Gage wants to play
I almost can’t believe how bad Pet Sematary actually was. The direction was ham fisted, the writing was trash and the acting was bad — like cover-your-eyes bad. Even the usually reliable Fred Gwynne was crap here — I suspect the awful script didn’t help. When the best acting is delivered by the three-year-old playing an evil, re-animated corpse, your movie has issues. Predictable, cheap and full of unsympathetic characters, there isn’t a lot to like here — at least until Gage comes back and starts “playing” with everyone. The effects shot where Gwynne’s character gets his achilles tendon severed is famous, and rightfully so, for its visceral effectiveness. If you could muster up any emotional connection to the character, it would have been even better. It is a testament to how watchable decent production values can make even a terrible movie, but that’s a slight endorsement.
Tomorrow night, Wings Hauser in Mutant.
wow, should I add this to the “films of my childhood not to revisit” list?
@Jay It was kind of fun in a stupid way, but it is not a particularly good movie by any means.
Aww, it is sad, but yes the movie was technically crap, but it is still one of my favourites nonetheless. There were some weird creepy moments, like the creepy sister with the twisted spine, and the guy with the smashed in skull who visits the main guy from beyond the grave.
@ Chantal – I agree, some of the elements were quite impressive, including both of the things you mentioned. But the whole package came together poorly. It’s one of my girlfriend’s favorites too, and maybe if I had seen it with younger eyes, I’d have more affection for it.
Ha ha! Great summary. I was falling about laughing when I watched this today!
Gage is truly the best thing about this entire movie. I love his little facial tics and grimaces. Another favourite is the classic slpastick moment when Lewis wakes from a nightmare, rolls out of bed and bumps his head on the nightstand. Intentional or not, it had me in creases…
Stephen King may be one of the world’s most (financially) successful living writers, but good God, he is completely deaf when it comes to screen dialogue…
@ Alex – Pet Sematary was full of unintentionally funny moments. My whole crew (me, girlfriend, daughter) all loved the headsmack on falling out of bed, too. And yeah, King is a terrible fucking screenwriter. I was amazed to see he did the screenplay.
Strangely, as bad as that was, it made me want to see Pet Sematary 2, which is supposedly even worse… but probably funnier, too.
[...] Gage, you little rascal, with your scalpel and your fun “games.” Poor Fred Gwynne sure learned the hard way why playing hide and seek with you was not a good idea, at all. This creepy little shit became [...]
[...] I covered the original last year as part of my Zombie Movie Marathon and found it pretty bad (read it here). Well, Pet Sematary II isn’t pretty bad. It’s absolute garbage, but so completely [...]