OVERLORD (2018)

If you went into Overlord totally blind, from the get-go, you might think you were watching a war-set action film with a moderate amount of action, or a war-set period drama made by people not that indebted to historical accuracy nor dedicated to a sense of meaningful purpose. After an explosive opening, leaving a small squad of soldiers marooned in a small French town under Nazi rule, you might wonder just what the point of anything is, and when anything might happen. That may not sound like high praise, but being that Overlord is actually a horror flick (with action elements), it forces you to reevaluate the pace at which it unfolds. Soon, you’ll begin to respect how it methodically reveals something deeply disturbing and dangerous in the bowels of the old church where a Nazi stronghold has been established, and which a small group of American soldiers must destabilize as their only mission. 

The first act, following its chaotic opening, is dedicated entirely to intrigue, peppered with drips and drabs alluding to what the Nazis are doing in their laboratory/dungeon. During this time, the film allows us to get to know our characters, determine the relationships they share, become accustomed to at least a basic history of World War II, and simply appreciate that we’re being treated to a genre period piece, which never happens in mainstream cinema. If you go into Overlord expecting a horrific spectacle from the first frame to the last, you may be checking your watch, but if you go in knowing that the film wants you to earn that fictionalized horror by making you experience the historical, real-life horror first, Overlord will earn your respect. 

Overlord is very attractively shot , despite all the nastiness that’s soon to come, with the production design going far to make Overlord feel as vintage as possible, while also dabbling with some slight steampunk influences. More importantly, it knows that it exists in the shadows of other classic World War II epics like Saving Private Ryan, and certain character archetypes (including one of their fates) is informed by this. To get into slightly spoilery material, one soldier suffers a fatal spray of gunfire to the chest, and the medic rolls up his shirt to see the damage, revealing too-realistic bullet wounds leaking endless rivers of blood no matter how much someone tries to wipe it away. This is the fate that befalls Giovanni Ribisi’s Medic Wade in Saving Private Ryan, and the scene is purposely staged in the same way, only now Overlord offers a twist…the mysterious serum culled from the Nazi laboratory, and the strange things it can do to dead flesh…

The cast do excellent work, anchored by leads Jovan Adepo as Private Boyce and Kurt Russell offspring Wyatt Russell as Corporal Ford, who finds himself the defacto leader of the squad after…let’s call it a major mishap. Both excel in their roles, with Russell easily stepping into that no-nonsense, humorless tough guy role that Clint Eastwood handily turned into an archetype. (In fact, it was during a pivotal scene during the third act between our two leads that made me realize that, in all this discussion regarding the upcoming remake of Escape From New York, the perfect person to take on the mantle of Snake Plissken would be Kurt Russell’s own son.) And as such, every good horror romp needs a towering villain, and that belongs to Dr. Wafner (Pilou Asbæk), who is monstrous enough simply as a “human being” before his character goes in a very different direction. (As an aside, Avery admits in the supplements that Overlord doesn’t quite follow the history book when it comes to its casting, as he admits there were no African-American paratroopers in World War II, despite casting three black actors in the squad. However, as he was right to point out, in a movie about Nazis creating monstrous super soldiers from dead bodies, the audience should already be in the right frame of mind to allow just a bit more suspension of disbelief.)

Overlord also has substance, vying to be more than just a B-movie style Nazi smash-‘em-up. In the midst of this monster movie, director Julius Avery includes tough questions for the characters and the audience to question, especially during one scene in particular that sees Russell’s Ford very aggressively “interrogating” the Wafner character, whom we have seen commit awful acts on screen. Avery executes the scene so well that this easy idea of black and white starts to go away, leaving us to wonder what’s too far to go to complete a mission, and how low do the heroes have to stoop before they become just as bad as their enemy?

Following the end of World War II, it didn’t take very long for distributors to begin turning to the Nazi as their go-to horror movie villain, beginning with a brief run of exploitation flicks from the ‘60s and ‘70s before transitioning into more straightforward (and sometimes goofy) horror spectacles. The trend continues to this day in seemingly every Call Of Duty installment ever and an array of questionable looking direct-to-video titles. In spite of being a real-life horrifying subject, the atrocities committed by Nazi Germany and their exploration into the dark arts and occultism almost write their own horror-based material. We’ve seen Nazi zombies aplenty over the years, from 1977’s Shockwaves to 2008’s very underrated Outpost (which treads similar ground as Overlord, but on a budget), and the trend will likely continue for some time. It’s doubtful, however, that one will be as well-made, violent, and even thoughtful, while still appealing to mainstream theater audiences, as Overlord.

