Pet Sematary Two (1992) is a horror film directed by Mary Lambert. The screenplay was written by Richard Outten. It is the sequel to the 1989 film Pet Sematary, which was based on the novel of the same name by Stephen King.
Plot
Following the accidental death of his actress mother Renee, Jeff Matthews (Edward Furlong) moves with his veterinarian father Chase (Anthony Edwards) to the small town of Ludlow, Maine, to live in the family's summer house. No one lives in Ludlow for long without hearing about the tragedy of the Creed family and the dark mythology of the cursed Indian burial ground which lies beyond the local pet cemetery. After his friend Drew's dog Zowie is killed by his abusive sheriff stepfather, Gus (Clancy Brown), Jeff witnesses the power of the "Mi'kmaq burial ground" first-hand when he and Drew attempt to bring Zowie back to life by burying him there. The dog does come back from the dead, but seems very different from his living self, growling fiercely, and his eyes having an eerie, unnatural glow to them, even in broad daylight.
After this, Zowie is treated for his gunshot wound by Doctor Chase, who finds that the wound doesn't appear to be healing, and then, strangely finds that he cannot hear a heartbeat from the injured dog. Chase sends a blood sample to a lab, and the results arrive shortly: Zowie's cells have completely deteriorated and are no different from those of a dead canine. Meanwhile, Jeff and his friend Drew go to the pet cemetery on Halloween for a night of horror stories about the Creed tragedy when Drew's stepfather comes looking for him and starts beating him. Zowie rushes out of the shadows to maul Gus horribly, killing him with a fatal bite to the jugular. Desperate, the boys bury Gus in the burial ground. That very night, Gus comes back to life, but with drastically changed characteristics. The undead Gus exhibits stiff movements, seems to treat Drew more fairly, and is generally silent. Unfortunately, he is also much more crude and sadistic at expressing himself, such as when he sexually assaults Drew's mother, or when he brutally skins his pet rabbits for supper.
Not long after, Zowie and Gus both start to act much more violently. Zowie breaks out of Dr. Chase's veterinary clinic and tears the three cats that he was going to give away for adoption to shreds, and gets into Dr. Chase's home and attacks him as he is sleeping. Dr. Chase survives with an injured arm, but is shaken. The next day, Jeff and a bully, Clyde, get into a fight in a ditch along a stretch of highway over Clyde's insults of Jeff's long-dead mother. Jeff is just about to have his nose cut off by the spokes of his own bike when Gus shows up. In a surprising act of humanity, the undead man orders Jeff to go home (which he quickly does). Clyde tells Gus that he was just messing around with him, but Gus punches him and knocks him flat. Gus then grabs Clyde's motorcycle and starts inching the rear wheel towards his face, and eventually, Clyde's scarf gets caught in the wheel, snapping his neck and tearing his face to pieces. Drew witnesses the entire scene. Gus, sadistically laughing, wipes Clyde's blood off his face and goes after Drew. He traps Drew inside his own house along with Zowie, who has gone savage. After a short chase, Drew manages to escape through the upstairs window and gets in the car of his arriving mother. Gus chases them down the highway with his police car, killing both of them by ramming their car into the path of an oncoming potato truck. Gus then returns to Clyde's mangled corpse with a police shovel and body bag, saying "I'm takin' you up the hill, Clyde, buddy. That's the way the Indians did it."
Meanwhile, Jeff becomes more and more obsessed with reanimating his mother. Jeff has Gus exhume her corpse, and later meets him at the Indian burial ground to re-bury her. Meanwhile, Dr. Chase gets a notification of his wife being removed from her grave by Gus, and after surveying the scene, he rushes to Gus's house. Before entering, he is attacked by Zowie and mauled on his left shoulder, but manages to shoot and kill the undead dog. He enters Gus's house, only to find the crazed dead man waiting for him. Shooting Gus in his chest has little effect on him, and just as Gus is about to kill Chase with an electric drill, Chase manages to retrieve his gun and get one bullet in the chamber. He presses it against Gus's jaw and clicks the trigger three times. Gus just laughs, but the fourth time, Gus is shot straight through his head, and he finally dies. Chase starts to leave, but goes back to fire a few more shots into him just to make sure he's dead, and then drives back to his house.
Jeff's mom has come back to life, and the first thing she does is stab and kill Chase's housekeeper Marjorie (who was a fan of Renee and also had feelings for Chase) in the attic. Chase arrives and heads up to the attic, where he sees Marjorie's body, as well as his son embracing his undead wife. Having witnessed Gus and Zowie, he is unmoved by Renee and tells Jeff to get away from her. An undead Clyde then arrives, armed with an axe and with his entire face mutilated, and fights Jeff again. As they fight, Chase is knocked out, and Renee locks everyone in the attic and sets the place on fire. Jeff manages to defeat Clyde by sticking a severed electrical cable in Clyde's mouth, blowing off his head, and then grabs the axe and starts hacking through the door. Renee's makeup and mortician's wax is now melting from the heat of the flames, exposing her grotesque burns from when she died. She tries to convince Jeff to stay by muttering, "I love you," but Jeff, knowing that his real mother is truly dead, gets himself and his father out of the attic, leaving his "mother" to melt to death in the flames. As she is sent to her re-demise, she laughs hysterically, screaming, "DEAD IS BETTER! STAY WITH ME!"
Some time later, Jeff and Dr. Chase move out of Ludlow to start a new life back in Los Angeles.
Trivia
- Well known Maine sportscaster, the late Frank Fixaris, makes a brief cameo. His voice is featured covering a Maine Mariners hockey game that is of particular interest to Drew.
- At the time of release the Maine Mariners AHL hockey club had moved to Providence, Rhode Island and become the Providence Bruins.
- The current DVD version, like the theatrical and VHS versions before it, are devoid of some graphic violence which was cut in order to avoid an NC-17 rating.
- At the end of this film, Jeff's mother repeatedly shouts "Dead is better!", which is a line spoken by Jud Crandall in the original film.
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