Warning: major spoilers for Hulu’s Carved.
Carvedis a dark horror comedy with a weird but dangerous serial killer: a mutant pumpkin, and defeating it wasn’t easy. Based on the short film of the same name by Justin Harding (who returned to direct the feature-length version),Carvedtakes the audience to Halloween day 1993, at Cedar Creek Pioneer Village, a “living museum” in Maine. A town resident found a strange pumpkin in a field and took it with him, with his colleague later taking it to enter a carving contest in the village. What no one would have imagined was the pumpkin coming to life.
Seeing the massacre of other pumpkins at the contest, the strange pumpkin began to kill not just his contestant but most of the others as everyone else ran to safety. The village’s theater team – Kira (Peyton Elizabeth Lee), her boyfriend Cody (Corey Fogelmanis), Maddie (Sasha Mason), and Shane (Jonah Less) –, along with Kira’s brother Trevor (Wyatt Lindner) and other employees, teamed up to escape the village and defeat the pumpkin, but the latter proved to be a very tough antagonist that couldn’t be fooled for long.
How Is The Killer Pumpkin Defeated In Carved?
The Killer Pumpkin Was Not An Easy Threat
Kira and company, along with the village’s general manager Bill (DJ Qualls), head of grounds Kevin (Marc Sully Saint-Fleur), and her friend Barbara (Carla Jimenez), came up with a plan to make it to Cody’s truck and get help. As Kevin was hiding in a different building, he threw walkie-talkies all over the village to distract the pumpkin and allow the rest to get the keys and get to the truck, but one mistake when he forgot to change channels on his walkie-talkie changed everything.
Bill decided to try and rescue Kevin, but both were killed by the pumpkin. Meanwhile, Kira, Cody, Trevor, and Barbara tried to get the keys after accidentally dropping them. Their plan took another turn when Shane, loud as always, ran to the truck with the keys and was caught and killed by the pumpkin. The rest of the survivors hid in a room in a barn and ran to the Corn Wagon, the only vehicle left. Unfortunately, the owner of the Corn Wagon, Clint (Matty Cardarople), was too stoned to understand what was happening and crashed the vehicle, killing Barbara.
Kira, Cody, and Trevor made it to a nearby farm, wherethey found the killer pumpkin’s offspring. Kira used one of them to force the pumpkin into sparing Trevor and took it with them into a barn, wherethey used the offspring to lure the killer pumpkin into a crusher tractor.Once the killer pumpkin was destroyed, Kira, Cody, Trevor, and Maddie, who survived her encounter with the pumpkin thanks to a herbicide, lined the offspring to destroy them with the tractor.
Why Was There A Killer Pumpkin In Carved
Cedar Creek Went Through A Dangerous Incident A Year Earlier
At the beginning ofCarved, Bill and Kevin were interviewed by a local reporter about the village’s pumpkin festival, but the reporter kept going back to the tragedy that hit the area a year earlier. Despite Bill’s efforts to avoid the topic,Carvedrevealed that the year before there was an accident in whicha train from a company called CLIONYX, which carried chemicals, derailed. As a result, there was a chemical spill in the area of the village, which not only affected the land but also killed many people, including Kira and Trevor’s parents.
The killer pumpkin was a mutation that resulted from the CLIONYX chemical spill the year before.
The killer pumpkin was found by Clint while smoking weed in a field and tripping over one of its tendrils. The pumpkin was abnormally big, had a strange and rough texture, a darker color, and two sunken areas that looked like eyes, with grass-like stuff coming out of them. The killer pumpkin was a mutation that resulted from the CLIONYX chemical spill the year before, along with its offspring, andit’s unknown if there were other fruits and vegetables affected by the spillthat could have created more killer veggies and fruits.
Who Was The Killer Pumpkin Going After In Carved?
The killer pumpkin inCarvedwas ruthless and surprisingly fast, but it didn’t kill at random. Its first victim was Wesley (Jackson Kelly), Clint’s friend who entered the carving contest with the pumpkin. The pumpkin moved on to the carvers next to Wesley before going after the rest, though Maddie, Trevor, Shane, Arthur (Ted Ferguson), and Kevin escaped. The pumpkin also killed the reporter and his cameraman and later found Arthur in the barn. Looking at the footage of the deadly carving contest caught by the cameraman, Barbara realizedthe pumpkin was going after the carvers and those involved in the contest.
Bill wasn’t part of the contest but was the one who organized it.
Maddie and Trevor were contestants, as Kira left her spot for Trevor, as was Shane, who was also the host of the contest. Kevin was a contestant too, and he fooled the pumpkin many times, which only gave it more reasons to go after him. Bill wasn’t part of the contest but was the one who organized it, so he was on the pumpkin’s kill list as well.Clint was also on the pumpkin’s radar for being the one who took it from the field, and the pumpkin cut his head and turned it into a “carved pumpkin”.
The only carvers who survived the mutant pumpkin’s killing spree were Maddie, who, as mentioned above, used a herbicide to defend herself, and Trevor, thanks to Kira. Unfortunately, Barbara didn’t survive Halloween night 1993, as she died when Clint crashed the Corn Wagon, so she’s the only character who died that night but wasn’t a victim of the killer pumpkin.
Carved’s Ending Teases Another Killer Pumpkin
Kira & Company Didn’t Get Rid Of All The Offspring
As mentioned above, the killer pumpkin and its offspring were killed by Kira, Trevor, Cody, and Maddie thanks to a crusher tractor. The offspring, while small, already had sunken “eyes” like the killer pumpkin and were starting to grow tendrils, so much so that one of them attacked Trevor, but he was saved by Maddie. Kira, Cody, Trevor, and Maddie could finally relax under a tree and recover a bit from the horrifying night they had just had, butCarvedhad one final tease for the audience.
Carved’s final scene showed the carved pumpkins outside the farm, and there was a new addition: Clint’s head, without eyes, nose, and lips, anda tendril like those of the mutant pumpkins coming out of one of his eye sockets. The pumpkin either left a part of itself inside Clint’s mutilated head or one of the offspring hid there, but this leaves the door open for a sequel toCarved.
Carved
`In 1993, after a nuclear disaster, a historic village’s staff must fend off a vengeful killer pumpkin on Halloween.