SPLINTER (2008)

Low budget filmmaking is tough, especially when it comes to horror. If we're taking on just the low budget medium, a lack of financing can affect the final output. Lesser money can only afford the lesser actors, cinematographers, editors, composers, production designers, etc., and a weakness apart of any of these individuals can severely handicap a project. In the horror genre, you have all of these risky areas, but then in addition, you have the inherent prejudice against the genre for the years and years of cheap imitators, exploitation romps, depictions of "glorified" violence, and on and on. Lord knows I certainly feel this way, and I'm supposed to love this shit. Because they were grandfathered in, it's easy to forget that watermarks in the genre – Halloween, A Nightmare on Elm Street, Hellraiser, Night of the Living Dead – were made on the amount of money you found beneath your car seat the last time you dropped your iPhone. Even today, Hollywood approaches to the horror genre – unless of course they're greenlighting a dripping CGI mess of an extravaganza – are apt to keep the budget low. In case you haven't noticed, Hollywood's track record in giving us decent quality horror films (the recent Insidious and Sinister don't count, as they were both made independently) are about on par with those low budget filmmakers who are either genuinely trying to make something good or simply trying to create something stupid they know they can sell for the bottom shelf at the video store. (Oh shit, I just totally dated myself.)

Enter Splinter, a little backwoods monster movie that nearly came out of nowhere and personified how so much could be done with so little.

Polly (Jill Wagner) and Seth (Paulo Costanzo, aka the stoner from Road Trip who believed he was destined for great things) are celebrating their anniversary of sorts in a far less glamorous place than Cancun or Aruba. Instead they're jeeping into the heart of the wilderness with nothing but dufflebags of clothes and some camping gear. Her idea more than his, he attempts to play the role of outdoorsman, but it becomes increasingly obvious he's meant for motel beds and flourescent lighting rather than tent assembly and gazing up at the stars.

Meanwhile, a mile down the road and standing outside a broken-down car, Dennis (the immeasurably cool Shea Whigham) and Lacey (Rachel Kerbs) are on a rendezvous of their own – one that has them fleeing from the law. Tensions run high between them, but Dennis has his sights on getting out of dodge, pronto, and Lacey has her sights on something else – anything else, desperately – as long as it comes in pill form.

Eventually, these two couples run afoul of each other, and at gunpoint, Dennis and Lacey force themselves into the car – and lives – of Polly and Seth. With one half of our on-screen couples taken hostage by the other, the new foursome simply drive down the desolate wilderness-surrounded road...until they run over something strange and suffer a flat tire because of it. Seth and Lacey find the thing they ran over...something covered in unnaturally large splinters...something that most assuredly be dead, but attacks them anyway.

The couples speed off in the repaired jeep, unsure of what they had seen, but Seth, who is currently in the process of obtaining his PhD in biology, attempts to make sense of the very dead thing covered in a blanket of splinters, which seemed to multiply across the ruined piece of roadkill, keeping it alive.

A hissing and smoking radiator has them pulling over at a gas station, where they encounter a former splinter creature victim, and one of their numbers becomes infected. Locking themselves into the gas station to hide from the strange things stalking them, they're forced to rely on their wits, a healthy array of convenience store items, and each other, if they want to survive.

And things get awfully bloody.

What we have with Splinter is a loving homage to creature features that came before it, mixed with zombie films that have directly inspired it. Clearly in love with John Carpenter's Assault on Precinct 13 and The Thing, George Romero's Dead series, and holy crap, even Tremors, Splinter takes the "rules" of the zombie film, marries them to the absurdity of the nature/science run amok sub-genre, and creates a wonderfully clever and at times disturbing resurrection-gone-bad grimy gore fest.

You will find no CGI here; nothing but a collection of unique and imaginative practical effects. A dismembered hand covered in needles crawling across the floor like a spider recalls The Thing (and perhaps Evil Dead II), and the ruined bodies of anyone unfortunate to become infected send-up Peter Jackson's early kiwi splatter romps. Added to this are a collection of camera tricks nearing one hundred years old in their construction and are still just as effective.

The best part of all this? Taking a page out of Night of the Living Dead, there is no explanation – no why – for the events unfolding. A brief, one-second shot of a sign – something about keeping away from an oil company's experimental extraction site – is all we're provided, and we've seen enough of these flicks before to let our imaginations fill in the gaps.

