REVIEW: PET SEMATARY BLOODLINES

When is a sequel not a sequel? When it’s a prequel. Sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference.

Hey! Happy Friday the thirteenth (unless today is Saturday; it all depends on scheduling, which I’m not in charge of). I hope you’re not one of those people who thinks today is “unlucky.” That trope comes from religion, which used to rule just about every Westerner’s life. Today we’re free to choose whether to believe in something or to believe in nothing. As the old joke has it, I believe I’ll have another beer. When most of us have a “normal” (another joke has it that the word “normal” is just a clothes-dryer setting) upbringing, we all absorb a number of superstitions, like: stepping on a crack is bad for your mama’s health; breaking a mirror is “unlucky” (do you believe in luck? I don’t, knock on wood); walking under a ladder is unlucky (well, people on ladders do drop things, don’t they?) and so on. Fortunately, we’re all grown-up people here and don’t believe superstitions. Like astrology. (Hey, I’m a Capricorn, and we’re notorious skeptics.)

Anyway, We’ve been doing the “Halloween movies” thing here because our co-op’s satellite system recently added KIRO-TV’s “Movies” channel, and they run a lot of old SF and horror movies. Prompted by that, we decided to check out what we thought was a sequel (the whole movie industry, including indies, is sequel-happy these days, IMO) to a favourite Stephen King-based film, Pet Sematary (1989).

We saw the remake (2019), but it didn’t make much of an impression; but if you haven’t read the book (the original film is pretty faithful) and you like King’s brand of horror, you should. Then watch the 1989 version with Fred Gwynne, Denise Crosby and pretty much nobody else you’ll remember. It involves a doctor, Louis Creed, who moves with his wife (Crosby), daughter and infant son to a small Maine town called Ludlow. They get a house next to a road where logging trucks roar by, day and night.

After their cat is killed by one of these trucks, they learn from their elderly neighbour, Jud Crandall (Gwynne) that the children of Ludlow opened a cemetary (the sign is misspelled by a child, which is why the name) for their dead pets. The deal here is that the original inhabitants of the area, the Micmac tribe, had a superstition that this ground was sour, and evil. But burying a “fresh” body here can bring the dead one back to life. But they come back changed. Soulless. The cat is buried, comes back, but is no longer the beloved pet of their daughter. It attacks. You can guess the rest from this (I don’t want to spoil the whole plot if you haven’t seen it or read the book). It was well done, and effective. (King has a cameo, as usual.)

So, not remembering a whole lot specific, we thought this would be a sequel and thought “Why not?” Well, we discovered that it was indeed a prequel, telling us the whole “origin” story, which was skimmed over in the previous movie.

The reason (besides it being years since we saw the first one) we didn’t realize it was a prequel is that there are a few montages in this movie, beginning and end in particular, with a quick clip of a large truck zooming past (incidentally, it didn’t appear to be a logging truck), which we took as an homage to the first one. At the very least, it’s meant to be a tie-in. In this movie, Jud Crandall (Jackson White) and his girlfriend Norma (Natalie Lynd) are preparing to leave Ludlow for the Peace Corps (it’s the ‘60s, specifically 1969). He’s told that nobody’s ever left Ludlow and he won’t be leaving either. His father, Dan (Henry Thomas), sits on the porch drinking beer and smoking. He’s prepared to defend against something, it looks like.

We also meet Bill Baterman’s (David Duchovny’s) dog (whose name I’ve forgotten) when Jud and Norma, on their way out of town, have their windshield broken by what looks like a bird, but turns out to be the dog, sitting in the middle of the road. They know this dog, and wonder why he’s so disheveled and dirty, but decide to take him back to the Batermans’ home. When they arrive, Timmy Baterman (Jack Mulhern) looks out from the house and doesn’t move when the dog attacks Norma, savaging her arm. Jud yells at him, but he only lets the dog into the house and shuts the door. Timmy is a Viet Nam veteran, and his father (Duchovny) tells people he came back alive and a hero, with a Silver Star. Judging from this little episode, he came back an asshat. (At one point Timmy and Jud were best friends, but there’s a reason Timmy went into the Army and Jud didn’t; it soured their friendship.

