Terror Trash: Hack-o-Lantern (1988)

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Terror Trash is an occasional series celebrating and delighting in some less-than-sterling entries in the horror film genre. After several years of highlighting great films in our Century of Terror and ABCs of Horror series, it’s time for a loving appraisal of some decidedly more trashy, incompetent, or enjoyably cheesy material.

Within the inexhaustible well that is the 1980s golden era slasher film, there’s a special, cordoned-off area reserved for horror flicks specifically set at/on Halloween. To the horror geek reptile brain, there’s little that could be more appealing: A tawdry bit of horror junk, set at the most gratuitously spooky time of the year, and thus festooned with holiday paraphernalia. What’s not to love? That said, there actually aren’t quite as many classics as you might expect to meet this criteria, perhaps owing to a desire to not tread too obviously on the toes of John Carpenter’s iconic Halloween. You might dabble with 1986 supernatural heavy metal mashup Trick or Treat to get your fix, or the stone cold classic Halloween house party massacre of 1988’s Night of the Demons. More contemporary examples have included Michael Dougherty’s already canonized 2007 quasi-anthology Trick ‘r Treat, or 2023’s excellent and overlooked Cobweb. But 1988’s Hack-o-Lantern? Now you’re venturing into truly sleazy Halloween territory, although memorable in its own decrepit way. Don’t throw this on at a Halloween party unless you’re certain of your audience’s appetite for trash.

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Hack-o-Lantern is set in what appears to be the most Satanist-friendly Midwestern farming community one could possibly hope to discover as an aspiring devil worshiper in the late 1980s, especially considering that the Satanic panic of the era presumably made this a challenging time to get a coven going for your rank-and-file follower of Lucifer. The film revolves around an unlucky family that has been cursed by a screenplay that doesn’t bother to assign them a last name, or in the case of antagonist “Grandpa,” even a first name. Regardless, Grandpa is the leader of the local coven of robed Satanists, something that everyone in the area seems to be largely aware of but ignore for reasons that are never clearly expressed. His daughter Amanda lives in fear of her devil-worshiping, lecherous father, who is implied to have raped her–on her wedding night, no less–in order to create youngest son Tommy, the demon seed child of destiny that he’s been grooming to be the next vessel of Satan since he was a young boy. Where’s Amanda’s husband? Would you believe the answer is “also murdered by Grandpa”? That’s just the kind of warm and fuzzy family dynamic that Hack-o-Lantern wastes no time in establishing.

With that said, Grandpa is, in no uncertain terms, the heart of the film both in a narrative and especially in a performance sense. The movie is billed as being “HY PYKE IN HACK-O-LANTERN,” and after seeing it that’s the only description that would seem fair to the way he dominates the proceedings. Who or what is a “Hy Pyke,” one might ask? Born Monty Pike, he was an expressive American character actor known for his scenery chewing and gravelly voice, most famously appearing briefly opposite Harrison Ford as likewise sleazy bar owner Taffey Lewis in Blade Runner. Here, though, he’s just “Grandpa,” a workaday pumpkin farmer (?) who in between dropping off loads of gourds also occasionally stops by the family home to present his favorite, Tommy, with Satanic medallions or encourage him to drink blood. That’s an actual line of dialogue from Hack-o-Lantern, after the young boy cuts himself carving a pumpkin and proceeds to lick up all the red corn syrup: “But Mom, I like the taste of blood!” I think we can all agree that there’s nothing suspiciously Satanic about that exclamation from an 8-year-old. The little sprout is growing up just fine!

Pyke gives a performance in Hack-o-Lantern that is consistently, fascinatingly bizarre and animated. His energy is manic, but it’s diametrically opposed to his dumpy visage–most of the film sees him in wearing what appear to be khakis and an L.L.Bean flannel under the sinister red and black Satanist robes, like he’s going to plow a row as soon as he finishes this goat sacrifice. He looks like a melting, middle-aged lesbian, right down to the gaudy rings he’s wearing on every finger. His most defining characteristic, however, is his vocal delivery, which swings from scene to scene between “cajun lothario” and “effeminate southern belle,” a queer juxtaposition of drawl and lisp. His voice so befuddles the ability to subtitle it that while recently rewatching Hack-o-Lantern on Tubi, the closed captions occasionally give up on translating what Grandpa is saying and instead simply read “SPEAKING GIBBERISH.” Other times, the subtitles don’t even recognize Pyke’s screamed dialogue as words at all and display nothing. It’s difficult to imagine how exactly the character was conceived, but it’s very clear that Pyke simply decided to make a meal of it, with his inexplicable style turning lines meant to be sinister, like “You have intruded upon the ceremony of blood” into comedic gems.