Shea Whigham's presence here is the smartest casting decision. With Denny, Whigham plays a total bastard, but one you know from the start you're going to end up rooting for. Yeah, he's a thief, and he and Lacey are on the run from the law, but his main want for freedom is not to avoid an indeterminate amount of time behind bars, but so he can get his drug-addict girlfriend out of the country and into Mexico, where he'll focus on trying to get her clean. Whigham plays this incredibly well; he is a bastard, but he's also the kind of bastard you'd hope to have around when shit hits the fan. He's got both a cowboy's balls and a thief's unscrupulousness, both of which come in handy as our characters find themselves confined to one place and warding off attacks from the slowly growing numbersof splinter creatures. And wouldn't you know it? Turns out he's a big ol' softy, too, just like the rest of us.

Whigham has done nothing but expand his increasingly impressive career. (Motherfucker's only been in three films nominated for Best Picture over the last two years, as well as appeared in both "Boardwalk Empire" and "True Detective.") Splinter was not one of his first major roles, but rather an interesting stepping stone for him along the way. He was far enough along in his career that he could have easily not taken part, but I'm glad he did, as the film is all the better for it. And despite all the bad-asses he'd already played, and all the bad-asses he'd yet to play, I guarantee he'll never do anything as bad-ass as shooting a shotgun one-handed, since his other arm has long been torn off, tossing it in the air to load another shell, and shooting it again. (Don't get me wrong, Wagner and Costanzo as the kidnapped couple forced to align with a "bad guy" in order to survive do just fine with their roles. But this is Shea Whigham's film.)

Speaking of smart casting, enjoy the appearance of the opening gas station victim, played by Charles Baker. Perhaps you know him by another name: Skinny Pete, from the pop culture phenomenon that is "Breaking Bad."

Toby Wilkins' direction over Splinter is just fantastic. The chaotic camera does a nice job of masking the assuredly cheap and simple creatures while also creating a deep frustration within his audience, because we just want to see this thing – every ugly nook and cranny. And among the many great set-pieces on hand, one in particular – which has one main character, er, let's say impaired, and making his way toward a getaway car – which will literally have you screaming at the screen for him to move his fucking ass. It's a sequence designed explicitly to have you wondering if he'll make it, and it works like gangbusters.

Toby Wilkins, where the fuck did you go? I mean, okay – The Grudge 3 didn't work out, and I don't at all blame you for hopping on board that franchise and working alongside Hollywood heavyweight Sam Raimi, even if the film was always fated to go direct-to-video. And I don't at all fault you for The Grudge 3 turning out kind of...well...shitty. Let's just pretend it didn't even happen. I don't look at such a film and even remotely think "a Toby Wilkins film." At best, I consider it a minor diversion on the road that will eventually lead you back to the world of horror features, where I know you'll once again give us something worth a damn.

SUGAR HILL (1974)

If Sugar Hill proves anything at all, it's that the blaxsploitation movement of the 1970s focused much of its attention on angry and sobering concepts, but didn't nearly enough embrace the full-on absurdity that the general exploitation movement had already been doing. When people hear the word "blaxspoitation," certain names immediately come to mind: Shaft, Foxy Brown, and perhaps Gravedigger Jones. Apply that to the horror genre and that's where it starts getting interesting: here comes Blacula, Blackenstein, and the lazily named Dr. Black, Mr. Hyde. Good job on your noticing that they're all "updated" versions of classic myths and literature, but beyond their gimmicky names, none of them felt too comfortable shedding their horrific surroundings and just trying to have a bit of silly fun. (Dr. Black, Mr. Hyde might be the worst offender in this camp, taking a ripe concept for race-relations exploration in which a black scientist inadvertently turns himself into a vampire during a freak experiment - a vampire that just happens to be white - and creating a film that's an utter chore to sit through.) It's easy to laugh at titles like Blacula and Blackenstein, as one might assume that they're hoots and a half, but each film presented a surprising amount of seriousness that one wouldn't expect from their respective posters alone. Despite their not-so-subtle titles, they just weren't stupid enough.

That's where Sugar Hill comes in. 

This 1974 oddball blaxsploitation offering starring the gorgeous Marki Bey as the eponymous heroine just wants to have tons of silly fun, utilizing the "evil white man" component for much more entertaining aspects. The social commentary involved is still just as important, but the film is also totally fine with resurrecting a bunch of cobweb-ridden corpses for the purposes of revenge. (It should be noted that the zombies presented in Sugar Hill adhere more closely to the "myth" of the zombies of New Guinea, in which living people were drugged and brainwashed into following their master; here, the zombies remain resurrected corpses, but are still very much following the orders of their master, not eating a bunch of people indiscriminately, as George Romero's Night of the Living Dead introduced in 1968.)

