Film Review: PET SEMATARY TWO (1992, Mary Lambert)

Stars: 2.5 of 5.

Running Time: 100  minutes.

Notable Cast or Crew:   Anthony Edwards (MIRACLE MILE, ER, ZODIAC), Edward Furlong (TERMINATOR 2, AMERICAN HISTORY X), Clancy Brown (HIGHLANDER, EXTREME PREJUDICE), Jared Rushton (BIG, OVERBOARD), Darlanne Fluegel (TO LIVE AND DIE IN L.A., BULLETPROOF, RUNNING SCARED), Jason McGuire (LEAP OF FAITH, FORREST GUMP).  Written by Richard Outten (LITTLE NEMO: THE 80S MOVIE) and vaguely, but not really based on elements from PET SEMATARY, by Stephen King.

Tag-line: "Raise some hell."

Best one-liner:  "No brain, no pain... think about it."

PET SEMATARY TWO boldly asks the question, "Can a movie be worse than PET SEMATARY ONE?"  The answer is "Yes... well, kind of."

Aside from the presence of bullies and the general idea of a supernatural cemetery whereupon pets and and occasionally humans can be buried only to rise from the dead and become (at best) soulless versions of their former selves, or (at worst) evil killer zombies, this really has nothing to do with anything Stephen King ever wrote.  As such, it sort of feels like PET SEMATARY fan-fiction. Still, it is important to note that PET SEMATARY TWO is not abjectly terrible.  In fact, there are quite a few things to like here.  Seven, in fact:

#1.  Sullen Anthony Edwards.

Pre-ER Anthony Edwards plays a medical professional (a veterinarian) who has lost his wife and is trying to raise moody, early 90s Edward Furlong.

Pictured: moody, early 90s Edward Furlong.

Interestingly enough, Edwards' deceased wife is played by Darlanne Fluegel, an actress who got a tremendous amount of niche work as "practically the only woman" in movies that are otherwise jam-packed with male character actors, and this is no exception.  (Also see:  TO LIVE AND DIE IN L.A., BULLETPROOF, LOCK UP, RUNNING SCARED.) Weird.

Anyway, Edwards is pretty great– so great, that you'll really regret that he didn't play "Louis Creed" in PET SEMATARY 1, since Dale Midkiff didn't really have the chops to pull it off.  Maybe the tremendous pathos of Anthony Edwards could have "saved" PET SEMATARY 1– I guess we'll never know.

#2.  The awkwardly exclaimed line, "Thanks for screwing up our Halloween, dumb shit!"

which is laughably uttered by a small town bully– thus making it officially the most "Stephen King-ian" thing in the movie.


#3.  Clancy Brown.  Longtime readers of this site know of my ongoing appreciation of his work, which ranges from evil sons of bitches (HIGHLANDER) to badass good guys (STARSHIP TROOPERS, EXTREME PREJUDICE, THE ADVENTURES OF BUCKAROO BANZAI).

 Here, he gets to play the Kurgan (from HIGHLANDER) again, essentially– he starts off as an abusive dad/uptight town sheriff, and after being killed and resurrected, turns into a spectacularly psychotic, scenery (and lima beans) chewing maniac.

There's a great scene where his overweight son apologizes for not being the "stud" Clancy is.



And there's an even better scene when an undead Clancy smashes unidentifiable dinner goop and lima beans into his mouth and laughs maniacally for at least twenty seconds.


No, PET SEMATARY TWO is not a good movie, but the beauty of Clancy Brown's deranged performance occasionally fools you into thinking it is.

#4.  These creepy twin girls who reveal, for a fleeting moment, what it would look like if THE SHINING were directed by, say, the makers of FULL HOUSE.



#5.  DEATH BY SPUDS!

How would you like your potato, sir?  Baked?  Roasted?  Mashed?  Stuffed?  Scalloped?  HOW 'BOUT RAINING DOWN ON YOU IN A MURDEROUS, SKULL-SQUASHIN' DELUGE?!


Honestly, in the annals of film history, I don't think there's ever been a "death by potatoes" scene quite like this one.  Nice job, PET SEMATARY TWO!

#6.  The magnificence of the following scene, whereupon an undead Clancy Brown attempts to murder Anthony Edwards with crazy-eye and an electric drill, loopily hypothesizing, "No brain, no pain...  think about it!"






#7.  While The Ramones unfortunately don't give us "I Don't Wanna Be Buried in a Pet Sematary (Again)," they do indeed again provide the rockin' beats of the closing credits with the song, "Poison Heart."

In closing, PET SEMATARY TWO ain't great– and you didn't need me to tell ya that, I'm sure.  Still, a couple of spit-take worthy moments and some killer potatoes push this up to... two and a half stars.

