There’s an old saying in horror: lightning never strikes twice. Paramount Pictures, in its infinite wisdom, took that literally and thought, “Why not dig up the corpse of Pet Sematary and shock it with a cattle prod until it twitches on screen for 100 minutes?” Thus, Pet Sematary Two (1992) was born, a sequel no one asked for and even fewer survived with their dignity intact. It’s a film that plays like a séance gone wrong: instead of raising chills, it conjures sighs, laughter at the wrong moments, and the overwhelming desire to bury the VHS copy in your backyard just to stop the neighbors from finding out you rented it.
From King to Clown Show
The first Pet Sematary worked because it had the tragic weight of Stephen King’s bleak storytelling. Death, grief, and the desperate desire to undo the inevitable made it both horrifying and heartbreaking. The sequel, however, had none of that pesky “meaning” dragging it down. Instead, it gave us Edward Furlong sulking around like John Connor on sedatives, Anthony Edwards wondering how his career had wandered off the set of ER into a cinematic swamp, and Clancy Brown gleefully chewing scenery like it was marinated in embalming fluid.
It’s not based on a King novel, which is obvious from the way it bounces between bad after-school special and gore-splattered Saturday morning cartoon. Instead of dread, we get camp. Instead of atmosphere, we get fog machines working overtime like they’re paid by the puff. The dialogue sounds like it was pulled from a rejected Goosebumps script, then rewritten during a frat party.
Zowie the Wonder Zombie Dog
Every horror sequel needs a mascot. Pet Sematary Two gives us Zowie, the undead dog who looks less like a resurrected horror and more like the winner of “World’s Saddest Pet Costume” at the Ludlow county fair. After being shot by Clancy Brown’s sheriff (in between his frequent bouts of chewing tobacco and scenery), Zowie gets the burial-ground spa treatment and comes back with glowing eyes and a bad temper.
The problem is, zombie pets are scary until they’re not. Watching Zowie lumber around like a dollar-store Cujo with mange is about as terrifying as watching a Roomba knock over your furniture. When he finally mauls someone, it feels less like horror and more like karmic justice—because if you’re dumb enough to stand near a clearly possessed dog, Darwin probably had your number.
Clancy Brown Saves the Day (By Being Completely Nuts)
If there’s one reason to watch this movie, it’s Clancy Brown. Not because he’s good—God no, subtlety died the second he walked on screen—but because he’s so gleefully unhinged that the film briefly comes alive. As Gus, the abusive stepdad turned undead town psycho, he struts around in various stages of decomposition, skinning rabbits at the dinner table, molesting his wife, and cracking one-liners like a reanimated Rodney Dangerfield.
It’s both disgusting and hilarious. He’s the kind of villain who makes you want to take a shower and then send him a thank-you card for at least trying to make this mess entertaining. Without him, Pet Sematary Two would just be Edward Furlong staring wistfully at his shoelaces while Anthony Edwards looks like he’s trying to remember if his agent still takes calls.
The Plot… If You Can Call It That
The movie claims to have a plot. Technically, things happen: a mother dies, a father and son move to Ludlow (because apparently no one in King’s Maine has ever heard of Zillow), kids resurrect pets, then adults, then more kids, and suddenly the graveyard is less a sacred Miꞌkmaq burial ground and more of a punch card system. “Bury five, get the sixth resurrection free!”
The big emotional core is supposed to be Jeff (Furlong) trying to resurrect his dead mom. But it’s hard to take seriously when Mom comes back looking like she’s fresh off a Tales from the Crypt audition and immediately starts stabbing housekeepers and shrieking about family togetherness. Instead of heartbreak, we get a weird family counseling session in Hell’s waiting room.
By the finale—where houses are on fire, kids are fighting zombies with live wires, and Renee screams “Dead is better!” like a karaoke singer who’s lost her mind—it feels like the film has become a parody of itself. If that was the intent, bravo. If not, someone should probably apologize to Stephen King.
Gore, Gags, and Giggles
There’s gore aplenty—rabbit-skinning, kitten-killing, and a kid almost getting his nose chopped off with a bicycle wheel. But it’s all delivered with such heavy-handed absurdity that you’re more likely to laugh than recoil. Watching Clancy Brown stick firecrackers in his pants before exploding in the graveyard is the kind of scene that makes you wonder if the director was trying to make National Lampoon’s Undead Vacation.
The special effects are occasionally effective—Renee’s makeup in the final act is genuinely grotesque—but most of the time it looks like Spirit Halloween donated the costumes after a clearance sale.
The Real Horror: This Got Made
The true terror of Pet Sematary Two isn’t the undead. It’s the knowledge that Paramount greenlit this, put it in theaters, and made nearly $20 million off people who didn’t know any better. This is the kind of sequel that makes you rethink democracy: if enough people paid money to see this, maybe humanity really doesn’t deserve to survive.
Mary Lambert, who directed the first film with eerie gothic weight, returned for the sequel and promptly forgot everything that worked the first time. Instead of atmosphere and grief, she served up camp and cackles. It’s like watching someone who once painted a haunting portrait decide, “Screw it, finger painting with ketchup will do.”
Final Verdict: Pet Sematary Too Much
In the end, Pet Sematary Two is less a horror movie and more an accidental comedy about the dangers of recycling. It recycles the premise, the scares, and even the moral (“dead is better”) but delivers them with all the grace of a zombie dog tripping over its own intestines.
If you want genuine horror, rewatch the original. If you want to laugh at the sight of Clancy Brown deep-frying his own sanity, this might be the so-bad-it’s-good treat you didn’t know you needed. But don’t expect dread, tragedy, or Stephen King-level storytelling. Expect Edward Furlong, sulking through puberty, and a bunch of corpses who deserved a better sequel.
Because in the end, Pet Sematary Two proves one thing: sometimes dead franchises really are better.
