Toddler Trauma - PET SEMATARY

Happy Friday the 13^th, everyone.  And in October, no less.  Now, obviously, this would be the appropriate time to cover one of the FRIDAY THE 13^th films, but let´s not be that predictable.  Plus, as usual, I didn’t look at a calendar and only realized it was Friday the 13th today.

I missed the boat on that one, but this week's movie ties in to another current event; the surprise success of IT and the wave of other recent Stephen King adaptations.  And yes, this also was entirely unintentional.  It was basically a random selection, forethought is not one of my strengths.  Everything worked out well, though, because I had forgotten how fantastic Mary Lambert's 1989 nihilistic gut punch, PET SEMATARY, really was.

The Capsule:

The Creed family, handsome doctor Louis (Dale Midkiff, star of NIGHTMARE WEEKEND!), wife Rachel (Denise Crosby), daughter Ellie (Blaze Berdahl), and toddler son Gage (Miko Hughes), trade the hassle of Chicago for the easy living of rural Maine.  Helpful neighbor Jud Crandell (Fred Gwynne) warns Louis not to let Ellie’s cat Churchill wander, since the road by the house, with its barreling trucks screaming by at all hours, is a notorious pet killer.  So many were lost over the years, the local kids made their own adorably misspelled pet cemetery.  When the beloved family pet inevitably buys it, a sympathetic Jud takes Louis beyond the kid-built graveyard to an ancient Indian burial ground, where anything laid to rest don't rest very long.  When the cat comes back the very next day, with a nasty smell and nastier disposition, Louis wonders if the lovable kitty he planted is the same beast that dug its way out.  But when a similar fate befalls baby Gage, better judgment does not outweigh the temptation to see his little boy alive again.  

Memory is a funny thing.  Between HBO and VHS, I’ve seen this movie at least a dozen times.  I've always held it in high regard.  Certain lines of dialogue consistently pop into my brain at random times.  So it came as quite a shock when I watched it again for this piece and realized that aside from the basic storyline, I’d forgotten almost everything else.  In a way, this rewatch felt like the first time.

Advanced warning: Since most of the really juicy stuff happens in the last act, I'm going to be more spoilery than usual.   


I was especially surprised by the tone.  I knew it was a supernatural story, the dead rising and all that, but I didn’t recall how pervasive it was.  Almost the entire cast experiences ghostly visitations, premonitions, or some type of otherworldly influence.  More significantly, the movie is much darker than I remembered.  I knew it was no picnic, but goddamn, these people are really put through the ringer.  

What makes it worse is that the doomed Creed family are genuinely decent people.  Rachel is compassionate, determined, and thoughtful, if a little uptight.  Considering her traumatic backstory, she turned out remarkably well.  Louis is a loving dad who's worst flaw is not putting up a fence (seriously, that would have solved everything).  The kids are cute and kind to each other, even if Elly gets a little whiny when she starts having dreams about her parent's violent deaths.  Director Mary Lambert does a expert job of twisting the knife, emotionally speaking, because no one deserves what is in store for them.  It is a travesty that Lambert didn't have more success as a director (she mainly does television now), because she handles the pathos of the characters so well.  She grounds every bad decision the characters make in relatable human weakness.

Take Jud Crandell.  With his warm smile and Pepperidge Farm Remembers accent, lovable Fred Gwynne plays Jud as the guy you wish was your grandfather.  As charming as he is, Jud is absolutely the worst neighbor ever.  His desire to be helpful and to save Ellie the pain of losing a pet (and to share a lifelong secret) might be the initial reason he shows Louis the Micmac burial ground, but he doesn't think it through.  It’s only after Churchill returns uncharacteristically vicious that Jud mentions how his own dog came back a foul-smelling hell hound when he tried that trick as a kid.  That seems like an important detail to leave out.  Jud continues to fill Louis’ head with bad ideas and does absolutely nothing to stop him from acting on them.  After Gage gets plowed over by a semi, Jud breaks down to Louis, claiming responsibility for the tragedy because he introduced the doc to the evil in those woods.  I used to think he was just being overly dramatic, but seeing the malicious force actually influencing the environment, FINAL DESTINATION style, in the third act, I realized, oh shit, it really was Jud’s fault!  He roused the evil and the Creeds paid the price.  Way to go, Herman Munster.

