Pet Sematary (1989)

What I Knew
Full disclosure: I've seen the first like 30 minutes of this movie before. Denise Crosby (Lt. Yar!!!!) is in it. Its based on the Stephen King book Pet Sematary, which I've read. A family pet gets buried in an indian burial ground, comes back wrong. Some more plot stuff I'm not sure I want to spoil up front. Its my favorite King book, for whatever that's worth, and the beginning of the film seemed competent. Friday part 7-esque in execution, ironically enough also the director (Mary Lambert) went on to direct Mega Python vs Gatoroid for who else but Asylum. Also there's that rad Ramones song.

What I Got
Our film opens in the titular pet cemetery, a panning shot of graves with little kids reading poems about dead pets over top of it. Pretty long credit sequence. All of these pet headstones have jokes on them. The cemetary itself is several concentric circles of graves. Sign above the entrance cutely mispelled in child's handwriting, "Pet Sematary."
We cut to some trucks driving dangerously fast in front of a house with a For Sale-Sold sign in the yard. A station wagon pulls up, bearing a bumper sticker declaring it the car of a doctor. Lt. Yar, her husband, and their daughter climb out. The daughter, age like five I guess? i dont know im bad with kids' ages, runs to the tire swing dangerously close to the road. As Lt. Yar gets the second child, a male boy like two years old i guess, out of the car, the daughter spots a path into the woods from the tire swing. As she tells her parents about it, the branch snaps and she falls to the ground. Yar and Husband run over to check on her, leaving the toddler to his own devices. He is drawn to the family cat in the back of the car. The toddler wanders into the road while his parents arent paying attention. He is narrowly saved from a hurtling truck by a neighbor. His name is Jud. The doctor husband is named Louis Creed. Jud warns the family that there are many trucks and they are dangerous. The daughter's name is Ellen. Louis is going to be the new doctor at the college, Jud hears. Jud tells the family that he'll lead them up the path into the woods when they get settled down in a few weeks.
Nightfalls on the Creed home. The kids are asleep, Ellie sleeping with the cat. I think I remember his name being Church. Outside, Louis is intrigued by the Path. As he contemplates it, a cat jumps out of a tree at him. He says its Church! Well, now, thats strange.
Louis heads across the street to Jud's house. The two men sit on the porch and crack open some brewskis. They lament the trucks. Jud says the trucks caused the path into the woods because the path leads to a pet cemetery. The road "uses up loads of animals." Ellie's cat is named Winston Churchill. Jud says that Louis should get Church fixed so he doesnt wander into the road.
The next day I presume, Louis is unpacking and says goodbye to their housekeeper, Missy. Missy isn't married. She makes sure to tell Lt. Yar that. Later on, Jud and the Creeds decide to walk on back into the woods, to the cemetery. There are a ton of graves in there. Jud says the cemetery is a good thing and Yar flips out because kids should never learn about death apparently. Jud buried his dog Spot in the cemetary in 1924. He explains what a graveyard really is to Ellie, he says its a place where the dead speak. She recoils in terror. He says they speak through the gravestones, a place where the dead can rest.
That night, Ellie is worried about Church dying and going to the pet cemetery. She's coming to terms with death by talking about it with her father. Ellie expresses hate towards god for allowing death into the world and holding sway over mortals. Louis and his wife send Ellie to bed. Church curls up next to her.
Morning. Breakfast. Toddler throws a bunch of food at Ellie. Ellie is scared of starting at her new school and she doesn't want church to "get his nuts cut." Louis and Yar think thats hilarious. So do I. Louis calms her down and promises Church will be fine. Louis is taking Church to get neutered. There are two main characters that they have not named yet, the wife and the toddler. Outside, Louis has a conversation with the housekeeper Missy. Missy has a stomachache, Louis offers to give her a check up, she says it'll pass.
At the school where Louis works, some kid got hit by a truck. They are dragging him into Louis' office, brains all hanging out. Louis calls for an ambulance but I think the kid is already dead. Louis shuts his eyes. But the kid opens his eyes and grabs Louis' shoulder. "The soil of a man's heart is stonier, Louis," the kid says. "I'll come to you." Louis is scared and doesnt know how the kid knew his name. He is freaked. The kid dies for reals.
Night. Louis is asleep in his bed with his wife. Crickets are really really loud in rural Maine I guess. Louis is woke by the kid who had his brains smashed out. "Come on Doc," he calls, "We've got places to go." and then vanishes. Louis tries to shake the image from his head, but the kid appears again, this time closer and warns Louis that he better follow. As Louis follows the kid down into the basement, the kid says that he just wants to help Louis, like Louis tried to help him. Louis says that its just a bad dream, but the kid says that its not a dream!
