You only have to visit one horror convention to understand why, twelve years after Pumpkinhead 2: Blood Wings hit the scene, we're now getting a pair of seriously unnecessary sequels. (Pumpkinhead 4: Blood Feud aired last month.) It's because horror fans are painfully loyal patrons, and they've agreed that the Pumpkinhead character is pretty damn evil, vicious and slick-looking. I suppose we can blame thank director Stan Winston for creating a low-budget 1989 monster movie that the fanbase really embraced, and (as always) those loyal fans are being summarily punished for making the original Pumpkinhead an underground hit on home video. (I actually have kind of a soft spot for Pumpkinhead 2, mindlessly entertaining trash that it is.)

Speaking of trash, Pupmkinhead 3: Ashes to Ashes is every bit the infantile, obvious and amateurish affair that one would expect from a project bankrolled by the Sci-Fi Channel. I hate to say it so callously, but I'm fairly certain that the Sci-Fi Channel guys are well aware of how rotten their "original programming" movies actually are. Sure, Sci-Fi sometimes airs some really solid titles (Dog Soldiers, for example), but when you're dealing with their own stuff, you're generally dealing with the bottom of the genre barrel.

About a month ago I helped pimp a goofy little British horror/comedy called Evil Aliens. I told you it'd be opening in New York on September 8th, and also that I'd definitely recommend the flick to splatter-fans. Now comes word from Magic Lamp Releasing that the Aliens will be invading a whole lot more than the Big Apple.

Already scheduled for an Image DVD release next January, Jake West's Evil Aliens can be enjoyed on the big screen in the following venues on the dates courteously listed here by Fangoria, and we're told that more dates will be announced soon. (ahem, Philadelphia??) Stay tuned for Erik's review of Evil Aliens later this week.

In tangentially-related news, Mr. West recently finished up on his Pumpkinhead 3: Ashes to Ashes, which will premiere October 28th on Sci-Fi Network before hitting the video stacks a bit later.

Normally the announcement of a title like Pumpkinhead 3: Ashes to Ashes would not warrant a big and excited post here at Cinematical -- mainly because sequels like Pumpkinhead 3 happen all the time, and most of 'em suck hard-boiled eggs. But not all latecoming sequels to semi-forgotten monster movies can claim to have both Lance Henriksen and Doug Bradley on their cast lists ... plus P3 will be directed by a guy named Jake West, and if you haven't seen West's Evil Aliens yet, well, you're in for a huge and splattery treat.

Bradley is known throughout the realm of Horrorland as "the guy who played Pinhead in the brilliant Hellraiser and its gradually lamer series of sequels," while Henriksen is a genre god second only to someone like Bruce Campbell or Joss Whedon. Best known for his performance as the "synthetic human" Bishop in James Cameron's Aliens, Mr. Henriksen has spent much of his career in the horror/sci-fi end of the spectrum. Despite the fact that he's appeared in movies like Dog Day Afternoon, Network, and The Right Stuff, Henriksen's most often recognized as the cop from The Terminator, the daddy vampire from Near Dark, and the cyborg who got ripped in half from Aliens.

Evil Aliens will hit R1 DVD later this year, courtesy of Image Entertainment. Pumpkinhead 3 is currently in production. (And by the way, both Pumpkinhead movies are actually pretty solid. Give 'em a rental if vengeful monsters are your thing.)