At some point, Dan Crandall tells Jud about the curse of the town, and the Micmac burial ground (which is the kids’ Pet Sematary). We also meet Dan’s friend Manny Rivers (Forrest Goodluck) and his sister Donna (Isabella LaBlanc), who is a hippie-type “chick”—both Rivers and his sister are Native Americans (one assumes Micmac). We also meet the town elders (or council, not sure which): Marjorie Washburn (Pam Grier), Sheriff Anderson (Christian Jadah), and Commander Williams (Karl Graboshas), whose mission is to protect the town of Ludlow.

Even though Norma’s arm isn’t as bad as it looked, the doctor tells her she must rest in bed for a few days, so Jud postpones his Peace Corps trip. Things begin to escalate in town, as in the original movie (we’ll cease referencing the book here), and for the same reasons, which the viewer has already guessed. People begin to die… and to come back changed. (But we knew that was going to happen, right?)

We also find out that although pets can be killed (again—the dog was shot; in the original movie, the doctor killed the cat with a shot {from a syringe, ha!}), people who are changed can only be killed by a gunshot in the eyes. (There’s even a scene from the town’s founding). Spoilers escalate and I don’t want to go too deeply into it because of that.

The acting is pretty good; we’re probably not going to get Oscar-winning performances in this kind of film (although Kathy Bates won an Oscar for playing Annie Wilkes in Misery, another film well adapted from a Stephen King book). Likewise the script and the setting. It’s notably hard to put King’s work onscreen without major changes; in some cases the book or story has to be changed to really make a story. For example, the book Carrie was written in a series of newspaper clippings, etc., and couldn’t have been filmed that way. Although he left out some of the best stuff in the book, Stanley Kubrick modified The Shining in such a way as to keep the feeling of dread and inherent evil in a building. Some King works, like Maximum Overdrive, suffered badly by being filmed mostly as written. So I think the screenwriters, working from the book but being aware of the first movie—and its 2019 reworking—did a good job. It’s not going to be an Oscar-winning movie, but I feel it was enjoyable and pretty well done.

I was going to write a full review of the following film, but I’m afraid this is getting to be a bit TLDR, so I’ll content myself with a few words and a recommendation.

From SHUDDER comes a new entry in the five? six?-film series that started in 2012 with V/H/S. All these films (as far as I’m aware) are anthology-type “found-footage” movies in the gory/bloody horror movie category. They seldom have a good connection; in some cases the episodes (varying from 4 to 6 in each film) have no relationship to each other and no framing device other than being “found footage”—and the films and episodes vary so wildly that some are—even for me—fairly unwatchable.

I originally saw the first one in our local video store that has, alas!—even before the pandemic—closed. The cover featured a stack of video tape spines, with the white labels forming a skull (à la The Punisher’s logo) against the darker spines. I barely remember it, other than it didn’t disgust me. And since it’s October “scary movie” month, I thought I’d give V/H/S/85 a spin. Again, the frame was mostly non-existent and there was little connection among the various segments. I won’t tell you what the connection is; you’ll figure it out. There’s a fair amount of gore, but it’s not slasher-type (or SAW type) gore just for gore’s sake or for sheer viciousness; there is (however weak) a purpose and some fairly clever, at times, storytelling in the new one.

It inspired me to watch V/H/S/2, which had a couple of clever stories, but the writers had no idea when to quit! Too much splatter, stories that continued long after they’d made their point, and some lousy acting. So I’d say if you have seen V/H/S and enjoyed it, skip the others and watch V/H/S/85, which is not too bad. If you like or can put up with, a lot of blood. But they are put out by “Bloody Disgusting,” after all!

Comments? Anyone? Bueller? I often work in a vacuum, not knowing whether I’m making any sense, or whether you, my audience, are enjoying the columns. So please drop me a comment. You can comment here or on Facebook, or even by email (stevefah at hotmail dot com). Just be polite, please, if you don’t like it. My opinion is, as always, my own, and doesn’t necessarily reflect the views of Amazing Stories or its owner, editor, publisher or other columnists. See you next time!