Pet Sematary – Review

Hello horror fans, today we’ll be discussing and reviewing the 1989 film adaptation of Stephen King’s classic ‘Pet Sematary’.

So let me just say that, as far as the book is concerned, it’s one of Mr King’s best works alongside Misery and The Shining. (We both adore The Shining, and this is clearly evident from this post we made not so long ago!) For those who also enjoy his novels, I’m sure you’ll agree that the way he sets and describes each scene is impeccable. It leaves us captivated, thoroughly immersed in the moment and hanging onto every word. So, when it comes to a novel’s transition to the big screen, the bar is set extremely high and there is no room for any amateurism.

Luckily, for Pet Sematary, it’s film adaptation (directed by Mary Lambert) is enjoyable, offers good attention to detail from the book, and is topped off with a solid cast. The plot is explained below and, as it evolves and changes throughout the book/film, I’ll intersperse the synopsis with my opinions, thoughts and critique. Are we sitting comfortably? Let’s begin:

Louis Creed (played by Dale Midkiff), his wife Rachel (Denise Crosby), their children Ellie (Blaze Berdahl) and Gage (Miko Hughes) and pet cat Church (Winston Churchill) have moved to the sleepy town of Ludlow from bustling Chicago. Their new home sits on the edge of a busy highway, a major route for the Orinco trucks to transport their goods all over the state. When moving in they are soon introduced to their elderly neighbours Jud Crandall (Fred Gwynne) and his wife Norma (who is exempt from the film adaptation).

We are given a bit of an insight into the daily lives of the Creed family and Louis and Jud become close friends, but Jud puts their friendship in jeopardy when he takes the family down a windy path near their home leading to the ‘Pet Sematary’, a place where the children of Ludlow bury their deceased animals (who had previously been killed by vehicles on the busy stretch of road).

(“Hey, I just met you, and this is crazy, but we’re going to a graveyard, so bring your baby”.)

After the visit, Ellie is distressed and becomes increasingly worried about Church (leading to Rachel and Louis having a colossal argument over the subject), and Louis deals with a major casualty victim on the university campus – Victor Pascow (Brad Greenquist) – who speaks to Louis about the Pet Sematary before passing away.

Let me just say at this point that, when we are introduced to each character in the film, it is made completely clear that this film was made in the 80s. This isn’t a bad thing! I had a good chuckle at Rachel’s ‘Jonny Bravo’ haircut, Ellie’s super-sized glasses and Victor’s skimpy taste in clothing (as you can see below). Hey, it’s sometimes said that fashion trends can repeat themselves, so we could be in a situation where maroon cycling shorts are flying off the shelves in Topman at £40 a piece. Who’s that fellow hanging out amongst a load of trendy Camden kids? Why, it’s hipster Victor Pascow, right on cue, saying he was wearing those shorts before they were cool…

“Who wears short shorts?”

Louis is haunted by dreams involving Victor, not because of those shorts, but because of his warning about the Pet Sematary. The dream sequence involving Louis and Victor is well executed. Without the technological advancements of modern day Hollywood special effects, there is much more focus on the surrounding scenery and it’s complimentary music score – and that’s what makes the sequence engaging to watch. Mary provides a haunting atmosphere complete with hazy low-level mist, dissonant drones, crashing metallic thuds, juddering strings and cawing crows/hooting owls. “This is the place where the dead speak … Do NOT go on to the place where the dead walk!” Louis waking up with his feet covered in pine needles and muck is the icing on the cake here – the delivery of this twist isn’t too full blown, but packs a solid punch to round everything off.

Whilst the whole family (sans Louis) are in Chicago seeing Rachel’s parents, Church is involved in an unfortunate car accident leading to his death. Accompanied by Jud, he and Louis bag him up and walk to the Pet Sematary to bury him. However, Jud tells Louis to keep walking. Guiding him through a twisted path accompanied by tangled brambles and haunting screams from the “Loons”, he is taken to an ancient Micmac burial ground situated on-top of a mesa. Louis grabs his shovel, does the deed and, after returning home, Jud reveals that the trip must remain a secret.