Louis follows the dead kid outside and down the forest path towards the cemetery. At the cemetery, the kid repeats Jud's words that the cemetery is where the dead speak. The kid then tells the Doc not to go on further down the path, to where the dead walk. A blue light shines from the woods. The kid floats away. "The ground beyond is sour." The kid vanishes and Louis awakes in his bed.
BUT HIS FEET ARE ALL MUDDY!
At his office at the school, Louis is going through his files. The kid's name was Victor Pascow. Later, back at home, Louis is playing with his kids. The wife is going away with the kids for thanksgiving but her dad has disinvited Louis. He is going to stay at the new house by himself with Church.
Later, Jud calls up Louis. He's found a dead cat on his lawn and thinks it might be Church. Louis heads out to inspect it, but its sure Church. They load the rigored cat into a plastic bag. Louis says he'll bury the cat in the morning. The wife's name is Rachel! Jud says there's a better way.
Jud and Louis head into the pet cemetery. Jud says they're not going to bury the cat in the cemetery, but beyond it. In order to get beyond the cemetery you have to cross a deadfall. Jud says he's buried a thing or two beyond the deadfall and knows all the places to step. Louis starts to cross after Jud, but loses his step and tumbles down the deadfall. He's unharmed but rattled. The two men and the dead cat keep walking. They near their destination when they start hearing noises. It turns out to be just a loon, according to Jud, who also seems rattled. They keep going and it appears that they are climbing a mountain now. They hit the summit at reach a Micmac indian burial ground. Jud says he brought Louis there to bury the cat. Louis asks why and Jud says he has his reasons. He says that Louis has to bury the cat himself, because "each buries his own." Louis starts to dig. Hours later, as the sun sets, Louis finally gets deep enough to bury Church. They cover the grave and return home where Louis' phone is ringing. Jud warns Louis not to tell Rachel or Ellie about what they did tonight. Louis asks what exactly they did do. Jud says that they did a secret thing. Jud says that the soil of a man's heart is stonier, just like what the kid Victor said before he died. Jud goes home.
Louis calls up Rachel's dad's house and talks to Ellie. Ellie asks how Church is and Louis lies, just like Jud said to. She makes Louis feel very guilty by being attached to the cat. The toddler boy's name is Gage. Gage Creed.
The next day, Louis is out raking leaves in the yard. He rakes a very small pile, gets bored, gives up. He goes to put his rake back in the cellar when he sees a monster! No, its just Church. What. Louis fixes Church a bowl of food so he can get close to the cat. It appears to be Church for real. He stinks like death and appears to have crawled his way out of the grave. Church claws at Louis' face and runs off.
At Jud's house, Louis is trying to rationalize Church being alive again, but Jud reassures him that the cat was for sure dead. Louis thinks he's going crazy. Jud says that "the ragman," a half Micmac dude, told him about the burial ground. Jud buried his dog Spot out in the burial ground, but he wasn't alone when the dog came back the next day. His mother was there too, could see the dog's fatal wounds and smell the death on him. Spot came back wrong. Jud tells Louis that he wants to protect Ellie from death so he told him to bury Church up there. Louis asks if anyone has ever buried a person up there and Jud freaks out, knocking his beer bottles off the table. He says no.
Later, Louis fills his bathtub and climbs in. Louis bathes himself. As he relaxes in the bath, Church throws a bloody rat at him. Church is sitting watch over the tub, a real evil glint in his eyes. Louis kicks him out of the bathroom.
The next morning, Louis meets Rachel, Ellie, and Gage at the airport. Ellie asks him if Church is dead, because she had a dream that Church died and Louis and Jud buried him in the pet cemetery. Louis says thats a silly dream. They all head home.
At home, Ellie notices Church smells bad and asks if she can shampoo the cat. She is not allowed to shampoo the cat but Louis offers to take the cat to a groomer.
Missy writes a note that says that she's sorry she has cancer. She hangs herself in the basement.
Stephen King plays the minister at Missy's funeral at the human graveyard, not the pet cemetery. Louis, Ellie, and Jud are at the funeral. Rachel is throwing up because she is having a hard time dealing with Missy's death. Jud asks Louis why god would take a good someone like Missy while letting an old geezer like him live. Louis says that "god sees the truth, but waits." Jud asks Louis how his cat is. Louis says its Ellie's cat. Jud replies that its Louis' cat now. This is an effective scene.
That night, Ellie asks Louie if Missy went to heaven. Louis is explaining different religion's afterlives to Ellie. Ellie asks him what he believes, and Louis says that he has faith in an afterlife. This makes Rachel cry. Later on, Louis is reading in bed when Rachel comes in. Rachel is scared of death and apologizes for being rude. Her sister Zelda died of spinal meningitis. Her family treated her like a dirty secret and hid her in a bedroom, waiting for her to die. Rachel was home alone with her when Zelda died. Rachel was afraid that her parents were going to accuse her of murder because she hated her sister. Rachel was relieved when Zelda finally died and has felt guilty about it for years! Louis says her parents were dicks for leaving her alone with Zelda and goes to get her a valium.