What may sound like idle praise for Sugar Hill is actually a fair point of commendation, which is the film's refreshing inclusion of something indicative of genuine black culture - more specifically, the inclusion of a New Orleans-esque flavor and the use of spirituality in the form of voodoo as a plot device. Though there are many titles in blaxsploitation canon that are more well-known, and some might argue still heavily referenced in even today's modern pop culture, not many of them relied on a very real and established facet of black culture, relegating many of the more recognizable characters to walk around, listen to funk, and look cool. And that's all well and good as far as entertainment goes, but blaxsploitation was birthed out of the desire to tell stories about strong and suave and sexy black characters, and to have seen such a lack of emphasis on a significant part of black culture is disappointing.

Sugar Hill maintains a fair balance of horror and thrilling action, but if it all comes across sillier than had been intended by American International Pictures (who also released Blacula and its sequel Scream, Blacula, Scream), we'll likely never know. Its own director, Paul Maslansky, would agree that it's not a perfect film, and his commentary track contains a handful of very willing self-critiques, including the nugget, "Look how poorly I framed that shot. He's barely in it. This was a terrible set-up." That right there, kids, is a lesson in humility.

Sugar Hill ain't exactly a film dedicated to charting the black struggle, but it's also clearly not trying to be. What it wants to do is shed minor light on the state of race relations during 1974, though it's wrapped within the very silly undead hands of zombie slaves. It does, depending on your outlook, either fall victim to or maintain certain expectations: the white people are evil, they use the n-word way too liberally, and they pay - oh lord, do they pay - for their transgressions. Everything aside, Sugar Hill is bananas-crazy, and entertaining in the most ridiculous of ways. So long as it gets that right, that's good enough to start with.

KNIGHT OF THE DEAD (2013)

Get it? Like Night of the Living Dead? You know, that $50-budget film from the '60s that filmmakers have been ripping off ever since? I guess it doesn't matter. Gimmicky title or not, any horror fan worth their weight in cinematic excrement knows any movie about the walking dead who infect via bite/scratching and can only go down for good with a shot to the head has been directly inspired by that hemp-smoking Pennsylvania native in the safari vest. 

It is the mid 1300s and the Black Plague is ravaging the land. Nearly 1/3rd of the world's population is in the process of dropping dead (thanks a lot, rats!), but that is not stopping one ragtag group of crusaders from escorting the Holy Grail (?) to a place unknown, but in actuality perhaps to hide it from that blonde Nazi who talks in her sleep from The Last Crusade. Along the way they encounter blood-spattered mindless humanoids who saunter toward them with nothing in their eyes, but their eyes on the men's delicious epidermis. Finding themselves surrounded at every side by a growing army of the zombie persuasion, the knights prepare to battle, and get gooey guts all over pretty much everything.

Perhaps inspired by the popularity of HBO's "Game of Thrones," a show that combines traditional fantasy/King Arthur-esque storytelling with mature themes, icky monsters, and all kinds of violence (though doesn't share nearly its budget of one episode), Knight of the Dead, if nothing else, at least takes itself seriously. Thematically similar to Christopher Smith's The Black Death (starring that headless "Game of Thrones" guy), the tone is bleak, the men seem haunted, the film stock is bleached, and things seem hopeless. (It IS the plague we're talking about here.) That's pretty much where the similarities end, as The Black Death was a great film made by a great filmmaker. While Knight of the Dead isn't terrible, there's nothing about it that injects the viewer with any sense of intrigue.

I have seen a lot of fellow reviewers tear down this film and I guess, while I can see why, I don't feel as obligated to do so myself. In the pantheon of zombie films, it's certainly not at the very bottom, but it is most certainly down there somewhere. I say without hesitation it's superior to the majority of the Resident Evil sequels and any remake of Romero's Night sans the Savini version. (And it's definitely better than the other Black Plague horror travesty Season of the Witch, but that's not really saying all that much, is it?)

Knight of the Dead tries to offer something new – zombies eating dudes during the Dark Ages – but the stark landscapes and the condemnations of witchcraft and the wailing, moaning soundtrack makes this all feel so damn familiar that the fact there are zombies included now doesn't really raise the stakes at all. This new trend of take-new-setting/add-zombies/shake-well sometimes results in some truly great films (see Exit Humanity), but sometimes it results in something like Knight of the Dead. What CGI that's utilized ranges from spotty to "Jesus, that's bad," but in a film where knights do back-flips and it's apparently possible to split zombies perfectly in half from head to hips, it's the most minor of qualms. Though inoffensive, competently assembled, and including zombies being eviscerated by battle axes, there's nothing particularly memorable about it.