A recurring quote in this film (first introduced at this point) is “The soil of a man’s heart is stonier; a man grows what he can and tends it.” I guess you can interpret this quote in a number of ways, but here’s a straight-forward no-frills version – “Louis, don’t bury animals or people in the Micmac ground. They’ll come back as zombies and it will be bloody awful”. (Not sure why Jud didn’t just say this instead of beating around the bush!)

So on this note, Church comes back to life and returns home. My word, I don’t like to admit this but Church’s half-dead appearance really caught me off-guard. I’m mostly immune to shock tactics and the trademark horror jumps, but when zombie Church appeared out of nowhere, I almost shat my pants. I think this works because it’s completely unexpected – usually with this horror cliche there is some-sort of build up (e.g. man wanders through empty haunted house and ghost slowly creeps up from behind) but, in this case, Louis is idly sorting out some items in his garage one moment and the next we are faced with this demonic critter booming out a guttural howl.

“I hope that’s cottage pie in my trousers!”

The family return home from Chicago and, apart from Church smelling funky and having a hearty bloodlust for small creatures and birds, they don’t really catch on that Church isn’t quite himself. Louis knows the truth, and it’s eats him up inside quicker than when I demolish a large Domino’s Pizza (truly a sight to behold).

A tragic family event strikes the Creed family where Gage is run over by a passing Orinco truck. Putting the horror elements of this film to one side, this is the scene which has the most effect in the entire film – and for anyone else who’s watched it, I’m sure you’ll wholeheartedly agree. Rather than seeing Gage get splattered in a smorgasbord of guts and motor parts, Mary takes a much more subtle approach by leaving the actual accident to the viewer’s imagination. One minute Gage is standing in the road trying to grip onto a kite, the next you see the kite just float away into the sky and one of Gage’s shoes (slightly smeared with blood) tumble down the road. Distressing to watch but cleverly done without any unnecessary blood and gore.

Gage’s death tears the family apart, and a jaded Louis can only see one way to fix it. After Gage’s funeral, he goes undercover to dig up his decaying body from the regular cemetery, so that it can be transferred into the Micmac burial ground. An unthinkable act translated to the big screen with gusto from start to finish, culminating with a great shot from inside the padded coffin where the lid is slowly lifted revealing Louis’ expression – a tempestuous mix of regret and determination to get the job done.

OK, so no surprises on what happens next! A rotting child’s hand fondles it’s way through the cairn on the mesa, and zombie Gage breaks free limping his way back to the Creed household. He’s not an angelic little boy anymore; what the viewer witnesses is a sinister and haunting devil-child fixated with murder. Here Mary uses the tried and tested build-suspense-then-deliver tactic but to surprisingly good effect, starting with Jud walking through his own home brandishing a weapon and ending with Gage tearing flesh from his throat leaving Jud face up in a pool of his own blood. Gage’s quest for annihilation is brought to a stop by Louis, but not before Gage brutally kills his wife. “Oh no, my sweet wife is dead! Wait…I know just what to do!”

The final part of the book/film translated into an outdated meme. Yes, ok, I need to get a life.

The film draws to a close with zombie Rachel returning to the Creed home – “Darrrrrling”, the undead figure purrs softly in Louis’ ear. The book ends right at this point (which I personally preferred), but the cameras stay rolling for a bit longer while a delusional Louis and zombie Rachel have a kiss and cuddle. The End.

So, there you have it. The film is by no means visual and storytelling perfection, but it’s solid evidence that you don’t need a bucketload of effects and Hollywood dazzle to captivate a viewer. The acting is rather impressive (honourable mention goes to Dale Midkiff as Louis), and overall it’s a great adaption (in comparison to the book there are some bits trimmed out but they aren’t particularly pivotal to the story anyway.)

