PET GRAVEYARD (2019)

Studio:      Uncork’d Entertainment
Director:    Rebecca J. Matthews
Writer:      Suzy Spade
Producer:  Scott Jeffrey, Rebecca J. Matthews
Stars:     Jessica O’Toole, David Cotter, Rita Siddiqui, Hindolo Koroma

Review Score:

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Summary:

Four people desperate to reconnect with dead loved ones discover that a death ritual curses them to become prey for the Grim Reaper.

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Synopsis:     Show/Hide Spoilers

3 Years Ago – With her boyfriend Daryl Jones dying in the passenger seat, Nicky Mitchell frantically drives into a gas station for an emergency vehicle repair. Mechanic May Frake hears Nicky cryptically talking about “brinking” while flinching at a figure May cannot see. The Grim Reaper supernaturally kills Daryl and then Nicky.

Present Day – During a discussion about her poor academic performance in nursing school, Lily Newman mentions to Professor Jean that her dropout brother Jeff became a reckless daredevil on social media in the wake of their mother Carla’s death.

At their home later, Jeff introduces Lily to Zara and Francis. Jeff explains that the three of them have decided to try “brinking,” which involves reciting an incantation and then dying for three minutes in order to connect with dead loved ones on “the other side.” Due to her medical training, Jeff asks Lily to supervise the trio’s afterlife experiment. Lily reluctantly agrees.

Jeff, Lily, Zara, and Francis go to a church in a graveyard and perform the ritual. Jeff uses a plastic sheet to suffocate Zara to death. Jeff then suffocates Francis. Lily suffocates Jeff.

In the empty blackness on the other side, Zara encounters her dead little brother Isaac. Zara then encounters the Grim Reaper just before Lily revives her.

Francis encounters his dead girlfriend Amy. Before he is revived, Amy unexpectedly turns rabid and bites Francis’ neck.

Jeff encounters his mother Carla when he crosses over. Jeff experiences a strange vision of a bloody birthday cake before returning to reality.

Concluding that they were in a purgatory-like dimension, Zara and Francis discuss their frightening experiences in the afterlife abyss. Refusing to admit that anything was wrong, Jeff dismisses their concerns as delusional.

A red-eyed cat appears to Jeff in his bedroom that night. Francis also sees the cat while closing up the arcade where he works at Brighton Pier.

Zara has another vision of Isaac while telling her father John what happened. Zara becomes frightened when the vision of Isaac turns into the Grim Reaper.

Zara goes to see Jeff, Lily, and Francis to tell them she saw the robed monster again. Jeff insists that Zara is seeing things. Lily allows Zara to spend the night.

Lily researches “brinking” online. Lily discovers that brinking victims reportedly see the Grim Reaper’s companion cat prior to dying. Lily also connects a legend about the Grim Reaper stealing a powerful skull belonging to the demon god Orcus.

During the night, Zara follows the cat into the bathroom and takes a shower. Isaac appears again. Isaac morphs into the Grim Reaper. The Grim Reaper strangles Zara with a shower hose, making her death look like a suicide.

Jeff and Lily meet Francis in the graveyard to tell him about Zara’s death. Francis admits that he thinks he brought something evil back from his trip to the afterlife.

Lily shows Jeff what she discovered about the four previous brinkers who all felt chased before supposedly killing themselves one week later. Lily then goes to see May Frake and learns more about Nicky and Daryl’s supernatural deaths, as well as the demon skull that opens a portal to another world.

Francis encounters Amy while alone in the arcade again. Amy turns into the Grim Reaper and begins beating Francis with a wrench. Before dying, Francis calls Jeff with a warning.

After seeing the cat again, Jeff calls Lily to come home. Lily tells Jeff that she wants him to help her brink so she can destroy the Grim Reaper’s stolen skull and break the curse.

Jeff suffocates Lily in the graveyard’s church. Once Lily crosses over, the Grim Reaper attacks Jeff with an ax.

Lily encounters her mother Carla on the other side. Carla turns evil by making Lily feel responsible for her drunk driving death. After Carla attacks suddenly, Lily finds the skull and smashes it.

Lily returns to reality to find her brother seemingly dead on the floor. However, Lily is able to revive Jeff and both siblings are saved.

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Review:

What’s more disappointing than an un-fun microbudget mockbuster? An un-fun microbudget mockbuster that doesn’t even mock the movie it’s supposedly busting.

Every review already out there for “Pet Graveyard” has correctly noted the exact same thing. Despite its title, “Pet Graveyard” isn’t a ripoff of “Pet Sematary.” It’s actually a ripoff of “Flatliners” with “Final Destination” stirred in for a double dose of conventional copycatting.

This means the story involves a trio of people, and a sister supervising her participating brother, daring to temporarily trot into the afterlife so they can communicate with dead loved ones. Crossing over to “the other side,” which is just a pitch-black room probably achieved by draping dark curtains in someone’s garage, involves three simple steps. Recite a silly poem found online, think hard about the deceased, then get suffocated to death by one of the other Craigslist strangers partaking in the same experience.

The gang momentarily gets what they came for. When they are resuscitated back to reality, they also get a visit from the Grim Reaper. Renaissance painters would be disappointed to discover the Grim Reaper looks less like a nightmarish demon and more like a man who only had a Hamilton to spend on a cloak and mask at Halloween Town. Even though he is a supernatural entity, this incarnation of Death will also bludgeon you with a wrench or strangle you with a shower hose like an ordinary home invader, as he goes down the line claiming the souls of those who spent three minutes in his domain.

What about that cat on the cover art? You get your first glimpse of the hairless Sphynx 25 minutes into the movie, and a glimpse is literally all it is. After one more brief peek, the animal finally has marginally more to do at the 52-minute mark.

I can’t prove this beyond all doubt, but I’d bet that the cat was forcibly inserted after the film’s first cut was already in the can. At one point, the sister tells her brother that according to internet research, seeing the cat signifies that its master, the Grim Reaper, is not far behind. Other than this minor moment, no one ever talks about their random cat sightings. The animal only appears in quick insert shots on either end of vague reaction close-ups for various characters.

Seriously, if you watch the movie, and I don’t recommend that you do, take a look at each of the cat’s scant appearances and ask whether you’d notice any difference if that collective 40 seconds of footage was removed. The film was titled “Reaper” once upon a time. I’m certain that someone wanted to justify putting “Pet” in the new name to piggyback on “Pet Sematary” and paid for cursory pickups to shoehorn a cat into the story somehow. That’s the only explanation that makes a lick of sense for why it is unnecessarily included in the first place.

There is a graveyard at least. Then again, the skeptic in me wonders if those exteriors were shot after the fact too, because the afterlife experiment takes place in a nondescript room that could be almost anywhere.

The rest of the movie can be critiqued using generic comments applicable to any number of interchangeably forgettable films in the DTV horror space. A pointless prologue. Amateur actors you’ve never seen before and will never see again. Handheld camerawork that’s often too dark or too bright because the production didn’t have the requisite time, money, or effort to light properly. This sentence for rent by your complaint of choice for a lo-fi VOD indie you’ll never think of again one hour after watching.

I don’t necessarily expect a mockbuster at any level to be particularly “good.” I don’t expect them to be as poor as “Pet Graveyard” either. Grim Reaper help us, should someone make a sequel to this shambles, there had better be much more of the cat and far less of the cheap claptrap.

Review Score: 25

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