Also, despite that cover, there is not ONE scene featuring a knight in a suit of armor battling an army of ghouls. I mean, come on...that scene writes itself.

Come the next day, when you're rinsing out your coffee mug in the break-room sink and someone asks if you saw any good movies recently, not only are you not going to name-drop Knight of the Dead, you're likely to have forgotten you even watched it.

LET’S RAISE SOME HELL: ‘PET SEMATARY TWO’ IS A MASTERPIECE

[Spoilers follow for the entire Pet Sematary series.]

Oh, sequels. On paper, you’re so weird. You’re glorified fan fiction, an illegitimate child borne from a producer or studio eager to continue a profitable story that was only ever meant to be just that story. It’s become common knowledge that most sequels are inferior retellings of their originators; that inferiority is baked into the definition. Subsequent writers and directors who hop onto an existing franchise try to make their sequel as different as they can, but ultimately, they are still going to exist within the structure that’s already been established. No matter what else the sequel might try, we know that Terminators are going to travel back in time, Michael Myers is going to kill, and Jigsaw is going to impossibly exist and rattle off dime-store philosophies while ripping money from your pockets and laughing maniacally.

Director Mary Lambert knows this better than anyone. With her 1989 adaptation of Stephen King’s Pet Sematary, she nailed the holy trifecta of horror filmmaking: scaring the shit out of audiences, striking gold at the box office, and scoring a positive critical notice or two. Even today, it’s still considered newsworthy when a woman is put in charge of a major tentpole release, and though Pet Sematary's low budget wasn't congruent with those of tentpole titles, the fact that it was the next King adaption in a long line of extremely successful ones, this time inspired by what was deemed the scariest book he’d ever written, increased the audience's anticipation. Could a—gasp—female director make a film every bit as dark, graphic, and taboo as the book written by a lovably loosed-screw man? That answer was a resounding yes, and no one knew that more than Paramount Pictures, so when it came time for them to greenlight the sequel, they invited Lambert along for the ride.

I’ve had a strange relationship with Pet Sematary Two ever since seeing it at a young age. As weird and kid-inappropriate as it may sound, the first Pet Sematary was a childhood institution. USA Network routinely ran it back to back with another King title, Silver Bullet, and I watched them every single time they aired, eventually recording the double feature onto a trust VHS tape. I was unrealistically scared of Pet Sematary, especially Rachel’s bony sister, Zelda. I eventually saw Pet Sematary Two a few years after it was released on video, and even as a child, I could tell it was stupid. Beyond stupid. It had sacrificed anything legitimately creepy about the first film in favor of slasher-flick antics and sensational violence…but I can’t pretend I wasn’t scared of it at times. 

After shrugging my way through the pallid and lifeless Pet Sematary remake, I felt compelled to revisit this 1992 sequel I’d long ago dismissed in hopes of finding some new merit and satisfying the itch that the remake failed to scratch.

I’m so glad I did.

Pet Sematary Two is one of the strangest, darkest, and most uncomfortably funny horror flicks ever produced by a major studio—one directed by a woman, headlined by a 13-year-old kid with more star power than the guy playing his father, and which had absolutely no problem killing multiple children… and mothers… and kittens. (Though I didn’t find any of it remotely scary watching it with adult eyes, I could still recall the parts that did, and the terror that I felt, when I was that young boy renting it from West Coast Video all those years ago.) Originally, Lambert had intended on directly continuing the Creed story with a teenage version of Ellie (played by Blaze Berdahl in the first film), but in a stunning act of boundless misguidance, Paramount was leery about making a teenage girl the lead character in a horror film...even though the studio had just completed a successful eight-film run of the Friday the 13th series, in which the lead in nearly every single entry was a teenage girl. In response, Lambert and screenwriter Richard Outten (Van Damme’s Lionheart) created an entirely new crop of characters while making the obvious choice to maintain its conflict within in the town of Ludlow, the site of the pet cemetery and the Micmac burial ground beyond it.

Meet the Matthews family! There’s Chase (Anthony Edwards, Miracle Mile), patriarch and veterinarian; his wife, Renee (Darlanne Fluegel, Once Upon a Time in America, which makes a cameo), actress of cheap looking gothic horror movies; and their son, Jeff (Edward Furlong, Terminator 2: Judgment Day), looking emotionally exhausted and undone by life. After a freak on-set electrical accident fries Renee to death, Chase takes his son back to Ludlow to bury her in their hometown’s cemetery—and hopefully start anew. Chase then encounters a cold Gus Gilbert (an all-in Clancy Brown, Highlander), Ludlow’s sheriff and a former flame of Chase's deceased wife (about which he's quick to remind the bereaved widower, and after her funeral, no less). Despite this, Jeff eventually befriends Gus’ stepson, Drew (Jason McGuire), and after his dog, Zowie, meets the wrong end of Gus’ rifle, the boys bury him in Ludlow’s infamous burial ground. 

