Mayim Bialik Appeared In A Cult '80s Horror Movie That Launched A Franchise

She's best known for being a sitcom queen, but Mayim Bialik's Hollywood journey began in her childhood. The San Diego native was only 11 when she played one of the Wallace kids in the horror film "Pumpkinhead," the directorial debut of special effects maestro Stan Winston. Her role is a minor one — she has a few lines of dialogue and can be seen taunting her little brother, Jimmy Joe Wallace (Joseph Piro), about the monstrous Pumpkinhead with the rest of her siblings. Little do they know that Pumpkinhead is about to go from being a silly urban legend to a brutal reality.

Bialik told AV Club that she ended up in "Pumpkinhead" as a newbie actor because her options were limited. "When I first got an agent, when I was 11 and a half or so — you really just go out and audition for whatever comes down the pike," she said. "[In the movie] I was part of a family that was all blonde, so I guess it helped that I was blonde." Bialik added that she filmed her scene on a very hot California day, but overall it was "a good first experience, and a fun thing to have as the first item on your résumé."

Interestingly, Bialik has never seen the whole movie. "When it came out, I was pretty young, and wasn't allowed to see totally gory horror films," she explained. "Pumpkinhead" is rated R and was therefore unsuitable for several cast members when it debuted in 1988, but Bialik never bothered watching it even after she was old enough to do so. That's a little surprising considering that "Pumpkinhead" went on to become a cult hit even though it bombed at the box office.

The first "Pumpkinhead" movie is an allegory about the destructive horrors of grief. In it, Ed Harley (Lance Henriksen) takes revenge on a group of thoughtless teens who inadvertently kill his son, Billy (Matthew Hurley), in a dirt bike accident. He seeks out a witch named Haggis (Florence Schauffler), who helps him raise Pumpkinhead from the dead to take out his enemies, binding both his blood and that of his son to the creature. Whenever Pumpkinhead murders someone, Ed witnesses the carnage through the monster's eyes. Over time, the creature begins to appear more human as Ed becomes more monstrous, and he realizes that the only way to make the murder spree stop and save the innocent people around him is to eliminate himself.

The horror flick spawned three sequels. The first, "Pumpkinhead II: Blood Wings," came out in 1993 and features an entirely new cast of characters who accidentally summon Pumpkinhead after stealing a witch's spell. Two made-for-TV movies followed: 2006's "Pumpkinhead: Ashes to Ashes," which returns to the Harleys and has Haggis resurrect Ed to claim revenge on a mortician who's stealing organs from his clients in order to sell them, and 2007's "Pumpkinhead: Blood Feud," a tale about star-crossed lovers from rival families who summon Pumpkinhead so they can love each other in peace. A Paramount Players remake of the original "Pumpkinhead" (which many consider to be among the greatest horror movies of all time) was announced in 2021, but there's been little movement on the project since.