–Sean Gill

Only now does it occur to me... PET SEMATARY

Only now does it occur to me...  that The Ramones were more deeply connected to PET SEMATARY than I previously imagined!

The Ramones don't wanna be buried in a Pet Sematary.

Most everybody knows that Ramones music ("Sheena is a Punk Rocker") plays during the infamous "Truck vs. John Hughes' Son" scene,

and that the Ramones jumped on the spectacular bandwagon of 80s horror/rock collaborations to record the end credits music "Pet Sematary" [thus joining Alice Cooper ("He's Back– The Man Behind the Mask" for FRIDAY THE 13TH PART VI), Dokken ("Dream Warriors" for NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET PART III), W.A.S.P. ("Scream Until You Like It" for GHOULIES II), Mötley Crüe ("Shocker" for SHOCKER), The Dickies ("Killer Klowns" for KILLER KLOWNS FROM OUTER SPACE), and AC/DC ("Who Made Who" for MAXIMUM OVERDRIVE), among others!], but little did I know– until I finally read PET SEMATARY– that the Ramones are all over the book!

Page 54 sees a random radio appearance:  "Louis turned on the radio and dialed until he found the Ramones playing 'Rockaway Beach.' He turned it up and sang along– not well but with lusty enjoyment..."

Page 213 gives us one of Stephen King's famous rocker quotes:  "Hey-ho, let's go!     –The Ramones 

And starting on Page 232, "Hey-ho" becomes a typical Kingish recurring subliminal thought:  "What is it the Ramones say? Hey-ho, let's go!   He thought he wanted to laugh but there was no laugh in him..."  and so on– so clearly The Ramones were fated to be a part of the film!

As for the film itself– it's not nearly as good (or scary) as I remembered, and it pales in comparison to the book, which is one of King's more depressing efforts with a mean streak worthy of Richard Bachmann (that's a good thing!).  Furthermore, Fred "Herman Munster" Gwynne appears to be the only actual actor in the whole movie, and despite his best efforts he is outnumbered.

Herman Munster emotes.

And hey, look, it's a Stephen King cameo– always good for a chuckle!

King's big moment.

In closing, this would have made a kickass melancholy horror flick if it were directed by George A. Romero in the early 1980s.  Oh, well.

Film Review: ROCK 'N ROLL HIGH SCHOOL (1979, Allan Arkush & Joe Dante)

Stars: 5 of 5.
Running Time:

Notable Cast or Crew: The Ramones, P.J. Soles, Paul Bartel, Mary Woronov, Roger Corman, Dick Miller, Clint Howard. Giant mouse FX by Rob Bottin (THE THING, ROBOCOP, TOTAL RECALL).

Tag-line: "Hey, ho, let's go!"
Best one-liner(s): "I'm FIRST in line! and if you don't like it, you can put it where the monkey puts the nuts!"
Best anecdote: Dee Dee Ramone was such a fine thespian that his lines were cut from five down to two, in the dressing room after the concert: "Hey, pizza!" and "Hey, pizza! It's great! Let's dig in!"

ROCK 'N ROLL HIGH SCHOOL is like that friend of yours who's eating salted nuts and licking their fingers while you're riding the subway together. And you're like 'Where did you get those nuts?' And you know what, your friend is eating those nuts out of their nasty lint-lined pocket. And they don't care. And that friend is like this movie- irreverent, random, and lettin' it stuff hang out all over the place. This film is a damned fun time. This is producer Roger Corman and directors Joe Dante and Allan Arkush at the height of their campy, infectiously fun powers. We've got the new evil principal played by Mary Woronov in a performance that would make most drag queens proud.

We got the legendary B-director and actor Paul Bartel as the formerly square Ramones-fan-in-training music teacher.

(And this is yet another of the over twenty collaborations between the legendary Mary Woronov and Paul Bartel (of EATING RAOUL fame) who you're bound to hear much more about on this blog.) We got Clint Howard as the high school equivalent of James Garner in THE GREAT ESCAPE. We, of course, got the Ramones, reveling in the fact they don't know how to act but excel at whipping high schoolers into a frenzy. And, finally, we got P.J. Soles as the incorrigible Riff Randell, who truly is the REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE for her generation,

leading revolts, skipping class, heckling the administration, and finally actually BLOWING UP THE SCHOOL in an act of youthful defiance (with a pyrotechnics shot which the penny pinching Corman continued to recycle, most notably in MUNCHIE STRIKES BACK).

Five stars of high school giddiness and a true last hurrah for 70's B-movies.

-Sean Gill