A truck starts driving down the road listening to Sheena is a Punk Rocker. That is my all time favorite Ramones song. Meanwhile, the Creeds and Jud are having a picnic. Louis is teaching Gage how to fly a kite. Sheena is a Punk Rocker is such a great song, holy cow. Gage takes off flying the kite on his own, without Louis. Gage dropped the kite string and Ellie yells "What a numb shit!" Rachel and Louis turn and pay attention to her while Gage runs towards the street. They notice him in the street too late. And the truck notices him too late. Louis starts screaming, Gage is dead.
Louis is going through a scrapbook of Gabe's pictures. Jud is there too. Rachel took a bunch of valium and went to sleep. Ellie can't sleep and comes downstairs to join Louis and Jud. Ellie has a picture of her and Gage. Ellie demands that god bring Gage back to life. Jud says that god can't do that. Louis looks down. Ellie bursts into tears. Jud tells Louis to take care of Ellie, who is crying in the other room, but Louis ignores him.
At Gage's funeral, Rachel's dad accuses Louis murdering Gage and attacks him. They start to fight and flip the coffin over.
That night, Louis puts Ellie to sleep. Ellie asks if god could bring Gage back to life if she has enough faith. Louis says that yes, god can in fact bring Gage back to life. In Louis' bedroom, Rachel is passed out with crazy cat Church sitting on her chest. He growls at Louis, Louis grabs him and throws him violently from the room. Downstairs, Jud comes in and lets Church out. Louis comes down and tells Jud he just wants to go to bed. Jud says that Louis is thinking things he ought not be thinking. Jud claims responsibility for killing Gage and tells him not to go and put his son in the indian burial ground. Jud says he lied about no one having been buried in the burial ground.
Timmy Baterman was killed on his way home from WWII. His father buried the boy up in the burial ground before he learned the truth: that sometimes death is better. Whatever lives in the ground beyond the cemetery ain't human. Timmy stalked the town, but only one girl said he had to be put down as an abomination. The men of the town, including Jud, decided to go to the Batermans and put the boy down. Timmy's dad refuses to let them re-kill the boy, so they set the house on fire, killing the whole Baterman family. The indians stopped using the burial ground because it was so evil, so Louis shouldn't use it either. Jud reveals that the burial ground caused Gage to die, so it could have a new host.
The next day, the Creeds and Rachel's parents are at the airport. It looks like Rachel and the kids are going home to Chicago, leaving Louis there alone again. Ellie says she doesnt want to go to Chicago because she had another nightmare. This one, however, was about Louis, and Gage, and Victor Pascow, the dead kid from before. Rachel's dad apologizes for starting a fight at the funeral. The men shake hands and make up. Ellie begs Louis to come along, but Louis is staying behind for three days. Ellie makes Louis swear that everything is going to be alright. Bad thoughts are rattling around in Louis' head.
On his way home from the airport, Louis breaks into a human graveyard with a canvas bag and a shovel. He heads to Gage's grave. He has a little soliloquy which is interrupted by Pascow. He reminds Louis that the ground is sour. Louis says he's okay with re-killing his son if he does come back wrong and its not like Rachel and Ellie have to know.
Ellie wakes from a dream in Chicago. She says that Pascow said that Louis is going to do a bad thing. Pascow is a good ghost who warns her about things. Rachel tells Ellie there's no such thing as ghosts. Ellie asks Rachel to call Louis and ensure everything is alright. As Rachel goes to call Louis, she remembers where she heard the name Pascow before. The dead boy from earlier! How could ellie know about that!
Meanwhile, Louis starts digging. The phone rings in an empty house. Rachel is pacing before a super symbolic portrait of a cat and a toddler. There's no answer so Rachel calls Jud. She asks Jud if he's seen Louis. He hasn't seen him so Rachel says she's coming home. Jud warns her not to do that, but she's coming anyway.
Louis is still digging. A cop car rolls up and shines its searchlight across the graves. Louis hides in the deep hole he's dug and the cop drives away. Louis starts laughing, he outsmarted the police. Back at his house, Jud moves his beers out to the porch to keep watch for Louis. At the graveyard, Louis has dug up Gage's coffin and pulls the toddler corpse out. Louis starts rocking the body in his arms, embracing the dead thing, and promising that everything will be alright. He stuffs it in the canvas sack.
In Chicago, Rachel has a panic attack. All the paintings on the wall go crooked and she finds herself in the back bedroom where Zelda died. Zelda is there again, near death, threatening to kill her. "Gage and I will get you, for letting us die." Rachel wakes up on a plane on her way back to the house. Pascow watches over her. She hurries through the terminal to catch the connecting flight. She misses it but Pascow stops the plane from taking off so she can board.
