Sunday, November 29, 2009

Pet Sematary II (1992)

Sequels to Stephen King-movies often cause a silly outrage in the horror community. They're not like me that loves DTV-sequels or sequels to "holy movies". Pet Sematary is considered to be one of the better horror movies based on a King-book, and I can agree it has some shock moments and a few scary seconds here and there. It's a well made movie. But it's never been close to my heart. I don't own it on DVD actually, but a movie I do own is the sequel Pet Sematary II, which might not be a better movie, but with a lot more entertainment and gore.

Edward Furlong (who by the way comes to Stockholm next weekend) plays Jeff, the son of a famous actress. When she dies in a freak accident during her latest horror movie he and his father is moving to a small town (guess which town?) to start a new life and get away from the busy LA. After a short while Jeff becomes friend with Drew, the chubby stepson of the town's evil sheriff Gus Gilbert (Clancy Brown). Gus kills Drews dog one night and of course he and Jeff goes to the pet cemetary to bury him... and soon hell is back in town again!

What I like about Pet Sematary II is that it's so over-the-top. There's more gore (though some of it probably was trimmed hard to get an R-rating, which is easy to notice), Clancy Brown as the mad sheriff and Furlongs character going slowly mad and starting to worship his dead mother in the attic. A lot of the gore is actually animal-gore, and it was a long time since I saw so many animals getting killed (or the aftermath) in movie. Everything fake of course, but it looks gross. Except that there's some shoulder drilling, one exploding head, squibs, motorcross-tire against face (which you don't see much of at all) and a lot of other nasty little surprises.

Mary Lambert is back behind the camera and as usual I like her work. Maybe there's more style than substance, but at least I don't get bored. Furlong is doing what he do best: the boy from Terminator 2, and Jason McGuire is excellent as Drew, the stepson of the sheriff. Clancy Brown and Anthony Edwards is always good, so what we have here is a very solid cast of actors.

Not bad at all, that's my final word on this movie.

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