Read the book if you haven’t done so first, then give the film a go – you won’t regret it. Viewers more susceptible to fright, peril, blood or a combination of the three may want to watch it with a buddy and perhaps put some Lampy’s on first! Enjoy!

 

The Lampy-metre

Jessabelle – Review

 

 

Directed by Kevin Greutert (the man behind Saw VI, Saw 3D, and a directorial contributor to the cult film Donnie Darko), Jessabelle tells the story of a woman who returns to her childhood home and comes face-to-face with a distressed spirit who has been awaiting her return, and has no intention of letting her escape. Rotten Tomatoes awards it a stinky 25%, IMDB a measly 5.4/10, and AV Club a modest B-. It’s mixed feedback across the board. So, where exactly does Jessabelle sit on our film review radar? Is this a hair-raising horror or a boring blunder? Read on…

The film begins with our female protagonist, Jessie (played by Sarah Snook), who’s packing up and moving in with her boyfriend along with an unborn plus one. However, en-route to their new home, their futures are shattered when they’re involved in a high-speed side-on collision. Her boyfriend and unborn baby are killed in the crash, and Jessie is left temporarily paralysed. Despite Jessie having an aunt who she gets on perfectly well with, Jessie is “forced” to move back into her childhood home with her estranged father Leon (David Andrews). (Personally, if we were in this position, we’d probably just go and chill with the friendly aunt but, hey, where’s the film opportunity in that?)

When she moves in the supernatural presences and eerie goings on start taking place from the get-go, but things really start going downhill when she discovers and plays some old VHS tapes under the bed. There’s something we really like about the inclusion of VHS tapes in a horror film; the graininess and discolouration, the fuzzy snow static, the jumpy quality caused by poor tracking, oh, and nothing gives us the creeps more than an unlabelled one – who knows what’s been recorded on that? The worn VHS effect shines through nicely in the footage and generously adds to the sense of mystery surrounding the suspicious activity in the house.

The first tape she watches shows her dearly departed mother (Joelle Carter) giving her a good-natured ‘beyond-the-grave’ tarot reading which leads to her disclosing that an evil presence is in the house. Each recording provides a more accurate reading (stating that the presence is an evil demon), and the mother’s reactions to this evil spirit gradually begin to escalate with each tape. Leon catches Jessie watching these tapes, and eventually decides to set these (and accidentally himself) on fire. Safety first, kids! Don’t cover video tapes in gasoline and light a match immediately after.

Stop, drop ‘n’ roll! Stop, drop ‘n’ roll!

Fast forward to Leon’s funeral, and Jessie bumps into her old friend *cough ex boyfriend cough* Preston at the service (played by Marc Webber). Jessie and Preston have a catch-up over dinner, with Preston disclosing that he is married whilst the two stare longingly into each others eyes. Preston is unhappy about her being in the house on her own, and offers for her to stay the night with him and his wife. At one point Preston has Jessie in his arms and they engage in intense eye contact for an awkward 30+ seconds. Err…hang on! What happened to the story about the evil spirit that haunts Jessie? The impression that we both had at this point is that all elements of peril and horror take a distant backseat whilst the story focuses too heavily on the boring relationship between Preston and Jessie. This isn’t Eastenders, Kev. Nobody cares about this storyline!

With Preston becoming more and more involved in the mystery of Jessabelle, they both watch the tapes together (one of which is discovered hidden behind the house wall after a fight sequence with Jessie and spirit Jessabelle), and the storyline takes an interesting turn when both Jessie and Preston discover an ancient burial ground across the bayou. A tiny headstone with ‘Jessebelle’ crudely marked into it sits amongst an array of voodoo paraphernalia, and Preston digs up the grave to find the bones of a small child. The police become involved and take the bones away for examination. Apart from another discovery of a similar site used to bury ‘Moses’ (who previously told Jessie’s mother that Jessabelle was a demon), the voodoo magic themes are left very much unexplored. A shame really, as this could’ve given the story a slightly different edge instead of taking the cookie cutter ‘demonic spirit’ route.