Louis starts to take the walk into the woods with Gage's body. He crosses through the cemetery and over the deadfall. The blue light and the screaming Jud wrote off as a loon earlier resume. Trees begin to collapse in front of Louis to block his path.
At the airport, Rachel is trying to rent a car. The Budget Rental Lady says they have nothing but Pascow whispers that there's an Aries K with a scratch. The lady offers Rachel an Aries K with a scratch. Rachel resumes her trip with her guardian ghost with her.
Louis continues his trek. As he climbs a face flies at him out of a pile of rocks but he dismisses it as his imagination. He makes it to the burial ground and starts to dig.
Rachel is driving unsafely on the slick new england roads. Her front tire blows and she swerves into a ditch. It is almost as if two supernatural forces are at work. Pascow on the side of good and something in the burial ground on the side of evil. Pascow warns Rachel that "it" is trying to stop her. She looks around for where the voice is coming from but comes up empty.
Louis has buried his son in the sour earth and heads back down the path to his house. When he gets there, he finds Church in the garage. He throws down his tools, goes inside, and collapses on his bed. Back at the burial ground, a child's hand crawls its way out of the dirt.
Rachel hitches a ride on one of the gas tankers that always drive by the house.
The latch pops on the Creed's front door and a muddy child accompanied by a cat walk in. The child makes its way to Louis' medicine bag where he finds a scalpel. Church has wandered off down the path.
Jud wakes up from his ill-timed sleep to see that Louis is back at his house. He heads over and sees muddy child's footprints all over. Child's laughter draws him into the sitting room. "Let's play hide and go seek," says  Gage from a distance. Jud heads upstairs, calling Gage's name. More laughter draws Jud into a guest bedroom. Jud pulls out a knife and starts checking room. Oh he's in his house, not the Creeds'. He's in his own bedroom and so is Gage. Jud bends down to check under his bed when Church startles him from behind. Jud lifts his head to look at the cat as Gage slices his achilles tendon. Gage comes out from under the bed, scowls, and gives Jud a chelsea smile. He then bites into Jud's neck and tears out his throat. Jud dies.
Rachel's trucker drops her off in front of the Creed house. Pascow tells her that he's not allowed to come any further. As Rachel moves towards the house, she hears Zelda's voice calling her name. Church sneaks up behind her and startles her, his paws soaked in blood. She heads towards Jud's house, calling his name. Inside, she starts to hear deep moaning that leads her up the stairs. The moans start intoning "Rachel." She follows them into Jud's bedroom where she finds Zelda. Zelda threatens to break Rachel's back. Zelda morphs into Gage who is wearing a little lord fauntleroy costume. Rachel is shocked, even as Gage holds out  a scalpel and threatens her with it she, elated, snatches him up. He stabs and the scene cuts to him being hit by the truck again. Rachel screams and her screams wake Louis up across the street.
Its morning now and Louis sees Gage's bloody footprints all over his house. Louis then notices his scalpel missing. He knows something has gone wrong. Gage begins to laugh from somewhere in the house. The phone rings. It's Rachel's dad, asking if Rachel made it alright. Louis lies and tells her dad that she made it alright and Rachel is just asleep. Her dad tells Louis that Ellie had a nightmare last night that Rachel was dead. Louis hangs up. The phone rings again, Louis picks up the receiver. He yells at Rachel's dad that he doesnt have time to talk, but it's Gage on the other end of the line. He tells Louis that he's at Jud's house. He played with Jud, and he played with Mommy, now its time for him to play with Louis. Louis loads up a syringe with a whole bunch of something.
Church is standing watch over Jud's house. Louis throws a steak out for Church to eat. Church starts to eat up when Louis grabs him by the nape and pumps the cat full of whatever was in the syringe. The cat immediately goes limp. Dead again. Louis screams, "Be dead!"
Inside the house, everything looks wrong. All the furniture is melted and a weird green something is growing on all the walls. Louis calls out for Gage, asking him what he's done. Louis finds a bloody high-heeled shoe on the stairs. As he bends to pick it up, Gage releases the illusion and the house returns to normal. He invites Louis to come upstairs. Louis pulls out his syringe and offers to play.
Louis heads to the bathroom where he finds a bloody shower curtain. Nothing behind it. He heads to a bedroom where he finds the attic staircase broken. Jud's knife and Rachel's purse are lying in the center of Jud's bedroom. Louis walks over to the bed and bends down to check beneath it just like Jud did, but all he finds beneath it is Jud's corpse.
Louis heads down the other end of the hall when suddenly Rachel's body drops out the attic, hanged from a rope by Gage. Gage hops down and tackles his father, knocking the syringe from his hand. Gage starts carving at Louis' chest and arm. Louis manages to pull Gage off and throw him across the room. He pulls another syringe from his pocket and goes to embrace his son. As the two draw close, he stabs him with the syringe and injects the dead boy. The boy starts to cry. "No fair," Gage repeats as he stumbles away and finally collapses.
