Maybe if Christina Ricci's campus comedy Pumpkin had opened on Halloween or Thanksgiving rather than on the Independence Day weekend it would have received a more sympathetic reception from the critics. As it is, the general reaction has been downright scary. Ann Hornaday in the Washington Post lashes into it as "a moralizing movie that itself is morally compromised, not to mention artistically bankrupt and generally indefensible." Ty Burr in the Boston Globe describes it as "the first major speed bump of [Ricci's] career." Kevin Thomas in the Los Angeles Times says that the result of the filmmakers' work is "hit or miss, with a laugh here and there, ultimately creating an aura of hopeless and drawn-out improbability." But Roger Ebert in the Chicago Sun-Times gives the movie a very good grade (three and a half stars) and concludes his review by remarking: "Pumpkin is alive, and takes chances, and uses the wicked blade of satire in order to show up the complacent political correctness of other movies in its campus genre. It refuses to play it safe. And there is courage in the performances."