Bad U.S. Movies on Argentine Cable Series #2

with halloween rapidly approaching, the time is ripe for some scary movies on tv and our favorite film channel cinecanal has been running some every week for the entire month of october. looking for a good scare, we decided upon Stephen King's film adaption of his book "Pet Sematary" [sic]. even though we didn't recognize any of the names involved with this project in directing or acting, the Stephen King pedigree was good enough to pique our collective interest.

the film follows a husband and wife with two young-ish children and a cat who move to some remote town where high amounts of trucker traffic goes by the street in front of their house. the father, portrayed by a stiff piece of wood, meets the next door neighbor whom Liz picked out as Herman Munster. that was kind of exciting. i remember in elementary school that he illustrated some kids books that took various turns of phrase literally. i couldn't remember the title last night, but i have since found it at amazon.com. not long after, Monica spotted that the son is portrayed by the same kid who had some fairly memorable lines from the great Kindergarten Cop. the father, spending a fair amount of time with Herman Munster, finds out about the pet sematary being some Indian burial site (of course) that can bring whatever is buried there back from the dead. only it turns things worse, mean, or evil (or all three) when they come back. naturally, the young son experiences death by incompetent trucker. the father, not taking the loss very well, steals his son's body and buries it in the title of the film. this is the point that many bad things start happening.

i've never read any of Stephen King's books, but i've heard that they usually have some deeper point to them (e.g. "the shining" is about how alcoholism can destroy a family). i'm certain that the novel "pet sematary' is actually a wise meditation upon loss and how an inability to accept it and grieve can have disastrous consequences. this does not come across in the movie near as well and in its stead we get bizarre subplots regarding a dead guy (who is eerily reminiscent of Massive Headwound Harry) that tries to warn the father, the mother's traumatic experience as a girl with her sister's strange spinal illness, and some weird maid whom commits suicide and is not mentioned for the rest of the film.

i feel as if "pet sematary" the novel was buried in the indian ground and came back as the worse, mean, and evil film "pet sematary." somehow, it managed to spawn a sequel "pet sematary 2." the first movie's tagline was "sometimes dead is better." i guess they didn't heed their own recommendation.

high point: SPOILER! when the son jumps out of the attic to attack the dad near the end of the film, it reminded me of the bunny from "Monty Python and the Holy Grail." man, that bunny was HI-larious. END SPOILER!

low point: apparently the producers conned the ramones into penning and playing the film's title song that plays during the end credits. just read the lyrics here. if you can find a place to stream it, make you sure you have something near you to prevent the bleeding that will start from your ears.

"yeah, right" moment: when Stephen King makes a cameo as a priest. no religious body in their right mind would ordain someone that creepy looking.