Tommy, on the other hand, is practically a non-factor despite being central to the plot of Hack-o-Lantern. After his father is roasted to death by Grandpa when he’s a small boy, the film unexpectedly leaps forward in time to when Tommy is now supposedly “18,” despite the fact that he’s now being played by a fish-lipped, 30-year-old man (Gregory Scott Cummins). The perpetually sneering Tommy still lives at home in a concrete bunker somehow attached to the family farmhouse, burying himself in his collection of heavy metal cassettes and random bar decorations, my favorite of which are an Elvira poster and a giant Killian’s Irish Red beer sign–I always suspected that faux craft beer styles were beloved of Satan. Tommy also has a tastefully arranged little Satan corner filled with devil-worship paraphernalia, which he at one point shows off to his police officer older brother Roger (Jeff Brown) … who is fine with it? As is often the case in Hack-o-Lantern, a reveal that should elicit shock in its characters instead registers mild annoyance. They all simply allow Tommy to cruise toward his “big day” on Halloween night, when he’s scheduled to either ascend to being Satan’s right hand man or become a vessel of the devil. But ah, has Tommy jumped the gun and started killing people connected to the family while wearing the cult’s trademark robes and goat masks? Well someone certainly has begun a killing spree, and the weak mystery of who could be behind the slayings makes up the majority of the film’s back half.

It’s hard to imagine how a man could be more clearly 18 years old than this.

This is ostensibly a classic ‘80s slasher, lest we forget, but the kills aren’t really anything to write home about, being limited in number and creativity, although they don’t skimp on blood. We receive offings such as a broad daylight cemetery shovel slaying after a character blunders into an open grave, or a pitchfork impalement, along with various stabbings and strangulations. At one point, a woman is somehow incapacitated after having her corset tightened too much, constricted by her own attempt at alluring décolletage. Speaking of–the film earns its more lurid bonafides primarily through the generous application of gratuitous nudity, rather than excessive bloodletting. Indian director Jag Mundhra would pivot to more traditional erotica in the years that followed, but his proclivities toward sexy sleaze are already on full display here–one wonders if he was more passionate about the T&A than the “horror” of his project.

What actually makes Hack-o-Lantern stand out among its peers of the era–beyond Hy Pyke’s lisping wheeze and unintelligible lines–is its oddly intense and focused streak of melodrama, especially as it revolves around family mother Amanda, who lost her husband and now her son to Satanist meddling. We’re treated to flashbacks of Mom’s prior marital bliss, and her pining for the husband she lost a decade earlier–meanwhile, in the present day, she cries in nearly every scene and guilts all of her adult children for having their own lives, while still living in the same house as her devil-worshiping problem child played by a man who looks old enough to be her replacement spouse. It’s a genuinely strange dynamic, as highlighted by her children with their perceptive observations on Mom’s emotional state: “Ever since my dad died on Halloween night, this date seems to really affect her.” Oh, you think?!? It’s strange to watch an otherwise formulaic ‘80s slasher expend a considerable amount of effort on the psychology of a secondary character like Amanda, while simultaneously skirting the psychological underpinnings of Tommy, who one would expect to be the central focus.

But that’s Hack-o-Lantern for you, an easily distracted little Halloween bauble that also includes a couple having sex in a graveyard on top of a freshly buried corpse, a “community” holiday party that features fully nude strippers and a woman dancing with a boa constrictor, and multiple hair metal band performances. The aforementioned party, which likewise features great costumes like a woman dressed as “a bowl of salad,” is punctuated at one point by the most painful bit of impromptu stand-up comedy you’ll ever see in a horror film, when the Jim Varney wannabe standing outside the entrance suddenly launches into an entire routine of fully-posed sex jokes and–I shit you not–an impression of a Thanksgiving turkey. It feels very much like the director’s college roommate calling in a favor, but is somehow right at home among the film’s many other eccentricities.

Hack-o-Lantern is an acquired taste of a seasonal stew, with its big, tangled familial web of Satanism, sorrow, bared breasts and unintelligible lisping. Few vintage slasher movies or Halloween-set films involve tender “I love yous” or goodbyes as a family member dies in your arms, but that didn’t stop Jag Mundhra. If you only see one Hy Pyke film this Halloween season, well, it should still probably be Blade Runner. But Hack-o-Lantern works as well, for the freaks in the house.

Jim Vorel is Paste’s Movies editor and resident genre geek. You can follow him on Twitter or on Bluesky for more film writing.