Pet Sematary Two (1992)
Review by The Film Fiend
When someone kindly asks you not to bury your childhood pet and/or loved one in the ancient Indian burial ground just over the hill, it might be a wise decision to leave well enough alone. Resurrecting the recently deceased almost always ends in anguish, turmoil, and several buckets of juicy red bloodshed. Even if you think you’ve got the corpse’s best interest in mind, chances are you’re only going to piss this person off by dragging them kicking and screaming from the afterlife and forcing them to wander around inside a rotting skin suit. Larry King has been doing reanimated interviews for close to ten years now, and the guy never looks particularly happy about his station in life.
Before you make the questionable choice to awaken your dead lover from his or her eternal slumber in the kingdom of whatever bearded deity happens to be in vogue at the time, perhaps a viewing of Mary Lambert’s Pet Sematary Two is in order. Apparently, people didn’t pay close enough attention to the message buried deep in the first cinematic outing, forcing Hollywood to take matters into their own mildly capable hands. Besides, Paramount Pictures isn’t the type of company to take advantage of a global epidemic just so they can line their pockets with a few quarters and pennies, right?
Am I right?
After losing his mother to a horrifying accident on the set of her latest motion picture, brooding teenage pipsqueak Jeff Matthews (Edward Furlong) moves with his dorky father to the sleepy town of Ludlow to recover from their devastating loss. Our teenage hero soon befriends local fat kid Drew Gilbert (Jared Rushton), forming an almost immediate bond due to their mutual outsider status. Impossibly adorable? Not quite, sicko.
After Drew’s abusive stepfather Gus (Clancy Brown) plants a bullet into the hindquarters of his beloved childhood pet, the duo decide to bury the dog in the town’s infamous pet sematary, a place where the dead are often brought back to life. Things quickly spiral out of control as the body count steadily increases, culminating in a grisly over-the-top showdown with a handful of resurrected individuals. Some people, it would seem, never learn.
Pet Sematary Two, simply stated, is a retooled, refurbished rehash of the original film, though director Mary Lambert (Urban Legends: Bloody Mary) has bumped up the intensity of the on-screen terror to help drive her point-blank message into the hardest of movie-going heads. With professional celebrity zombies, resurrected puppies caught in hilarious situations on home video, and reanimated journalists clogging the American airwaves these days, we need more like-minded films to effect change within these United States, to educate and inform our clueless nation about the dangers of bringing the dead back to life.
To assist her in accurately illustrating the underlying themes present throughout Pet Sematary Two, Lambert has crammed several thousand pounds of incredibly gory violence into the picture’s briskly-paced 100 minutes. From power drills to axes, motorbikes to potato-covered car crashes, this squishy sequel spares no expense when it comes to giving you an uncut, no-holds-barred look at the deadly consequences of reckless resurrection. Sometimes it’s very necessary to see the outcome of such behavior in order to fully grasp the gravity of the scenario. I’m moving forward with my plan to incorporate this film into the public school system sometime next week.
And since the material is so timely and drop dead serious, everyone on-board approaches their respective roles with maturity and sincerity. Edward Furlong, despite being roughly 54 years-old at the time this film was lensed, nails the brooding angst associated with those unfortunate enough to have been teenagers in the early 90’s. His character’s father, portrayed by the immortal Anthony Edwards, embodies everything that is good and homely about small town veterinarians who moonlight as confused single parents. Clancy Brown, meanwhile, is suitably nasty as deranged Ludlow sheriff Gus Gilbert. The rest of the cast is effective, as well, though wholly unremarkable.
The next time your best friend from high school suggests bringing his dearly departed grandmother back to life so he can collect on some unpaid birthday promises, immediately thrust a dusty copy of Mary Lambert’s Pet Sematary Two into his greedy paws and prepare yourself for an all-night intervention. If everyone sits down with at least two people from their extended family to view this film in the comfort of their zombie-free abode, perhaps we can stem the tide before it overflows into our major metropolitan cities. Reeducate America immediately; buy, rent, or legally download a copy of Pet Sematary Two post-haste!
The fate of the free world depends upon it!
Popularity: 5% [?]
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