Louis goes and gets a can of gasoline and starts soaking Jud's house with it. He lights a match and sets the bodies of Jud and Gage alight. He carries Rachel from the house. On the lawn he encounters Pascow. Pascow tells Louis not to make it worse. Louis tells Pascow that the reason Gage came back wrong was because he waited to long, now he has a fresh body in Rachel so everything will be okay. He walks through Pascow and heads down the path towards the cemetery as Jud's house burns in the background.
Later, Louis returns to his house. He sits on his kitchen floor and shuffles a deck of cards. A church bell tolls in the distance as he deals a game of solitaire. He lays the cards down and a woman's bloody hand opens the kitchen door. Rachel walks in right at midnight, pus pouring from her empty eye socket. They embrace and kiss. Rachel grabs a knife. Cut to black. Louis screams.
Pet Sematary.
How I Felt
That totally owned. So great. Second best King adaptation I've seen, after The Shining of course. Performances were uneven and child actors are always hit or miss, usually miss, but the script was pretty good and the direction was spot on. The makeup was real neat. Just a real good movie, wow. Wasn't expecting that. Also the two best Ramones songs were in it.
Sequel?
There's a sequel starring Edward Furlong that's supposed to be just real terrible. Prob gonna watch it anyway. Also, there's a remake by the guy who did 1481 apparently in preproduction. Can't imagine that being any good. I should probably watch all the other Stephen King films i havent seen that are on Netflix. There are a ton of them.

8213: Gacy House (2010)

Sup yall its been a while.
(E: THIS FILM IS ENTIRELY A WORK OF FICTION)
What I Knew
Prequel to my Movie of the Year 2011, Paranormal Entity. Some paranormal investigators go into John Wayne Gacy's house and there are ghosts. Cinema verite and all that. Netflix description reads "pseudo found-footage."
What I Got
Des Plaines, IA police department disclaimer saying its found tapes. What appears to be a tour bus pulls into John Wayne Gacy's house at 8213 West Summerdale Ave, Des Plaines, IL. Some dudes are already scared. This takes pace 3/6/06. Six people were found murdered along with some tapes.
8:05pm static into black and white "blair witch" shot of some dude's nose. Dr. Franklin is with the Institute. Mike is heading up this squad. Lena Russell is there. Tessa is there. Gary is there, he's one of the cameraman crew. Robbie is the sixth dude i guess. Robbie is giving a background on Gacy. He kinda looks like Gacy. Dr. Franklin looks like a b-movie actor. Tessa is a criminal psychiatry major. Lena is the cameraman's assistant. Gary is up for a good time. Mike appears to be the director and Robbie is the producer of the Gacy Project. Correct me if I'm wrong. I'm not entirely sure what the goal of the Gacy Project is. They've got an IR camera and a whole bunch of cables everywere. Gary is not afraid that John Wayne Gacy will murder him. Gary is doing a walkthrough of the house, its really run down.
9:13pm They're doing a camera check in the basement. They've got thermal cameras and "cables" pointing into a crawlspace in a subbasement. Mike says everything emits energy and energy emits black body radiation. This is a non-sequitur. Mike is crawling into the crawlspace. Mike's ass is not photogenic and everyone laughs about it. The crawlspace is really deep and huge. Lena is praying to Diana and the Moon and Umbria. Lena invites John Wayne Gacy into the seance. Lena is making an offering to Gacy of her 15 year old neighbor's soccer shirt. Robbie thinks this is the most hilarious thing and Lena makes him leave. No this isn't Lena leading the seance. I don't know who this woman is. Suddenly, a huge blue fireball explodes in the fireplace.  Everyone is blaming Mike and Gary, trying to scare everybody, but the argument is inconclusive. The Seance is over. There are seven people in the house now. Where did this psychic woman come from.
Upskirt. Robbie is mocking the moon goddess Diana.
The psychic woman is telling Mike he needs to be afraid of the stove because Gacy liked to cook. What. Mike is just regular afraid because of the weird fireball from before.
Lena is picking up a weird reading from what appears to be the dining room. The room is cold.
The psychic gives Mike a talisman made of Gacy's art and tells him to put it near his root chakra. Mike doesn't know what root chakra is. The psychic says that his pocket is close enough. The door to the room they are in suddenly slams!
Robbie and Lena find Gacy's bed and see a "shadow." I don't see anything. They call the rest of the crew. Robbie says he sees a "shadow person." I still don't see it. Mike starts freaking out because no one has a K2. The Professor says that its all cool and to not worry and they should keep doing their rounds. Robbie and Lena i think stay in Gacy's room. Dr. Franklin says that everyone is getting excited and the camera is just overexposed, creating the shadow person, because he didnt see a shadow person on the CC camera. Oh, also they have black and white CC cameras in every room in addition to Gary and Robbie's cameras. Oh, the CC cameras are the IR cameras. Dr Franklin asks Robbie and Lena to head back up to the room.
