5 Stan Winston Creatures, From Best To Best
The man behind the monsters
5. Pumpkinhead, ‘Pumpkinhead’ (1989)
The late special effects wizard Stan Winston made his directorial debut with Pumpkinhead, a Southern Gothic horror about a distraught hillbilly played by haggard character actor Lance Henricksen who wants revenge on the city teens who accidentally killed his boy so he summons a demon with the help of a mountain witch. The title character, a hellspawn dug up from a pumpkin patch, is pure Winstonian wonder, a tall, lanky skeleton with a tail, claws, and a giant oblong head with pale eyes and a mouth full of fangs. It looks like a cross between a praying mantis and one of the aliens from Alien. The movie is a lean morality tale with an intense leading man as the anti-hero, and a simple, well-designed supernatural beast.
4. Tyrannosaurus Rex, ‘Jurassic Park’ (1993)
The computer-generated effects were praised in Steven Spielberg’s classic movie about men playing God and then screaming as the dinosaurs they brought back to life hunt them down. But it’s Stan Winston’s life-like animatronic thunder lizards are the main attraction, whether it’s going face-to-face with a velociraptor or watching Laura Dern care for a sick triceratops. His dinosaurs have weight and…
