- Directed by Mary Lambert
- August 28, 1992
- Based on the 1983 novel Pet Sematary by Stephen King
A boy and his father move to his deceased mother’s hometown where they must deal with the ancient Native American ground that can raise the dead.
I think maybe before this viewing, I caught the very end credits of Pet Sematary Two. Beyond a random mention I hadn’t heard much about the movie. And what little I had heard didn’t sound good so I was in no big rush to check it out-EVER!
Clearly I finally got around to it and I can definitely say I could’ve gone the rest of my life without ever watching it. Despite having the same director as the original it feels like one of those movies that has a completely different creative team from stem to stern behind it. It doesn’t have the same tone or same general feel as Pet Sematary.
While it did so imperfectly the original attempted to handle themes of grief and loss through a supernatural story. It TRIED to be about something unlike this. The story here is just about how many kills with early 90s gore of one type or another they can fit into the movie’s limited runtime. If this were the child of a purely gore/kill focused movie then that would be fine. As the sequel to a film that was a bit more than that, well, not so much.
Edward Furlong began his career on a high note. What better way to debut than in Terminator 2? My how times have changed. And they were changing already here. This movie was not a vehicle for a rising star. This was a desperate attempt to stay in the spotlight by a guy already on the way down but maybe did not quite know it. Anywho…
Here Furlong is young Jeff Matthews dealing with the death of his mother-a famous television actress-who is married to small time veterinarian Dr. Chase Matthews (Anthony Edwards). Her fame means absolutely nothing to the story. It just serves to mildly differentiate this film from the first. Dad decides it is best to haul her body back to Ludlow (though the name is never stated) along with his son and not only bury her there but start over as well. How does moving to mom’s birthplace with no apparent family help ANYBODY! That is isolation with reminders!
Jeff is just a kid with a mild attitude problem. Really not a problem child or even too bothered by mom’s death from the looks of it. Jeff makes friends with a local fat kid Drew Gilbert (Jason McGuire) who is the stepson of the local sheriff Gus Gilbert (Clancy Brown) yet they share the same last name and Gus dated Jeff’s mom back in school.
Long story short stepdad shoots Drew’s dog Zowie and the new friends decide “What the heck. Let’s bury the dog in the pet cemetery.” The dog kills stepdad and stepdad comes back and despite clearly not being a functional human being now, is able to move around and kill as he pleases. Brown was absolutely great. He went from a touch weird (who mentions they had somebody’s mom first?) to dangerous with ease. He becomes the main villain of the story and serves up menace to spare with a level of evil glee.
Clancy Brown is the only one that puts in a worthwhile performance. I’m not saying I necessarily agree with his character but he’s at least interesting. There’s some nuance and dynamic. Everybody else from Edward Furlong to Anthony Edwards is just phoning it in or despite putting their best effort forward displaying no ability whatsoever.
And because of that there’s no investment in any of the characters. You never really care what happens to anybody. With pretensions and shallow attempts at being deep, the poor quality of the acting combined with that of the general story leads to a lackluster film with a single bright spot,
What bothers me (and it often does in other films with like characters) is the boy who decapitates Jeff’s cat early on in the story. Not only does Clyde (Jared Rushton) have lots of friends but the broad support of the school in all he does. I have a hard time believing anyone disturbed enough to do something like that would be able to keep it under wraps and keep people around him even with a magic evil plot of land influencing them. Maybe if they built him up in some way that people would be afraid of him.
The most unfortunate part of Pet Sematary Two though is it just stumbles around from one kill to the next. And this is all about the deaths that you don’t actually see. Lazily the events of the end parallel the first film to almost the letter. Talk about rehash! Try a bit.
What gets me is Jeff sees all the terrible things that the resurrected do when they come back and decides it’s a good idea to work with the resurrected Gus to dig up his mother and bury her in the pet cemetery. He sees all these people and animals turning homicide homicidal when they come back but it’s going to be different with his mom? I get being tempted but actually doing it borders on stupidity. You could chalk it up to the influence of the sour ground but there is nothing that hints at its influence.
And the music. There are two or three pop somewhat metal songs sprinkled in this movie that just, well, don’t fit. Did the producers have the rights and felt they needed to use those rights and said, “Why not here?” This is not a group like Pantera or any hard-core metal group doing a song for the end credits. What we get is a lot closer to Taylor Swift covering Joan Jett covering Gwar-maybe.
Director Mary Lambert felt like she was going through the motions. Whether she was just working for a paycheck or contractually obligated to do something she didn’t want to do she put no effort in here. But then again neither did anybody else. Even script writer Richard Outten half-assed a mess.
I tried to like Pet Sematary Two, but it is not a very good sequel. Unlike Bloodlines it doesn’t even tease a better story. If you like the original, that’s enough of a story there. There’s no need to take this one in.