In the room, the rest of the crew is still there. The psychic is sitting on the bed reciting a prayer. "Give us the clown we doth seek, John Wayne Gacy Jr, who preyed on the meek. In the land where lungs don't blow, Loki laugh, take your son and go." She keeps repeating it and its annoying. Suddenly a picture frame falls off the wall and the microphones go crazy.
Everyone decides to go downstairs. The psychic thanks Loki for making mischief. I hate this psychic so much. Someone turned the lights off downstairs and everyone is terrified on the staircase. They couldnt find Lena or Dr. Franklin who were supposed to be downstairs. Mike is terrified but also stoked. I guess they find Dr Franklin because he does a talking head saying there's no such thing as ghosts. Then mike says there is such thing as ghosts. Gary says that mike is an asshole for trying to scare everyone. Tessa says she's a skeptic but being a skeptic means you have accept that ghosts could exist. Robbie is pissed that all the footage is contaminated because no one is doing there job because they're scared.
11:20pm the K2 is downstairs. Mike isnt picking anything up on the K2. He is convinced that there's ghosts and he's freaking Gary out. Mike is trying to contact Gacy and he's holding a microphone up. The psychic is doing stupid psychic things. I really hate her. Mike asks Gacy if there are "any dead boys in that crawlspace?" This is a really long sequence where nothing is happening except Mike repeating the same questions. "How frank do I have to be with you? To get personal?" Mike asks Gacy.
11:35pm Really that was an entire scene where nothing at all happened. Dr. Franklin tells Robbie that they need to "change out all the bulbs." Robbie moves upstairs to do so. As he enters a room, a door slams behind him. "I am really messed up," he says. He makes his way back to the door, "I'm sure I left this open." A window blows open behind him, one that was definitely shut as he walked into the room. He assumes Mike opened it before and moves on. All the bulbs appear to be fine, I still don't see a "shadow person" in the bedroom. Robbie gets a shock from a lamp in the bedroom. Cuts to Robbie in the bathroom, washing his face. Mike is making fun of him for getting electrocuted.
11:54am I think thats a typo. It definitely said 11:54am. I love Asylum so much. Dr. Franklin is listening to something while Lena looks directly into the camera. Dr Franklin thinks they found something. He's playing back the sound that Mike recorded earlier. He "split it into three bandwidths." He could split it into more. There's nothing in the one bandwidth, just noise. On the next bandwidth is a voice saying "Kiss my ass." Mike says, "it sounds like 'Kiss my ass.'" They keep playing back the clip. The psychic says he's going to start harming them. She did two rune casts, and one says "ultimate power ego" and the other says "twist of fate, bad path, don't move forward." Jeff Hardy must be there. That's my one joke.
Mike decides to disregard the crazy psychic lady and says EVPs cant harm them. Gary says, "there's some freaky shit going down there." Mike decides to disregard Gary. "Kiss my ass" were Gacy's last words, apparently. "I don't think normal people see ghosts," says Robbie, apropos of nothing.
Everyone goes down to the basement. Psychic lady is rambling about knots. Mike is recording with the microphone again. Gary and Lena have the cameras as far as i can tell. Robbie is using a thermal camera. No one is picking up any data or ghosts. The psychic lady is named Janey. They are cramming her into the crawlspace now for whatever reason. She is going to crawl all the way back there to cast a spell. Wicca. Robbie is dismissive, Lena is worried. They order Gary and Janey to stay downstairs alone i think. I can never tell who is talking to who.
Back upstairs, Dr. Franklin says everything looks normal but he keeps losing the bedroom camera, doggone it! Robbie heads up to fix it. Dr. Franklin is watching Janey and Gary cast more spells in the basement. Now Janey is on a different floor casting more spells and invoking Loki and using a divining rod. Suddenly the diving rod jerks into action and throws her against a wall. Also her name is Janina. She is bloody so she takes off her shirt. Her boob has been stabbed.
Upstairs, Robbie finds the camera has been completely unplugged. Lena surprises him and apologizes for something. I have no idea what. Robbie propositions her. He wants to have sex on John Wayne Gacy Jr's bed. A second camera goes out. Downstairs, Janina is whining about the quality of the divining rods and claims Mike got them from the ghostbusters costco. Okay, its Tessa and Gary in the basement. Mike and Janina and Dr Franklin on the first floor. Robbie and Lena on the second floor. The bedroom camera turns on even though its unplugged. Dr Franklin sees Robbie and Lena doing it and says "Oh, man," defeatedly.
