Pet Sematary 2 - Not a bad little sequel, even if it’s just for Edward Furlong

Yes, after ‘Terminator 2’ it seemed that Edward Furlong was going to be the next ‘big thing’ in Hollywood.  Unfortunately, due to his own personal demons, that never happened and he’s remembered more as someone who could have had it all, rather than an A-list actor.  However, before he went off the rails, he made ‘Pet Sematary 2’ and it’s not that bad (especially for a sequel).

The original ‘Pet Sematary’ was based on Stephen King’s book of the same name and was a pretty dark and bleak little affair.  The sequel’s tone does its best to follow that, but does tend to succumb to a few clichés which do bring it down a bit.  Edward Furlong and his dad move to the same town where an old Indian burial ground brings anything interred there back from the dead (with the only drawback being that they’re borderline psychotic and largely lethal).  Before long, circumstances spin out of control and every man and his dog is being buried there... and therefore coming back ready to murder anyone that stands in their path.

It’s no classic, but there are a few quite creepy scenes (even if you can tell it’s just someone in a monster mask, it’s shot well enough to be a bit disturbing).  Also, Clancy Brown does stand out as pretty damn nuts as the local lawman.

It’s not as good as the first, as it’s not as bleak, plus I mentioned the clichés – i.e. new family in a town, meets bullies at school and so on.  However, based on the fact that most sequels to horror films are largely not even worth putting on, this one is actually pretty good.

7/10 if I woke up on Groundhog Day and had to watch this again, I could live with that