Bespectacled king of the nice
guy movie geeks, Edwards’ fame hinges
on two pivotal roles – tragically doomed co-pilot Goose in Top
Gun and tragically doomed Doctor Green in ER. Spotted the connection
yet?
The years between these roles were filled with TV movies and bit parts,
but when he crops up in a Stephen King sequel – and a fairly crap
one at that – it’s not unreasonable to expect another tragically
doomed entry in the Edwards filmography.
Edwards plays Chase Matthews, a small town veterinarian who retreats
to his home town of Ludlow, Maine, with his brattish son, Jeff (Edward
Furlong), after his estranged movie star wife – and beloved mum
to Jeff – gets fried in a hilarious accident during the opening
scene.
Of course, Ludlow is where the events of the first Pet Sematary took
place and among the town’s attractions is one of the staples of
lazy American horror writing – an ancient Indian burial ground.
This one, as veterans of the original movie can attest, has the not entirely
useful power of bringing the dead back to life as bloodthirsty ghouls.
Quite why the Indians wanted or even needed a burial ground that’s
only use was the creation of zombie mayhem is never explained.
Thus the scene is set for a virtual retread of the first story. Things
start small enough. Gus, the bullying town sheriff (Clancy Brown, genre
veteran of Highlander, Starship Troopers and TV’s Lost) shoots
his stepson’s dog, prompting the boy to cajole Furlong into helping
him bury it you-know-where. The fluffy and docile pooch returns to the
family home as a shaggy canine psychopath and later rips the sheriff’s
throat out as he breaks up a Halloween party. Apparently still struggling
with the learning curve, the boys then bury Gus you-know-where. And if
resurrection could turn a placid doggy into a monster, what do you think
it’ll do for a violent brute of a man?
That’s right – he goes nuts, bumping off his wife and stepson
by forcing their car in front of a potato truck, and then shearing off
the face of the school bully with a motorcycle. For reasons best known
to the scriptwriters, Gus then buries the bully in the burial ground
and at the same time forms an off-screen pact with Jeff to dig up his
mother and give her the same treatment – an event that anyone with
half a brain has been anticipating from the very first scene. The finale
of the film, in which mother returns briefly to try and reunite her family
(or just kill as many people as possible) ups the ante in terms of gore – with
some remarkably fun splatter effects – but loses out in the arena
we like to call common sense.
Edwards' role in all this is to play the bemused everyman who figures
things out, painfully slowly, and there’s ample evidence that he
may be the world’s worst vet – he treats the zombie dog with
antibiotics for three days before thinking of checking for a heartbeat,
and is equally unaware that the mutt has embarked on a bloody rampage
in his kennels. It takes a cute girl looking for a new kitten
to discover the gory mess, days after it happened.
Edwards is also plagued by increasingly baffling dream sequences in which
memories of his dead wife intermingle with nightmares about the rampaging
hound, leading to an unforgettable scene in which he fantasises about
fondling his wife’s boobs only to look up and discover she has
the head of a dog. So if you’ve ever wanted to see Dr Green shagging
a she-wolf, this is the film you’ve been waiting for.
Remarkably, and ironically, for a blood-soaked Stephen King sequel in
which nearly every other character dies a gruesome death, Anthony Edwards
is – for once – not tragically doomed. He gets chomped in
the shoulder by the zombie dog, and zombie Gus rams a power drill into
the wound for good measure, but he somehow manages to live through the
mayhem to drive into the sunset with the still brattish Jeff, who seems
to suffer no comeback for causing all this slaughter in the first place.
Kids, eh?
Need to know: Both Pet Sematary and this sequel were directed by Mary
Lambert, one of the few female directors working in horror and better
known for her work on Madonna videos such as Like A Virgin, Material
Girl and Like A Prayer.
Availability: Pet Sematary II is out on UK and US DVD.