Downstairs, Gary decides to get a close look at the crawlspace. Tessa says its 1am, lets see how completely wrong that time is gonna turn out to be. Gary points the handheld infrared into the crawlspace. A crashing noise happens and scares Gary. There's no point of origin and that scares Gary even more. Tessa has the IR now and she's following something and hushing Gary. They find a birdcage. Gary flips out and says something just "caressed" his back. Gary keeps repeating, "fuck this shit," and "later." He goes back upstairs with Tessa and the microphones cut out again. Gary thinks its Mike pulling pranks and wants out. Tessa wants Gary to go to the attic with her if he's so scared of the basement. Gary says he'll do the attic, but then he's leaving the house.
The door to the attic is in the bathroom. There arent any lights in the attic. As they head up the stairs, there's a thud and Tessa starts screaming for Gary. She goes and gets Robbie and Lena and they find Gary unconscious in the bathroom, freezing cold. Another crash, everyone hurries downstairs to find Mike standing over a broken camera in the basement. He is pissed off, something knocked the camera over.
12:43am. Tessa was wrong about the time by like half an hour. Everyone is on the main floor, they're trying to warm Gary back up in front of the fire. Gary's blood pressure plummeted and thats why he passed out. Lena is yelling at Robbie because he was too rough. She shows him her back and she has a huge crazy scratch on her. Robbie says he didn't scratch her. Janina inspects Robbie's nails, there's no way he could cause that crazy scratch. Mike forbids her from going home. Robbie says that there's no ghost its just overtiredness that caused that scratch. What. Lena is violently hurled from her chair. She freaks and storms out of the house, Robbie chases after her. Dr. Franklin tells some cameraman to document everything. It's either Mike or Tessa. Whoever it is is just sort of standing at the edge of Robbie and Lena's conversation. Robbie is trying to convince her to stay, saying there's gotta be a logical explanation. They decide to take a nap in the van for a while.
1:17am Dr. Franklin talking head. He says there's strange phenomenon. Mike says they're capturing the best footage. Robbie says there's strange phenomenon. Tessa is freaked. Gary is also freaked. Dr. Franklin again says there's strange phenomenon. This is the best script.
Everyone is in the bedroom again. They're inspecting the lamp where Robbie got shocked earlier and Mike finds ectoplasm all over it. Janina claims there's always been ectoplasm on that lamp. Dr. Franklin is pissed that the cameras are all going down, especially the one in the bedroom. He wants to switch the cables between the broken camera in the basement and the bedroom camera, so he asks Gary to do it. Poor freaked out Gary.
Cut to Lena in the van. There is some crazy echo. She is terrified but glad to be out of the house where she can breathe easy. The van starts to shake. She thinks its Robbie and Mike trying to scare her. She opens the door and calls for Robbie but he's not there. The camera starts cutting to a test pattern and back to Lena telling the darkness to "knock it the fuck off." Lena gets back in the van and slams the door, she's pissed at Robbie now. The van starts shaking again. A ghost screams. The door opens, a ghost wails. Something starts screaming and drags Lena from the van into the night.
2:03am. Gary heads down to the basement per doctor's orders. He tells him that its gonna be "super quick." Something tells me it is not going to be super quick! Some piece of Gary's equipment breaks. I think its his camera light. As he tries to fix it, the lightbulb in the basement starts to flicker and finally turns off. Gary is desperately trying to fix the light in the dark. He succeeds when something starts to move behind him. He sprints upstairs to Dr. Franklin. All the doors slam and gust of wind blows through. Franklin and Gary scream. Mike and Tessa come down to find Gary freaking out. Janina is trying to calm him down because high energy exacerbates ghosts. energy creates black body radiation after all.
Suddenly, all the lights go out. There is mad growling. Gary manages to turn his camera light on. Robbie says its just a fuse but Gary calls bullshit. The microphones keep cutting in and out Mike, Robbie, and Gary i think are going to check the fuse box. A bunch of windows have opened. Mike sticks his head outside and surprisingly isnt decapitated by the window. Gary is still freaking. Mike is trying to shut him up and realizes that the door that was just shut is now open! Both of the guys with cameras (Gary and Robbie) are arguing with each other. Gary recaps what happened in the last paragraph. Gary accuses Mike and Robbie of being retarded because "shit is getting dangerous." Mike is still trying to get Gary to shut up. Gary keeps saying that this isn't "hokey pokey ghost hunter shit" over and over. Mike makes Gary go back to the living room because he's tired of the animosity he's bringing.
Mike and Robbie head down to the basement alone. Robbie is still trying to rationalize all the ghost activity. Robbie wants to analyze the data. Mike finally finds the fuse box after like five minutes. Robbie sets down the camera to help Mike get into the crawlspace because for some reason the fusebox is in the crawlspace. Something moves the camera.