Things…escalate quickly. 

Tobe Hooper struck his own gold with 1974’s The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, so when Cannon Films came knocking at his door to direct the sequel, Hooper agreed, but proceeded to make as different a film as possible while remaining true to the original film's basic components. If the first Chain Saw were an exercise in pure terror, the second would be an exercise in black comedy quirkiness featuring ironically used Oingo Boingo and a duel-chainsaw-wielding Dennis Hopper. Lambert seems to have taken the same approach, because while Pet Sematary Two is a direct sequel in terms of concept and lore, it’s not at all a spiritual follow-up with respect to tone, sincerity, or any attempt at mature horror (of which there is zero). Pet Sematary was trying to be a good film that asked big questions whereas Pet Sematary Two is trying to be a fun film that avoids answering them—and boy, it isn’t just fun, it’s fucking Looney Tunes, a gonzo masterpiece of weird characters, ace gore effects, befuddling dialogue, and containing the purest, most palpable sense of “Can you believe Paramount is giving us money to make this?” Wes Craven once mused about the difference between directors who scare their audiences legitimately, and those who make the audience believe that said director is “dangerous” and willing to show them anything to elicit that desired scare. How far is this director willing to go? That’s the beauty of Mary Lambert and her approach to Pet Sematary Two: its goal is to break rules and encourage pure insanity; it goes freely with the flow and adopts every half-cocked idea, including monster/humanoid wolf-head nightmare sex, zombie rape, and flesh-melting, pun-hurling, undead mothers.

The screen story never strays too far from established structure, involving a family looking for a fresh start, a person burying a cherished pet in the cursed burial ground, and shit getting really crazy once the first dead human returns from the dead. Pet Sematary Two even maintains the established archetype of the patriarch, but with a slight twist, turning him from a medical doctor to a veterinarian, which maintains the prior’s institutional and sanitized philosophy of death as normal and necessary (read: better) while doing it in a more on-the-nose way. One of Chase’s first scenes has him gently putting a dog to sleep, telling its crying owners, “It’s better this way.” (Read: dead.) Pet Sematary's most catalytic moment comes from the death of Gage Creed, the adorable four-year-old son of Louis and Rachel, which ruins what remains of Louis' sanity and directly effects the tragedy that befalls the Creed family. Though the visual presentation of this was considered a major taboo at the time, Gage's demise derived from a total freak Orinco truck accident, a horrible but sadly realistic incident. Meanwhile, Pet Sematary Two sidesteps the idea that death can come at any time, caused by something as mundane as a speeding truck, and instead straight up murders two children, both of them succumbing to the undead evil unleashed from the grounds—and Lambert's execution of this sequence is designed to play with the audience's emotions. Basically, when Gage Creed bites the big one in the first film, Lambert wants her audience emotionally pulverized to more easily buy into father Louis’ descent into madness, but in the sequel, when Drew and the local scarf-wearing bully, Clyde (Big’s Jared Rushton), both meet their untimely ends at the hands of a resurrected Gus, the audience is fooled into how to feel. Seeing Clyde’s face chewed off by his moped's tire feels cathartic because of how ruthless he'd been to our lead boy heroes—every slasher flick has that one asshole character who the audience wants to see die painfully, after all—and because this happens after Gus intervenes to save Jeff from Clyde's murderous clutches, the act briefly repaints Gus as a weirdly paternal protector, seeming loyal to his resurrectors...but that theory doesn't last once Gus discovers that Drew has seen it all unfold, which seals his doom. Though seeing Drew and his mother (Lisa Waltz, The X-Files) lose their lives doesn't pulverize us as much as Gage's death—and perhaps because, in a weird way, they've enabled this to happen, with Drew having pushed to bury Gus after his death and with his mother having allowed Gus to remain part of their family despite his abusive nature—the concept of mother and son perishing together is an upsetting image.

