially, there’s no comparison; The Eraser clocked out The Pumpkin with an almost $7 million dollar return to the latter’s one-million dollar profit. But what about legacy?

In the case of Pumpkinhead, that meant two theatrical sequels (Pumpkinhead II: Blood Wings and Pumpkinhead 3: The Original Sin) and two more made-for-tv sequels (Pumpkinhead: Ashes to Ashes and Pumpkinhead: Blood Feud).

Eraserhead did not spawn any sequels per-say, but seeds of it can be seen recast throughout the body of Lynch’s following work, be they in the worms of Dune or some form of surreal performance on a curtained stage (Twin Peaks, Mulholland Drive, etc). But again, here, there’s no comparison: The Eraser so impressed Mel Brooks he then hired Lynch to direct The Elephant Man, George Lucas also pursued Lynch with the hope that he’d helm Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi, and – most impressive of all – Eraserhead was one of Stanley Kubrick’s favorite films of all time; he owned his own print and screened it obsessively. Pumpkinhead gets a nod by The Misfits in a song sporting the same name and was also given some love by Dark Horse Comics – but it was short-lived. In sum: Eraserhead delivers a Mike Tyson-like K.O. 

I have to concede; this was not a fair fight. The fix was in. The large and impressive demon summoned from a pumpkin patch by a witch was easily laid low by – yes – a nervous and lonely printer who can’t even keep a plant alive, much less a sick and swaddled baby. It doesn’t help that Pumpkinhead is easily dated with a cast of victims that look like they escaped from a Flashdance rehearsal while Eraserhead, made over a decade earlier, still has a timelessness to it that still has clout.

Let me now say a few kind words of praise in defense of the loser. Pumpkinhead gets points from me for lots of great exteriors, no C.G.I. work, giving a star turn to Lance Henriksen, and having the cojones to break our hearts early on with a tragedy that most studios shun like the plague for fear of dimmed commercial prospects. Pumpkinhead also deserves props for implementing an interesting twist to the normal revenge scenario by forcing Henriksen’s character to experience each murder that is carried out by his unleashed demon. Not that we blame him; after all – he’s lost his only son. That’s pretty much the only place I can say these two films overlap.

If Pumpkinhead and Eraserhead can shake hands on anything, it’s on the subject of parental anxieties. Both films show, at some point, a father figure struggling sans mother with the loss of their only progeny.

Stan Winston’s approach – replete with day-for-night shots, smoky forests, and a cackling witch – is somewhat hokey and dated, but as perfect for Halloween as any amusement park Haunted House. It also gets points for being a creature feature that came out during a time when the edge of horror was being pushed by the likes of Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer. Despite jaded expectations for horror, Pumpkinhead manages to keep the viewer interested from beginning to end in a story awash with fairy-tale components and clear moral underpinnings. Given the clime of the times this remains no small feat and can be credited, in part, to Winston’s daring decision to show us a man suddenly bereft his only child. No one laughs at this and the shadow it casts gives the rest of the film an effective chill.

David Lynch’s approach may or may not be influenced by his own anxieties as a first-time father to a daughter with a slight clubfoot deformity, but the twitchy titular character here is as far from Henriksen’s portrayal of a loving father as you can get. Here the tragedy is more in line with the horrors that befall child abuse, shaken baby syndrome, and worse. Lynch’s genius comes in avoiding a traditional narrative structure and trusting his own intuition as an artist. The result is that every scene is imbued with both bubbling anxieties and discomfiting creations that have been pulled out of as surreal a stream-of-consciousness as have ever been committed to film. Even after repeat viewings they still fill me with creepy awe. Better yet: dread and wonder. Perfect for Halloween.