2:33am. I guess the fusebox wasn't in the crawlspace after all because now they're both near it with a camera and it doesnt look anything like the basement. Mike replaces the fuses with no trouble. They caught something on the video, I don't see anything. Robbie says it could be a moth. Gary again calls him "retarded." Robbie says there's nothing definitive on tape. Mike says they need to do another sweep. Janina, Gary, and Tessa think its time to leave. Robbie is very determined to stay now even though he didnt want to be there in the first place. Mike says one final sweep of the house, top to bottom. Basement to attic
3:01am. Dr Franklin talking head says its "positively disturbing" and he's trying to remain a scientist. He is dancing around the phrase strange phenomenon. Gary is starting to believe in ghosts and is melting down. Dr. Franklin is worried now about something bad happening to one of his crew. Tessa is crying and wants to go home because she doesnt "give a shit about ghosts." I think i see the shadow person on the bed now. It kind of looks like Gacy in his clown costume. Mike and Robbie are also getting fed up with Janina and are mad that she is working the rest of the crew into a ghost frenzy. Janina, Gary, and Tessa are sweeping the basement. They tell Gary to shut up with all the crazy ghost stuff he's saying because he's scaring them.
Janina is doing some kind of weird sacrament. She is using stuff from her mojo bag. What a weird mishmash of nordic paganism, north american wicca, voodoo, and native american spiritualism. She's doing a firey-wall of protection spell. Gary is unconvinced. I think Robbie is in the crawlspace. Mike is upstairs complaining about Janina being crazy and setting up the thermal camera. Dr. Franklin is pacing near the fireplace. Robbie hears voices in the basement and starts to climb the stairs. He then hears a really loud ghost noise. Cut to black.
3:32am Robbie talking head, he's ready to call it quits. Dr. Franklin is also calling it quits. Janina is going on about root chakra again. Only one of the buttons on her shirt is buttoned. Janina, Gary, and Tessa are doing a chant. Mike is still fiddling with the thermal. He sees a very clearly defined Dude in the thermal wearing what appears to be a camisole and panties. The Dude suddenly sprints at Mike, knocking him into a room and slamming the door behind him. Mike screams in pain, but it is muffled by the door. In the attic, Janina is attacked by something during the chant and she is thrown across the room. Her shirt and bra are torn off. Janina is still chanting and trying to do the spell. Tessa picks up a Dude in her thermal as well. He rushes at her. She is hanged. Gary yells to run for it and sprints to the stairs. He makes it down but ends up in the bedroom. He keeps going through doors but ends up back at the bedroom every time. Its a really good effect. Gary is trapped and freaking out. He makes it into the hallway somehow but indistinct voices are following him. He finds Mike's camera equipment. He keeps exploring and finds Mike. He appears to be strangled.
3:59am Dr. Franklin is freaking out. He tells Robbie he's afraid. Gary makes it downstairs and yells to get out. Something is attacking the three men, throwing them into walls and dragging Gary down into the basement. It stops attacking Franklin and Robbie. They head after Gary. The basement door is locked. Franklin tries knocking but that doesnt help. He finds an axe conveniently in the dining room and breaks in. It looks like he got sucked downstairs so Robbie turned tail and ran. Cut to black.
Now we've got some stills of official looking documents. Autopsy Exam Report for Mike. He died of hyperthermia. Dr. Franklin died of asphyxiation. Gary died of asphyxiation too but was also raped and mutilated. Janina was asphyxiated and it looks like she had her heart cut out? I'm not sure. A quick google of the medical terms in the report makes it look like her heart was so big it tore out of her chest. Robbie died of a heart attack. Tessa was scalped and hanged. Lena was never found and a missing persons file is still opened. It says to contact the Des Plaines PD if you have any information. Honestly shocked this takes place on march 6th, 2006 and not june 6th, 2006 for the 06/06/06 thing. And just like Paranormal Entity, no credits, just Copyright The Asylum Global 2010.
How I Felt
Just a mess. They spend literally three seconds on introductions for each character, except the psychic who gets no introduction, and then you're supposed to keep track of the action by voice. All the female characters were white, blonde women which did not help me tell them apart. I'm glad they didn't market this as Paranormal Entity 2 or Paranormal Entity: The Beginning as it had nothing to do with the (much superior) Paranormal Entity. I'm also not sure if the ghost(s) are supposed to be Gacy or his victims or the demon from Paranormal Entity or the demon from Entity. The acting sucks, the camera work is disorienting, and not in a cool blair witch way, and the script is an absolute disaster. A real mess. Of the three Asylum films I've seen (this, Paranormal Entity, and 100 Feet) this is by far the worst. If the blog is an absolute, unfollowable jumble of words, at least more so than usual, i assure you it is the film's fault.
Sequel?
I'd still watch a Paranormal Entity sequel, hopefully with Shane van Dyke behind the wheel again. Also, holy cow, Paranormal Entity was directed and written by Dick van Dyke's grandson who was also the "star." That's crazy.
This whole liveblog thing is still superfun, I need to do this more often.