Preston is eventually attacked by Jessabelle when he takes Jessie back to his home. Jessie learns that the buried child was a black girl murdered after birth, leading her to believe that she needs to be saved. Jessie tries to do this by speaking to Jessabelle directly, but instead discovers another VHS tape on the coffee table which shows a recording of Jessie’s mother cursing a white baby and shooting herself.

“Goin’ down d’bayou, Goin’ down d’bayou!”

Her mother’s spirit then appears to her and reveals that the unwanted presence is Jessie herself (not Jessabelle, OMG #plottwist!) Turns out ol’ Mrs Jessie had had a sordid affair with Moses and, in a fit of rage, Jessie’s father had discovered this and killed the baby and moses using Jessie as a cover-up. Moses’ spirit appears before Jessie and, working in tandem with the apparition of Jessie’s mother, they wheel her into the bayou where she sinks into it’s murky depths. Jessabelle is there too, and uses this opportunity to enter Jessie. The film is wrapped up with Jessie leaving the bayou in Preston’s arms and, as the police sheriff asks if Jessie is alright, her contorted face turns to answer him and splutters a final corny line – “It’s Jessabelle”. Cue credits.

A complement sandwich

OK enough synopsis talk, let’s tell you what we thought about this film. Ever heard of the ‘compliment’ sandwich‘? We’ll start off with the good, talk about the areas that need improvement, and finish on a positive note.

The acting is pretty decent all-around from start to finish, but it’s Sarah Snook’s character that stands head and shoulders from the rest of the cast. We have to be honest, before watching the film we didn’t know who she was, but I thought she played the leading role pretty well. As we both lazily slunk into bed after a hard day’s work, I asked Laura for her thoughts on this. “I just thought she was rubbish”, she told me, “a bit like a poor man’s Emma Stone”.

Difference of opinions aside, our main gripe is that her performance is shrouded by an incredibly busy storyline. We’ve barely covered the film’s synopsis earlier in this post – A LOT happens in the film’s hour and a half duration. It has it’s little moments and some interesting themes are presented to the viewer but, due to the sheer volume of these ideas hastily weaved into the script, none of them are really explored to their full potential. It makes the film very fast paced and, like the London Underground’s Central Line during peak time in Zone 1, far too much is packed into a small space.

The story comes with it’s share of unanswered questions and unusual scenarios which make no sense and lend nothing to an already muddled plot. Notable examples include:

• Preston’s wife being absolutely fine with his ex-partner sleeping in their marital home. Laura and I aren’t married (well…not just yet), but if she brought her ex-boyfriend back and said “Hey babe, you remember my ex right? Do you mind if he sleeps on the couch as I don’t want him to be alone?” Personally, I’d respond by grabbing the guy by the scruff of his neck and comically throwing him out the door and onto his backside.
• Mr and Mrs Jessie obtaining a white baby so soon after Mr Jessie murders the first child? Last time I checked, you couldn’t naturally create a new child with such a quick turnaround. Either they have stolen one from another family at this point, or they have convenient access to some-sort of artificial baby-making factory. “Quick, grab any one off the ‘finished product’ conveyor belt and let’s crack on with this voodoo magic tomfoolery.”
• The physiotherapist who decides it’s a brilliant idea to leave a paralysed woman in a bathtub on her own. “Here you go, Jessie. I ran you a bath! Just in case you get hungry I’ve popped some bread in the toaster and perched it on the edge of the bath just by the taps, there’s a hairdryer plugged in too so you can dry your hair before you get out of the water, and I’m going to switch the lights off on my way out so you can save on your energy bill. See you in 6 hours!”
• We acknowledge that Jessie’s mobility is affected due to her accident, but what exactly is stopping her from leaving the house at any time? She isn’t completely housebound, she hasn’t been locked in against her will, she’s old enough to make her own decisions, and there’s certainly no point in her staying there when her dad pops his clogs. “Just discovered the house is haunted and I’m really lonely and miserable here, regardless of this I will never leave”
• Coincidences. Lots and lots of coincidences, which only serve as a half-assed attempt to patch up holes and crudely tie up loose ends. Examples of these include Preston randomly showing up at her father’s funeral despite him not being made aware of the location/date/time of the event (let alone the fact that Jessie’s father is now dead), Jessie and Preston discovering Moses’ little burial plot on their way to see him (“Let’s go see Moses. Wait, stop everything – he’s buried over there.”), and a group of men showing up from nowhere to beat Preston senseless when they visit the aforementioned burial site

