The world's cutest opossum is shivering on a stump in a made-up burial ground beyond which the dead shall rise! Who will help this opossum? Poor chilly opossum! Edward Furlong is consumed with grouchiness and surliness. He will not help the opossum! But his kitten may have met a horrid end! This is maybe the mostest of the grunge-era teen horror films. Everything is run-down and dirty and disused. If something can be rusty, it is rusty. Or scored, or marked with surly teen graffiti. No one looks happy. If they start to look happy, someone shoots them an ugly glare and they stop. The realness just won't stop. It can't stop. It will not stop. 'Pet Sematary II' starts…

Missing the opportunity to expand the mythos of its predecessor, Mary Lambert's "Pet Sematary Two" is a watchable but routine horror sequel. Instead of developing the robust and chilling narrative threads of the original film and novel, the sequel is content to just spew gore and jump scares. While those scares are related to the first film's notorious burial ground where the dead return to life, they are played out in service of a limited piece of work.

Placing a different family in the Maine setting of the original film, "Pet Sematary Two" rehashes plot points from "Pet Sematary" but neither builds on them nor takes them in interesting directions. People and animals die and, then, are brought back to…

Colder yet campier follow-up to the King-based original at least brings Mary Lambert back. The direction she takes here is to amp up the sadism and the alt-rock soundtrack (more Ramones, but also The Jesus & Mary Chain, Jan King and L7's "Shitlist" pre-NBK) to numbing degrees. Edward Furlong and Anthony Edwards operate on their respectively icy levels as traumatized son and distant dad, which leaves Jared Rushton's town bully and especially a less hulking but amusingly nasty Clancy Brown (a spiteful sheriff and wicked stepfather who delights in being undead) to give the film some kind of anarchic charge. But Lambert is adhering to what was horror movie status quo back in '92, and the edge she brings to it…

Pet Sematary was a good adaptation of the Stephen King novel that didn't need a sequel. Of course, horror movies that become successful are required by law to have a sequel so we have this movie that has the words "rushed" all over it. It is an incompetent and stupid sequel that is bogged down by a boring story and some bad acting.

Good: The setting is OK with it taking place during what seems like fall or early winter. It gives off a good vibe. Clancy Brown as the sheriff is clearly having fun with his role and is the highlight hands down. Some of the gore is pretty good as well.

Bad: First off, it is basically the…