Pet Sematary Two
Edward Furlong has a cat. His friend has a dead dog. This is the start of a beautiful friendship.
In many ways, Pet Sematary Two is actually a better movie than Pet Sematary. It is better shot, better edited, better acted. Its production design and visual scheme is more coherent and consistent. That doesn’t make it The Bicycle Thief.
The problem, again, is the script, which actually manages to be less interesting than the first, even without Stephen King around to screw it up.
Edward Furlong’s mother, a Famous Actress, is dead and Edward would prefer she not be so.
As with Pet Sematary, the protagonist takes a Very Long Time to do anything about his problem. The mother dies in the very first scene and the movie takes an astounding 77 minutes (out of 100) to get around to addressing her death. Those 77 minutes are taken up with an assortment of subplots about Edward’s father (Anthony “I Can’t Believe I’m In This Movie” Edwards), his father’s new girlfriend, his father’s new veterinary practice, a kitten, a bully at school, his friend Drew, Drew’s relationship with his stepfather, Drew’s dead dog, Drew’s stepfather’s rabbits, a crazy ex-veterinarian, Drew’s stepfather’s relationship with Edward’s dead mother, Drew’s stepfather’s relationship with his (Drew’s) dead dog, and on and on. This means that the protagonist’s storyline actually takes up quite a bit less screen time than the subplots. It’s like the movie is really about Drew and is bookended by the protagonist’s story as an afterthought.
I give director Mary Lambert credit for actually having the nerve to throw in a number of visual references to DePalma’s Body Double and Kubrick’s The Shining. It’s as though she’s saying “Okay, I know I don’t have that kind of talent, but at least I can recognize that someone does, and I should get some credit for that, right?”
One question: Hollywood can gouge out an eye, chop off a head, set a person on fire and put a drill through any part of the body they choose, but why are they incapable of replicating a dead animal on screen? Without exception, what we see is: shot of a live animal, cut to a reaction shot from a human, then cut back to see a completely different animal, now dead, with completely different fur and seemingly now without bones. It happens four or five times in this movie, with dogs and cats and rats and rabbits. If you’re going to make a movie called Pet Sematary Two, spend a little money on your dead animals, people, please!
Pet Sematary
Hi. I’m Victor, and I’m here to fill a plothole.
I remember liking the novel Pet Sematary when it came out. It was twisted, sick and very, very disturbing. By the time came around to make a movie of the novel, Stephen King had acquired enough clout to write his own adaptation.
Big mistake.
Let’s go back to basics: who is the protagonist and what does he want?
The protagonist of Pet Sematary is Louis, played by Keanu-voiced actor Dale Midkiff. What does Louis want? Well, Louis’s toddler son Gage is dead and Louis would prefer that Gage not be dead. Great, no problem, excellent motivation. I want little Gage to not be dead too.
Problem is, little Gage doesn’t die until about halfway through the movie. The narrative just kills time up to that point, it paces back and forth, throws at us whatever it can come up with to try to keep us in a state of unease. Loud noises, mysterious lights, ominous music, a grotesque ghost, a suicidal housekeeper, a zombie cat, irrelevent dream-visions, pictures hung crooked, falling trees, a terminally ill sister, a psychic child, Herman Munster, the script just keeps chucking stuff at us, marking time until we’re practically screaming for the little kid to get creamed by the truck. Which he finally does.
Louis has moved his family to this small town in Maine. His neighbor from across the way is Herman Munster and large trucks barrel along the road at regular intervals.
That night, Louis is visited by Victor the Friendly Ghost With the Massive Head Wound. After spouting some opaque folk wisdom, Victor takes Louis to a mysterious burial ground and forbids him to ever set foot there. Good plan, Victor. Take a guy to a place he’s never been and forbid him to go there. That’s bound to stick. Hey, what are you doing in this movie, anyway? You don’t have any connection to this story. What are you, some kind of plot contrivance? Oh, you are? Oh well.
Louis’s daughter’s cat dies. Herman Munster says “Hey, you know what? I can take you to a mysterious ancient sacred burial ground and we can bury the cat there.” Louis says okay. Hey, is it the same mysterious ancient burial ground Victor the Friendly Ghost With the Massive Head Wound forbade me to set foot on? Because that would be totally cool. Let’s go.
Later, the cat comes back and is really pissed off (the cat remains so through the rest of the movie; I hate to think what they did to the poor cat to make it be pissed-off on cue). Herman Munster comes by and says “Oh yeah, well that’s what happens to animals when you bury them at the mysterious ancient burial ground. I should know, same thing happened to my dog.” Oh. Good. Hey Herman, if the same thing happened to your dog, why did you decide to tell Louis to bury his cat there? Perhaps it slipped your mind.
Anyway, Gage finally gets creamed by the truck and we’re supposed to care. I’m not sure why; I think we’re supposed to be concerned that this family has been torn asunder, but the fact is the actors don’t look like a family at all. There’s no sense that there is any love or tenderness or caring in this family. They look like they haven’t met each other before walking onto the set.
Herman Munster pulls Louis aside and says “I know what you’re thinking, young man. You’re thinking of taking your dead son to that mysterious ancient burial ground. Well let me tell you, that’s a bad idea. Guy tried that a while back and his son turned into a murderous zombie.” Okay, so you’ve had a reminder about the place since your dog died, tell me again why you suggested Louis bury his cat there? Who are you, anyway? Has anyone ever told you you’re a stupid old man? Because you are. You should just shut up and go inside and sit down and watch The Price is Right.
Anyway, Louis is not one to listen to reason, so when his wife and daughter leave town he goes and digs up his dead son and buries him again at the mysterious ancient burial ground. And at this point, I’m sorry, I have to ask: what, exactly, is Louis’s plan? I mean, let’s say everything goes according to plan and, all evidence to the contrary, little Gage bounds out of the grave fresh-faced and giggling. Then what? What are you going to do with your fresh-faced zombie son? How exactly are you going to explain to people that your dead son, who they saw you bury, is not, in fact, dead any longer? How do you suppose they are going to react to this news? And it’s not like Louis has no time to consider any of this. I mean, it takes a long time to dig up a grave, haul out the body, carry it across town, haul it across a wide expanse of countryside and bury it again. There’s plenty of time in there to think about exactly how this is all going to play out.
Meanwhile, Herman Munster muses on his front porch. He knows he’s done wrong, he’s a foolish old man and it’s time to face facts. “You did this, Herman Munster,” he says, “And now you’ve got to undo it.” Filled with raging fires of resolve, he promptly falls asleep.
Louis knows how he feels. After digging up his son, carting him across hill and dale and burying him again, he goes home, plops down on the bed and also falls asleep. Because you know? After you’ve buried your son for the second time in a week and you know he’s going to show up in the morning as a zombie toddler, you know the best idea is to catch some z’s because the morning might be a little crazy.
Anyway, while Louis is burying the kid his daughter in Chicago has a dream, because any time Stephen King needs a plot fixed he tosses in a kid with psychic powers, and the wife is sent back home to try to stop Louis in his madness, and Victor the Friendly Ghost With the Massive Head Wound carefully, patiently guides the wife back to the house so she can, after much effort, get killed by little zombie Gage, just like Scatman Crothers in The Shining. Thanks for showing up Vic, big help, don’t let the door hit your ass on the way out.
The acting is awful, the production design is somehow simultaneously both cheap and overwrought, there is no visual scheme to speak of and no genuine scares. The zombie toddler, who is apparently capable of hauling dead bodies up steep staircases, fails to haunt one’s dreams.