On a positive note – the deep-south Louisiana scenes serve as a lovely visual backdrop throughout the film. The camera work captures these chilling images with good detail, particularly with the bayou’s haunting mist contrasting with the rich summer colours from the surrounding trees and foliage. The scenery effectively adds to the sense of mystery and complements Jessie’s discomforting loneliness and isolation from society.

So, overall, Jessabelle is a mixed bag of pros and cons. To summarise, it’s a run of the mill supernatural horror which has it’s little sparkles of interest but suffers badly due to the plot being like a Rube Goldberg machine. Casual horror fans might enjoy it but, for the connoisseurs among us, there’s much better out there.

The Lampy-metre

Novices might be hit harder with post-scare insomnia from the jumpy appearances of Jessabelle in spirit form (add an extra 3 to the below score if you don’t watch a lot of horror), but we’re immune to this basic tactic now! Apart from a 3am visit to answer nature’s call, we slept like babies.

American Mary – Review

American Mary is a 2012 Canadian slasher flick from identical twin directors Jen & Sylvia Soska, who you may recognise as the directing team behind the bluntly titled “Dead Hooker in a trunk“. On a cosy Friday night, Laura and I were browsing through the recent releases section of Sky Movies, shovelling chilli into our mouths, when we came across this film. The synopsis piqued our interest, and we decided to give it a go.

The story begins with Mary Mason (played by Katharine Isabelle), a daydreaming medical student who’s going through a rough financial patch (we’ve all been there!) With the student loans company and her phone provider constantly on her back, she decides to become a stripper to raise some funds. The interview takes an unexpected turn, however, when sleazy strip-club owner Billy Barker (Antonio Cupo), takes her to a basement room downstairs to a tortured man. Amongst some slightly choppy dialogue, Billy essentially says “Mary, you’re a surgeon right? Fix up this man and you can have $5000”. Mary reluctantly accepts his offer and gets to work.

It turns out that Mary did a very good job on this man, and word starts to spread of her surgical skills. The next day she’s approached by a woman who calls herself “Beatrice” (Tristan Risk), and it transpires later in the film that she’s a chief figure in the Body Mod community. Beatrice models herself on Betty Boop. When seeing her for the first time, we almost spat out our chilli across the room in shock. Her appearance in the film is nothing short of discomforting. Surely this can’t just be the work of good makeup, can it? Whatever it is, it’s super effective. Good work!

“Boop boop a doop!”

After Mary transforms Ruby (Beatrice’s client) into a real-life doll by removing her nipples and sewing up her vagina, Beatrice decides to show up unannounced at Mary’s hospital (where she’s training to become a surgeon) and congratulates her on a job well done. Lecturer Dr. Walsh (Clay St. Thomas) oversees this exchange, and decides to invite her to a house party that’s taking place “for surgeons only”. Despite billions of alarm bells ringing at this point, Mary accepts.

Scantily clad and dressed to impress, Mary attends at the party and is greeted by a psychopathic Dr. Black, a calm Dr. Walsh and a slimy Dr. Grant (David Lovgren) (who is another of Mary’s lecturers and one she doesn’t have a good relationship with). Things take a really awful turn, when it transpires that Mary’s drink (which she is offered as she walks through the door) is spiked. Dr. Grant drags an unconscious and barely awake Mary to a back room where he brutally rapes her. Combined with the dark-red low level room lighting and dissonant droning tones in the background, the way this is presented in the film is incredibly stark and uncomfortable to watch.  We’ll probably put this part of the film on the ‘Scene’s that will haunt us forever’ list, residing right next to the rape scene in ‘I Spit on your Grave‘, which is equally dreadful.