In fact, all the characters in the story could be seen as pawns in a larger struggle of good versus evil. In this case, the force of good is totally worthless and the force of evil is a real asshole.  This malevolence is solely concerned with bringing maximum anguish to any poor dope who encounters it.  Not only is Louis forced to see his son die in front of him, what returns from the unhallowed ground is only a shell for the vengeful spirit of Rachel’s long dead, demented sister, Zelda (Andrew Hubatsek).  It serves the Creeds a double shit sandwich.

You have to admire King’s audacity at putting the ultimate villain in the form a 3-year-old boy.  On the surface, a knee-high person you can lift with one arm doesn’t seem that threatening, but the unholy munchkin has a great deal more coordination and strength than your average rug rat.  The last act takes cues from CHILD’S PLAY, only showing quick glimpses of Evil Gage has he dashes by, building the tension that he could be hiding anywhere.  The comparison is even more apt during the action scenes, where Louis is clearly wrestling with a dummy.  I suppose there are guidelines against sparring with a real toddler in a fight sequence.  The most chilling moments are from the real pint sized actor, though.  Something about an adorable tyke waddling towards you with a scalpel and an evil grin is damned unsettling.  His line delivery is also creepy as fuck.  

As if that wasn't strange enough, I cannot fail to mention the most ludicrously bizarre image of all, Evil Gage appearing before his mom sporting a top hat and cane.  The kid’s body isn’t just a vessel for Zelda’s murderous rage, a ‘70s era pimp apparently snuck in there as well.

Another thing I had forgotten was just how gory the movie is.  Things only get bloody in a few spots, but those scenes shoot for the moon.  The Creed family’s spirit guide, Victor Pascow (Brad Greenquist), is introduced being carried into Louis’ office, post car accident, with a horrific head wound.  The camera practically dives into his exposed brain.  When Pascow’s ghost shows up periodically throughout the film to give unheeded advice, his bleeding, gaping skull is always prominently displayed.

The most punishing sequence is saved for poor Jud.  While he is hunting around his house for the freshly risen Evil Gage, the little dickens slices through his Achilles tendon with a scalpel and drops him like an old oak.  Now, the Achilles tendon is one of those super vulnerable spots on the human body (along with the eyeball, wrist, and tender bits) that is guaranteed to cause the average viewer to involuntarily squirm, so this alone would be enough.  It isn’t. Once he gets Jud on his level, the demon seed slices his cheeks open Heath Ledger’s Joker style.  As the coup de grace, Gage nuzzles up close to the geezer and BITES his fucking throat out!  Yes, a toddler tears a bloody chunk out of a senior’s neck, on camera. Lil’ Miko must have had one laid back set mom.  

The scene that most shook me up on this viewing is Gage’s death.  Not his first death, by semi; that was artistically implied with a stray rolling kiddy shoe, just like in MAD MAX.  I’m talking about when Louis has to put an end to the adorable abomination by injecting him with a hypodermic.  Compared to all the carnage that came minutes before, Evil Gage’s death is as gentle as a tickle.  It never bothered me the dozen times I had watched it before, but that was before I had kids.  Watching that needle go into a tiny little boy’s neck (no dummy for this one) was like a kick in the stomach.  So thanks, parenthood, for making it difficult to enjoy a decent child murder anymore.  Sheesh.

Being a father also made the theme of the desperation of grief stand out more clearly.  Now I get why the Creeds made many of their terrible decisions.  After Gage’s (first) death, when Jud tells Louis the cautionary tale of a young man buried at the Micmac site who returned basically a Frankenstein’s monster, all the despondent father takes away is that it is possible to have his son back.  Reason, caution, and good sense mean nothing to someone so overcome by loss.  Even after all the trouble Rachel goes through to get back to their house—and being psychically aware that Zelda is somehow coming for her—the first thing she does when confronted by her once dead, scalpel wielding baby is to hug him.  We parents be stupid about that shit.

I even understand why Louis, after putting an end to his evil, fake son, immediately hauls the mutilated body of his wife down the trail to the pet sematary, mumbling how this time will be different.  In a way, the moment when Louis is reunited with Picasso Rachel almost counts as a happy ending, because he is so blinded by love that all he can see is the beautiful girl he married and not the horrifying ghoul dripping pus on the kitchen floor.  It is simultaneously the most romantic and grossest kiss ever. 