Still, in a flick with this much gory grue and mean-spiritedness, it's a fucking blast watching Clancy Brown play a psychotic undead murderer to such grandiose effect. Though he wears the bland beige of a small town sheriff instead of a charred Christmas sweater, he is Freddy Krueger, borrowing his dark-humored kill-lines and vile sense of humor. (“Why did you dig up my dead wife?” Chase asks him during their final confrontation, to which Gus responds with a growl, “Because I wanted to fuck'errr.”) Brown seldom gets the chance to enjoy a lead role, so while that could be part of the exuberance behind his performance, it’s really because—as many actors will tell you—it’s so much more fun to play the villain, to be let off the proverbial leash and to go as big as you want. (Brown would go on to star as the villain in another King-inspired project soon after this one—The Shawshank Redemption—and I like to believe  director Frank Darabont saw his nutso performance in Pet Sematary Two and said, “Oh, definitely that guy.”) As the resurrected Gus Gilbert, Brown chews on every piece of scenery not nailed down, and it’s his legitimate testament as an actor that he doesn’t always have to go big to imbue his undead Gus with the strangest of personalities. One of his best scenes is a total skewering of the generic dinner table set piece, during which his undead muscles barely function and he ends up dropping a bowl of veggies on the floor. When his annoyed wife mutters and stoops to clean up his mess (and who, I might add, he’d necro-raped in a previous scene), he very subtly glares at her with narrowed eyes like he's wondering what she's so sour about. Still, when Brown goes big, aw hell—what a blast to watch. The Cheshire grin he flashes while chasing down his family to kill them, sliding on his sheriff’s hat before he delivers their deathblow, is the stuff of cinemagic. 

Pet Sematary Two is filled with this kind of craziness—a collection of scenes so inspiring that they force you to stop and reconcile that, yep, you’re really seeing all this in a film made by Hollywood. Take the scene where Chase kills the undead Zowie and then finds Gus inside the modest Gilbert home, asking him, “What are you doing, Gus?” The resurrected sheriff looks down at the shot-dead Zowie, and then says, with detectable wryness, “Well, I was building a doggy door.” Sure, it’s a stupid line, throwaway in nature, but what makes this such a magical moment is that this hulking, demonic, undead corpse actually was building a doggy door for his hulking, demonic, undead dog. Forget all the warm-blooded people that demon Gus definitely wants to kill—that all momentarily stops to build a tiny door for his corpse dog. 

You guys, this is a movie where a young boy is being murderously pursued by his undead stepfather, and with the zombie-maniac hot on his heels, the boy races into his house, shuts and locks the door, and then CALMLY HANGS HIS HOUSE KEYS ON THE KEYHOOK BEFORE LOCATING A GUN TO SHOOT THE GHOUL TRYING TO KILL HIM.

And that ending, holy shit. What morbid mastery. What unabashed fuck-it filmmaking. The fiery finale that concludes in the attic of the Matthews’ house, which features not one but two resurrected bodies trying to kill father and son and turn them into the walking dead, is a carnival sideshow of horror chaos. Undead Bully Clyde doesn’t just show up, but he shows up with a voice five pitches deeper, very little face, and grasping an ax, which he swings with the brute force of an able-bodied stuntman (you know, the one obviously playing him). The real showstopper of this scene, however, is the return of Jeff’s mother, which actually starts on a sad and creepy note: she beckons her son to join her in the afterlife, a moment that threatens to touch hands with honest-to-gosh pathos…but that’s before things descend into utter madness, which happens pretty quickly. The fire spreading around the attic soon begins licking at the ends of her burial dress as all the work her mortician had done begins to melt off her face, and she begins repeatedly screaming “DEAD IS BETTER!” in absolute, chill-inducing, operatic, Argento levels of unhingement until she turns into a fucking STANDING, BURNING, SHRIEKING SKELETON. 

Frankly, it’s the ending we needed and deserved.

No matter how much King’s output has declined in quality over the years, he’s never written anything as farcical as Pet Sematary Two, but that doesn’t mean the sequel doesn’t manage a handful of Kingisms. (King actually requested that Paramount remove his name from any marketing having to do with the sequel, so he was obviously not a fan.) First, there are the two shaky relationships between fathers and sons, which he’s explored in more than one of his novels (The Shining comes to mind), and then there’s the unrealistically evil bully who could give IT’s Henry Bowers a run for his milk money any day of the week. The first film was about a parent losing a child; meanwhile, the sequel is about a child losing a parent and navigating the grieving process, which King later explored in his excellent short story, Riding the Bullet. There’s also a nod to The Shining when Gus busts a hole in Drew’s bedroom door with a hammer, but instead of sticking his face through the hole and bellowing  “Heeere’s Johnny!,” he verbally ponders if Drew understands the Miranda rights he’s been rattling off, or if he’s “too fucking stupid.”

