Amy Seimetz – Movies of the Soul

Vampire Owl: This is the cemetery where most the people we know shall go.

Vampire Bat: Most people don’t go to cemeteries. They are taken there.

Vampire Owl: We, the undead can just walk all the way there though.

Vampire Bat: The Stephen King’s novel might have other ideas about the cemetery.

Vampire Owl: Well, there is nothing like being buried in a grave far away from the town. It is so calm and peaceful.

Vampire Bat: It has always been calm and peaceful under the surface, except for some worms.

Vampire Owl: You can listen to those foot steps if you stay awake for long. It is not that peaceful in cemeteries of the city.

Vampire Bat: There is no hope in the cities anymore.

Vampire Owl: Does that mean hope among humans otherwise.

Vampire Bat: There is none. There is no goodness in them even during the time of a virus which has killed a good number of them, and sent them to lockdown.

[Gets some potato chips and three cups of ginger tea].

What is the movie about? :: Dr. Louis Creed (Jason Clarke) moves to the countryside with his wife Rachel Creed (Amy Seimetz) and his children Ellie Creed (Jete Laurence) and Gage Creed (Lucas Lavoie). The move from the busy city of Boston to the calm and quiet town of Ludlow seemed to be a much needed change for them to settle down and slow things down. Ellie’s cat, Church named after Winston Churchill is the only other person who is with them. They find out that there is a pet sematary as a part of their property, as they have bought a large section of land of which finding all the borders is a tough job. Children taking their dead pets to the cemetery had become a common sight there, seemingly having a ritual significance. Despite being asked not to venture through the woods and the deserted areas, a curious Ellie makes her way through the cemetry and meets Jud Crandall (John Lithgow), an old widower.

So, what happens with the events here? :: Ellie becomes friendly with Jud, and the family also invites him for food. One day, a student who struck by an automobile, Victor Pascow (Obssa Ahmed) is taken to the hospital, and Louis try to save him only in vain. After the incident, he has visions of the same person trying to warn him about certain danger which is to happen if he decides to go beyond the limits. One day, Church is killed by a truck, and Jud takes Louis past the pet cemetery to an ancient burial ground and asks him to bury the cat there, putting a stone over it. The next day, Church returns home alive. But it can be seen that he is different -the cat had become very aggressive and violent, brutally attacking a bird, and eating it alive, as well as attacking the kids. Jud tells Louis that it might be a spirit that came back from the dead, even though he had expected the cat to return in the same manner.

The defence of Pet Sematary :: There is no questioning the ability of this particular movie to use the terrifying atmosphere to its advantage, as the common “cabin the woods” setting serves as the perfect place, with one cemetery built around an ancient burial ground creates too perfect a world for a horror movie here. The feeling of mystery is always there, and we keep expecting something terrifying to be revealed at different steps. There is also that scary past and legend that goes a long way back beyond colonization to go with it, and there is some creepy music to add here. The movie also has a certain amount of blood and gore even though not too much, and a violent kid is always scarier than the rest, especially when returning from the dead – demon kids never stop being impactful with or without the presence of the demon spirit. You will also love the choice of cat being made here, and the speeding trucks also add to the effect.

The claws of flaw :: This version of Pet Sematary does have some differences with the Stephen King novel, and such a deviation might not be liked by everyone. After all, King is the god-figure for so many readers of horror, especially those who started reading much earlier. Changes from the 1989 film version can also be seen here. The movie also doesn’t explore all the spookiness that can be associated with the cemetery, especially with an area which has an even longer history to go with it. In these types of movies, elements of nature can play a better role, but this one decides not to touch the same much. There is a lot of scope for horror in each moment and each part of this movie’s visual and audible part, and those elements are not exploited enough. The movie is also slow paced, and it does take its own time to keep the horror moving.

Performers of the soul :: Jason Clarke is there as the protagonist, a name which we have known throughout popular movies including Terminator Genisys and Everest among many other flicks. He plays the loving father very well, and faces the troubles making some hard decisions nicely. Amy Seimetz was there in Alien Covenant, in one of those roles. She is really good here, as the character works on the memories, and there is the past that catches up to her. Jete Laurence as Ellie Creed is fantastic as the cute little kid as well as the undead child looking forward to violence. John Lithgow plays the good old guy in the neighborhood who knows that evil is eternally present, but can do nothing about it. Along with these, the masked kids having a procession to the pet sematary and the cat do seem to add to the performances just in some short period of time.

