Warning: spoilers for Hulu’s Carved short film and feature-length film.
Hulu’s black comedy horrorCarvedis based on a short film released in 2018, and though the movie’s ending is a direct reference to it, it gives it a much better twist. Justin Harding’s short filmCarvedwas the winner of Huluween’s 2018 short film festival, and it’s now a feature-length film streaming on Hulu. Co-written and directed by Harding,Carvedgoes back to Halloween in 1993, taking viewers to Cedar Creek Pioneer Village, a “living museum” in Maine with different Halloween activities, most notably a play and a carving contest.
When a local guy finds a strange and unusually big pumpkin, he takes it with him and it’s used for the carving contest. However, the pumpkin is a chemical mutation, and it comes to life during the contest and starts killing everyone in the village. A group of survivors, led by Kira (Elizabeth Peyton Lee), come up with a plan to escape the village and kill the pumpkin, who turns out to be a bigger and smarter threat than it seems.Carvedtakes the same premise and ending as the short film, but makes a big, necessary change.
Carved Repeats The Ending Of The 2018 Short Film With 1 Necessary Difference
Carved Changed A Key Detail Of The Short Film’s Ending
Both the 2018 short film and the 2024Carvedmovie have the premise of a killer pumpkin, but the details around the pumpkin, the time setting, the place, and more are completely different.One element of the short film that the movie was pretty loyal to was the ending. The 2018Carvedshort film ends with a group of trick-or-treaters arriving at the home of the family who intended to carve the killer pumpkin and find the head of the father, without eyes, nose, and lips, as if it was a jack-o-lantern before the pumpkin jumps behind them, ready to attack again.
Atthe end of 2024’sCarved, the camera pans to show a group of carved pumpkins and Clint’s (Matty Cardarople) head, just like the one of the father in the short film, with a tendril coming out of one of the eye sockets, teasing a sequel. In the short film, the pumpkin cut the father’s head because he was the one about to carve it, but in the movie, it was Clint because he took the pumpkin out of the field and into the village.
The killer pumpkin being extra cruel to the guy who cut him out of the field makes a lot more sensethan the pumpkin killing the man who is about to carve it. After all, what the pumpkin wanted was revenge for what humans do to pumpkins and are about to do to it as well, but going the extra mile in its revenge against the person responsible for everything makes more sense.
Carved Greatly Improved Its One-Of-A-Kind Killer
As Silly As It Is, It’s A Lot More Believable
In both versions ofCarved, the killer is a pretty silly concept, but the difference is in how each one brought this idea to life.The design of the killer pumpkin in the short film is very cartoonish, as it gives the pumpkin human eyes and teeth, and its shape completely changes once it comes to life. In the 2024 movie, the pumpkin keeps its shape and doesn’t develop any type of facial features, the only details being two sunken parts that look like eyes and rougher parts that give the illusion of a mouth with teeth.
Hulu’s New Horror Comedy Surprisingly Ends 2 Tiring Genre Tropes
Hulu’s new horror comedy Carved has one too many horror clichés, but, surprisingly, it ends two very tiring genre tropes, benefiting its characters.
In the movie, the pumpkin also has a proper origin and a purpose, as it goes after those in the carving contest and the guy who brought him to the village. The overall tone of 2024’sCarvedis also a major improvement, as the short film tried too hard to be funny and didn’t really achieve it, while the feature-length version embraced both its gory parts and its silliness. Both the short film and the feature-length adaptation ofCarvedare worth watching, but the latter greatly improved the former in many ways.
Carved
`In 1993, after a nuclear disaster, a historic village’s staff must fend off a vengeful killer pumpkin on Halloween.