So, to paraphrase the popular meme, go and find yourself someone who looks at you the way Louis looks at his oozing, eyeless, half faced wife.

C Chaka

The Kids Ain’t Alright – DEVIL TIMES FIVE

Who doesn't love kids?  With their adorable, cherubic faces and eyes full of wonder, they can warm your heart.  Sure, sometimes they can be a handful.  They can push your buttons.  The can squabble with their siblings.  They can cut your phone line.  They can dump a bucket of piranha on you when you are in the tub. But bring a smile to their faces and it's all worth it.  Just ask the adults from 1974's DEVIL TIMES FIVE (AKA: THE HORRIBLE HOUSE ON THE HILL).  Oh wait, you can't.  They're all dead.

The Capsule:

Gruff, overbearing tycoon Papa Doc (Gene Evans) sequesters his family and underlings in his isolated winter chalet for a working vacation.  His obligated guests include dutiful daughter Julie (Joan McCall) and her macho, fun-loving fiancée Rick (Taylor Lacher), gold-digging vixen Lovely (Carolyn Stellar), spineless suck up Harvey Beckman (Sorrell Booke), his lush of a wife Ruth (Shelley Morrison), and the lumbering childlike caretaker, Ralph (John Durren).  Their weekend of boozing, bickering, and cat fighting is interrupted by five adorable children who were the only survivors of a horrific bus accident.  Unbeknownst to the adults, the little cuties are really a pack of pint sized maniacs on their way back to the mental hospital when their van went off the road.  One by one, the clueless grown-ups are lead to their increasingly grizzly deaths.  By the time the remaining olds wise up, they find themselves at the mercy of these diabolical delinquents who aren’t about to let the fun end so soon.   

One of the most interesting things about DEVIL TIMES FIVE (or THE HORRIBLE HOUSE ON THE HILL, which is a stupid title because the house is quite the swinging pad) is that by the end it is a completely different movie than how it started.  The first twenty minutes are pure soapy melodrama, like an extra trashy episode of Dynasty.  You’ve got the belligerent patriarch that everyone is resentful or terrified of, the sad sack sycophant (played by the future Boss Hog from Dukes of Hazard!), his wife who won’t have anything to do with him because he isn’t a bottle of bourbon, and the irresponsible ex-jock layabout.  There is a full-on cat fight between jealous sisters (I think they’re sisters), complete with hair pulling and stray boobs, accompanied by a Starsky & Hutch style groove.  The adults are so committed to their booze drenched drama that no one notices the kids slowly and carefully laying the groundwork for the horror to come.

I have to admit, the adults are such ridiculous clichés of the era (only in the ‘70s could a comb over hairdo be considered sexy) that they are kind of amusing all by themselves.  The real fun is the pack of underaged weirdos who emerge completely unscathed from the incredibly traumatic van accident.  The movie doesn’t bother trying to pass these ragamuffins off as anything but dangerous freaks right from the start.  They show absolutely no concern over anyone who died in the crash.  Brian (Tierre Turner), who is caught in permanent pretend soldier mode, even loots a bunch of stuff off the driver’s corpse.  The oldest, an albino 15 year old dressed as a nun known as Sister Hanna (Gail Smale), seems like she might be the caretaker, until she kills a guy.  True Sisters of the Cloth tend to shy away from such activities.

I was happy to see these malicious munchkins have no backstory, other than they are all residents of the State Mental Hospital, Children’s Acute Ward.  They don’t bother with any Dr. Loomis style explanation about what made them evil.  They don’t even mention why they were all out on bus ride in the first place.  Since Dr. Brown, the one surviving adult, is desperately following their trail muttering “I’ve got to stop them,” they clearly weren’t on a field trip to the zoo.  My theory is the van was on its way to Mount St. Helens so the doctor could chuck the kids into a volcano.  It might sound harsh, but believe me, it’s the most appropriate treatment plan for these little psychos. 

