Chick Flick Haiku #7

bette and lily twinned?

that frog’s ass ain’t water-tight

still, you’ll piss yourself

Pet Semenary...

First of all, I'd like to preface this review by saying I am usually pretty lenient when it comes to accepting small grammatical errors like ending sentences with prepositional phrases or accepting the occasional “their/there/they’re” confusion in text messages.  However, I think the fact that this movie is purposely misspelled speaks volumes about the movie I’m about to describe. Not only was it not integral to any sort of “plot device” but I’m pretty sure Stephen King thought he was being really fucking clever when he did it. I can just imagine his smug Mongoloid face smirking from above his stupid fucking clunky '80s typewriter. Then again, I’m probably just butthurt because I didn’t realize it was misspelled until someone in the movie mentioned it.

Pet Sematary has a pretty simple plot to understand- seemingly perfect family moves into a new country home near a dangerous highway in which trucks haul-ass down. Within the first 5 minutes of moving, their obnoxious semi-psychic, but not smart enough to listen to her mother, daughter injures herself on a tire swing and their 4 year old toddler almost walks into a street and gets hit by a truck. The son is saved by a world weary old man who cryptically mentions the pet sematary. Foreshadowing with a capital F.

However, what seems to be more of an impending doom is the awkward family dynamics. Although an attractive pair, the mom, played by Star Trek NextGen actress Denise Crosby, is totallllllly a closet-case while the dad, played by Dale Midkiff, has the dead stare that only someone with a violent porn career or a Canadian can have. There are so many times where Dale Midkiff struggles in terror only to look as if he is preparing to blow a load.

The last member of this family is the cat. Pretty much from the get-go everyone anticipates this cat to be hit by a truck and to be killed. However, it waits to do this when mom and the kids are away, probably visiting with mom’s “friend” Pat. The cat dies. The dad buries it in the pet sematary. It comes back to life. It is evil.
Also, there is some weird subplot with dad not being able to save some dude who had half of his brain oozing out and he comes back as a friendly zombie ghost to give advice but I wasn’t paying that much attention. There is also more sub-subplot about mom killing her sister/first girlfriend, who had some crippling spine disease that made her character look like a man in drag, dressed up as some Marnie Weber character. Also, the cat flings a dead rat into porndad’s tub while he’s taking a bath…hilarity ensues.

So FINALLY, the son gets hit by a car. He gets buried. He comes back to life. He’s evil. HE STABS THE SHIT OUT OF SOMEONE’S ANKLE. POSSIBLY THE MOST TERRIFYING MOMENT IN ALL OF HORROR HISTORY. He kills the mom. Dad buries her. She comes back to life. She’s evil. She kills the dad. See the ingenious web that Stephen King has spun?

However, despite the schlock, Pet Sematary is still a scary movie and ended up giving me the following nightmare:

I dreamt I was walking around the Grand Library in Glendale and outside their gallery space was a tv talk show set up like Space Ghost Coast to Coast with two demons that looked like they were from Buffy displayed in those monitor-chairs. The dialogue was like “Oh you killll me Beazebub”. “AHHAHA, that’s what your mother and the 40 million souls I’ve collected said”. Then I walked into the gallery space and it was a 3-D video installation of these horrifying shadows that would creep and surround you and it felt like I was trapped in hell. I remember blinking and trying to wake up from within the dream and when I finally did I was dropped off in a family reunion. This reunion was my mother’s Texan family and it ended on a high note when I ran into '90s boy next door, Breckin Myer and we tried to figure out how related we were so we could make out.

THE END...Dirty Pillows.

Introducing...

We here at Cinemüshka are pleased to announce a new contributor, Dirty Pillows.  She's a girl...Maybe even a woman...All Woman.  Super Glossy is busy with a new boyfriend (again) and can't find the stinking, dirty time to write.  She will though, I'm sure, 'cause relationships fail.

Look out for Dirty Pillows' first review sometime soon...really soon, like maybe tomorrow..

Play Misty for Me, Shithead...

I hate music and I hate people who ask me what my favorite music is.  Like I care…and when I say I love opera, the scumbag who asked me what my favorite music is looks at me like I’m some fruitpie.  Hello!  Straight people like opera.  Some straight people LOVE opera.  So, fuck you. Yeah, I know, you have a Maria Callas cd…Eat me, douchebag.

I hate the opening song from Death Game so much, I wish Michael J. Fox sang it.  It’s got to be the lamest piece of shit song that has nothing to do with squat. Someone loved this gem of a ditty, 'cause it appears at the beginning, middle and end of possibly one of the worst movies that ever got made.  It’s so bad they dubbed Seymour Cassell with some suave dude's voice.  Sondra Locke and Colleen Camp keep it real though.  Their voices are pure and so are their performances.  Raw.  Real.  Rent it if you can.  It’s a true story.  Usually true story movies are good, but not this one.  It made me cry.  Sondra and Colleen channel something awesome in this scatological, Seymour-torturing, orgy, lezzy fest co-starring lots of food.  It scared and scarred me.

Some thirty-five, nasty years later, what are we left with?  Seymour Cassell is considered some stupid underdog genius by every Cassavettes-loving turd, while wicked Sondra Locke and Colleen Camp are nowhere to be found.  I wish I was at the pre-production meetings for Death Game.  I bet Locke thought she’d get another oscar nom. for this.  She should have.  But I’m guessing Clint had other ideas for her.  This movie obviously scared him to death. 

Bye-bye La Locke, but thanks for Ratboy...Rock Hard