The rest of the film really peters out from this point onwards. It’s almost like the directors said, “Right, good job so far. Let’s leave it for now and go get pissed!” then woke up a few hours before it was due to be filmed. “OK, we’ve got the completed script ready to go?” “No boss, we still have another 1 hour to fill”. “Oh. Right Jen get some Red Bull and let’s blitz this fucker…” The rushed story writing really shows and completely dampens the experience.

Simply put, Mary’s profile in the ‘underground surgeon’ and body modification circuit continues to grow, the slimy Dr. Grant becomes Mary’s ‘experiment’ and he is transformed into a human teddy bear strung up by his skin (justice is served), Mary gains a few new clients (including Jen & Sylvia Soska who make an appearance as a pair of wannabe siamese twins with GOD AWFUL German/Russian accents), Mary’s antics catch the interest of Detective Dolor, Mary’s nan dies, Beatrice is killed, Ruby’s husband (angered at her transformation) stabs Mary whilst the cops bust her, and the film ends with Mary trying to sew her stab wound back together. Yep – that’s it. Fin. So, let’s talk less about what the film is about, and give you some insight of what we thought.

“What are you smiling at?!”

Essentially, American Mary is like a really good opportunity which is completely missed. It’s the film equivalent of going to the best burger restaurant in town and ordering a salad.

The film does have it’s good points:

• It serves it’s purpose as a gross-out slasher flick with gruesome scenes which will stick around with you for a little while. (If you’re at all squeamish, you might want to give this a miss and watch Finding Nemo or something instead.)
• Katharine Isabelle is a decent actress, and she plays the strong female protagonist fairly well with good insight into her character
• The dark, grimy scenes complement the film’s genre well and the camera work is pretty solid

Sadly though, it’s outweighed by these negatives:

• A lot of the acting is pretty dreadful. We’d like to take this opportunity to highlight two extreme cases, one from the Soska sisters and the other from the diabolically bad John Emmet Tracy, who plays Detective Dolar. The Soska sisters speak in this confused mix-bag of an accent which doesn’t quite know if it’s Russian or German, and we’re pretty sure that John Emmet Tracy was actually, at one point, a robot. His line delivery is incredibly monotone, his acting skills are more wooden than Pinocchio and he generally just seems disinterested during the film.
• As mentioned earlier, the storyboard really takes a turn for the worst after the graphic rape scene. Apart from Mary getting her sweet revenge at Dr. Grant, nothing really stood out for us during the rest of the film. There are plot-holes aplenty (why is Mary still a stripper when she’s earning big bucks? Perhaps she just loves it), a lot of the narrative and thematic ideas portrayed at the start of the film remain undeveloped, and the dialogue flows sloppily from one scene to the next with no real gusto or effort. Just refer to the Red Bull exchange earlier in this post, I think that sums it up best.
• The music is pretty damn bad – think of extremely dated 90s industrial german metal sung by a budget Placebo. “I love you…I hate you…I love you”….
• Some of Mary’s outfits are very unnecessary. We understand that the film has dark and erotica-industrial themes, but Mary is virtually naked throughout the entire film (even when she’s in theatre). Don’t get me wrong, she’s quite an attractive actress, but her costumes just give the film a bit of a ‘male fantasy’ image which doesn’t quite fit in. It’s quite like the film doesn’t know whether it wants to be a thriller, a slasher, a horror, or a porno.

 

In short, for fans of the horror/slasher genre then this film is a decent enough watch for the first half. If it’s a gripping plot and great story writing you’re after though, then look elsewhere as American Mary is a bit of a damp squib in that department.

 

The Lampy-Metre

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