Ever since its release, critics and fans have derided Pet Sematary Two, and it’s a sure-fire inclusion on many “worst sequel” lists. (Amusingly, Variety “praised” the sequel, calling it “about 50% better than its predecessor, which is to say it's not very good at all.") Pet Sematary Two isn’t a patch on the original, and it’s so tonally different that the two don’t appear to be part of the same family beyond their titles, but I’ll be damned if Lambert and co. aren’t going for it, and that’s what makes it so special. Whatever Pet Sematary Two may be, it’s all part of Mary Lambert’s gloriously gonzo plan, and that’s all that matters. One thing is certain: 2019’s useless Pet Sematary redux proved it’s better to be a goofy, red-headed stepchild so long as an actual identity comes with it.  

PATH OF DESTRUCTION

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MAGGIE (2016)

Maggie is a remarkable film in many respects, the most remarkable being that it was, for a long time, the little movie that could, and not one that many people took seriously. With several new Arnold films not doing all that well with audiences (in terms of box office), the announcement of him signing on to a zombie film alongside Abigail Breslin, who had already done a zombie film (and a comedy at that), didn't bode well, as right off the bat, it wasn't a project anyone was taking seriously. Talkback sections on the film's announcement were littered with the typical disdain for the actor's legacy and age; quotes from his previous films were appropriated and zombified. "Put the zombie down!" etc. The internet did not miss the chance to be the total cliche that it is.

And then Maggie began making film festival rounds to mostly positive reviews, and even those reviewers who panned the film at least had the decency to rightly herald Arnold's performance. For a long time, Arnold has been less of an actor and more of a superstar celebrity. And that's okay. He's only contributed some of the most entertaining action films on Planet Earth, so in that regard, not everyone need be Daniel Day Lewis. His mysterious "Austrian" accent and subsequent inability to fully articulate through it has relegated him to taking on roles where his subdued and slightly unusual way of speaking didn't inhibit the type of role he was playing, like, say, cyborg, or barbarian, or kindergarten teacher.

It's entirely possible that Maggie director Henry Hobson cast Arnold for somewhat the same reason - choosing someone who once represented the immortal screen superstar to this time play it small, sad, and even helpless. Without being able to rely on muscles or guns or groan-inducing puns, Arnold, this time, has only his performance to contribute. Finally, after all these years, the Austrian Oak has proven that he does have the chops to commit to such a role, relying only his talent without any of his familiar crutches in sight.

Maggie doesn't fully work and its ending may leave the viewer a little unsatisfied, but for the majority of the running time, what does work fully overcomes its weaknesses. Much like George Romero has been doing for fifty years, Maggie uses its zombies as a metaphor, but this time confines it to the family unit - more specifically, to the pain of losing a child to terminal illness. It's about witnessing the slow transformation from living to dying, and feeling completely helpless to stop it. To call the film powerful might be overstepping a bit, but at times it can be deeply affecting, with a roundhouse of excellent performances (including the film's best, which belongs to Bryce Romero [no relation!] as the doomed semi-love interest, Trent) and strengthened by restrained storytelling, Maggie offers the most unique film of Arnold's career as well as one of the most rewarding and unassuming gems of the year.

Hobson designed Maggie's visual presentation with muted and pale colors, as if every piece of surrounding is void of life. Details are finely captured, including Arnold's weathered and craggy face. Background textures of the family's depressed and depressing farmhouse, which contribute to much of the established mood, are also ably captured - they don't so much "pop" as they just exist, in keeping with Maggie's restrained style. From the squeaking and rattling of Wade's truck to the ambiance of burning fields to David Wingo's melancholy score, Maggie's audioscape remains as intimate but present as the film itself. Dialogue is clean and well-presented. Environmental ambiance has been perfectly subdued, wiping away the sounds of birds and other native wildlife, adding to the overall feeling of death that drapes across the entire world. Only the desolate sounds of cicadas remain. 

Strip away all your preconceived notions of just what kind of film Maggie is based solely on the fact that Arnold's face appears on the cover. Not only is Maggie purposely pensive (fans of the quicker-paced The Walking Dead should keep walking), it also plays things 100% serious, perhaps at times to its detriment, but it's still one of the best and underseen films of which Arnold has been a part for a long time. One hopes that Maggie's excellent video release introduce the film to a whole new audience that may have missed it the first time, leading them to embrace the new approach by one of cinema's favorite leading men, perhaps that will result in Arnold taking on more serious films and avoiding studio nonsense like Terminator: Genisys - and that's a possibility we should all take very seriously.