It’s not a particularly bloody movie, but the violence is brutal and disturbing, especially given that it is all perpetrated by children.  And not just insert shots of little hands holding knives, or little people stand-ins when things get rough.  These kids are front and center.  The first murder shows all the actors, even the darling 8 year old girl, beating Dr. Brown to death with hammers and chains—in slow motion—for FIVE MINUTES.  It only ends when Brian stabs the guy in the heart.  In another scene, they dump gasoline on someone and dance around the burning, flailing body like it was a maypole.  This was the ‘70s, before anyone cared about things like developmental trauma or scarred psyches.  

All of the kids have their moments, but the standout is David, played by a very young Leif Garret, the late ‘70’s teen idol.  It’s pretty obvious why this kid went on to fame and adoration.  In his freshly pressed suit and flowing blonde locks (which turns out to be a wig), David has flare. He delivers all his lines with the pomp and gravitas of a stage thespian, which he (and only he) considers himself to be.  You know, the type of kid who would use the word “rue” a lot in sentences.  Now that I think about it, David is a bit like a prototype Stewie from Family Guy, but less (intentionally) funny and more homicidal.  

All of the kids zero in on one specific adult to manipulate and torment, but David has a particularly unusual relationship with the luckless milquetoast, Harvey Beckman.  For one thing, the kid only calls him by his full name, as in “We will be friends, Harvey Beckman.”  Almost arbitrarily, David casts this mousy little man as his great nemesis, when there is clearly nothing great about him at all.  The best part is all of David’s Machiavellian schemes are completely lost on Harvey.  The putz is so happy that someone is even paying attention to him that he is oblivious to all the warning signs.  He seems to fancy himself a mentor to the kid, teaching him how to play chess and chop wood (bad idea).  David’s interest in the sad little man can be categorized as a little more complicated.  A telling sign is when he declares into the mirror, “That’s it; you’re all mine, Harvey Beckman!”  He also happens to be wearing one of Ruth’s dresses, a long black wig, and putting on lipstick at the time.

 

Luckily, David ends up killing him before things can really get weird.  Well, weirder.

Harvey Beckman aside, once the first body is discovered, the adults don’t waste time with the usual “but they’re just kids” rationalizations.  Even the gruff blowhard Papa Doc goes from “Yeah, right” to “oh shit, they are going to kill us all” in the space of a single scene.  By that time it’s too late, though.  The game is set, and the grown-ups have been completely outmaneuvered.  They can’t even get away because the industrious twerps have sabotaged the only car.  The story turns very quickly from carefree romp to stalker horror.  One by one, the adults are hacked, stabbed, or fed to piranha, and there is nothing they can do to stop it.  Except for one moment when David missteps and is slightly injured (leading him to yell, “My face! Look what you’ve done to my beautiful face!”), the kids are in complete control.

Rick and Julie turn out to not only be the most decent and quick thinking of the adults, but also the ones with the most potential to survive.  [Spoiler]  Ultimately though, they are no match for the miniature MacGyvers of Evil and their clever deathtraps.  In a final scene that would be copied by dozens of slasher movies to come, the kids have propped up all their victims in one room for a psycho tea party.  After they have sufficiently desecrated the corpses, one of the girls declares that she’s bored, and the whole crew head off in search of more people toys (the original title) to have fun with.  Kids: 8, Adults: 0.

Director Sean MacGregor is no Stanley Kubrick (he was actually fired and replaced by producer David Sheldon), but the secluded, snowbound setting gives the movie a bit of a THE SHINING vibe.  In fact, DEVIL TIMES FIVE could be thought of as an age reversed take on that story, where Danny is the one stalking Jack Torrance (Shelly Duvall would be pretty much the same).  So, since it was made six years earlier, maybe Kubrick ripped off this film for his little masterpiece.  Just a theory.   

The movie is undeniably clunky, and some of the performances are a little cringe inducing.=, but the kids have a weird balance between normal brats and twisted freaks that I find fascinating.  I would love to see a sequel set in modern times with the same cast.  All the little devils, now as old as their victims from the first movie, have a reunion at the chateau, only to be set upon by a new gang of murderous tykes.  The old devils would have to recapture the mischievous spirit of their youth.  They could have a deathtrap dual, the olds with their garrottes and tripwires, the youngins with their Bluetooth controlled robots.  Or it could just be the continuing adventures of David.  I’d be fine with that.

Checkmate, Harvey Beckman!

C Chaka