How it finishes :: Pet Sematary moves on like any other Stephen King book inspired movie with ease, and with the written material at the base, there is no difficulty here. With the mis-spelled cemetery in the name, the novel takes the idea to the visual level too, and it becomes another version of the much appreciated novel that needs a watch. In the world of The Conjuring, Annabelle, The Nun, Insidious, Child’s Play and other popular movies becoming part of a series of flicks in a franchise, there is always scope for the old style horror, as much as the new generation horror like It Follows, Lights Out and Don’t Breathe. After all, good horror is the need of the time, especially with one virus spreading all over the world, and bringing the terror without adding anything that is out of this world. Everyone stay safe, stay at home, and watch more movies.

Release date: 5th April 2019
Running time: 101 minutes
Directed by: Kevin Kolsch, Dennis Widmyer
Starring: Jason Clarke, Amy Seimetz, John Lithgow, Jete Laurence, Sonia Maria Chirila, Obssa Ahmed, Alyssa Brooke Levine, Suzy Stingl, Maria Herrera, Lucas Lavoie

@ Cemetery Watch
✠ The Vampire Bat.

A Flashback to Prometheus :: The predecessor was set in the year 2089, when the scientific vessel named Prometheus decided to make a long journey to a distant moon LV-223 to find the truth behind the creation of mankind. Their ultimate aim is to find the ones called “engineers”, the humanoid aliens who are supposed to have come before humans who were created on their image. Peter Weyland (Guy Pearce), a billionaire, founder and CEO of Weyland Corp is funding this journey. Meredith Vickers (Charlize Theron) is in charge of the expedition, and the archaeologists who found the signs for these, Elizabeth Shaw (Noomi Rapace) and Charlie Holloway (Logan Marshall-Green) are also part of the journey. Always helping them is the android David (Michael Fassbender). But things get messed up as they realize that there is some biological weapon at work and the engineers are dead, with some other strange creatures ready to be unleashed.

More of the Flashback :: There are just signs of what might have been a huge and thriving civilization a long time ago. But it is what lies beneath the same that bothers them more, as more and more members of the crew seems to be infected by some strange disease. Those who are not killed by one creature or the other, had to be killed due to the infection either by their own people or by creatures that came out from inside. Elizabeth herself who is sterile, is found out to be pregnant and she has to use an automated surgery table to take out a creature which has been growing fast, right from inside her. Everyone except Elizabeth and David have met with a terrible end as the movie finishes, and that includes Peter Weyland who was also in that spacecraft searching for an answer to live forever. There is only the search for that unanswered question about the origin of man that remains.

What is the movie about? :: It is the year 2104 and a certain colony ship Covenant is on a journey towards a distant planet Origae-6 with two thousand colonists and one thousand embryos aboard, all set to begin a new settement. There is an incident on the way, and affected by the solar flares, the ship sustains major damage and some beyond repair – a number of colonists are killed, and Captain Branson’s (James Franco) stasis chamber catches fire causing his death. This breaks his wife, Daniels (Katherine Waterston) who vows to stay strong despite the setback. The most senior officer in the ship, Oram (Billy Crudup) assumes the role of captain despite his own doubts about himself. But as the ship intercepts a signal which has human voice coming from a planet which is supposed to have no life, it is him who sees the need to help whoever is left on the planet.

So, what happens next? :: The new destination also seems to have a fine chance of being home to the new colony with its similarities to Earth. In their search for the signal’s location, two of the crew members are affected by an alien spore to which they make contact without knowing. One of them who reaches the landing vehicle has an alien coming off him, and the eventual result is the destruction of the vehicle. The other one has an alien coming out of him in the open space, and leads the group being attacked by more aliens from all sides, until David makes his appearance again with a gun. With his help, they contact the spaceship which responds and offers assistance in getting them back again. But there is more than what it meets the eye with David, who knows more about engineers and the creatures on the planet than anybody else, and has plans for everyone. Are they going to do humanity good or bad in the long run with necessary sacrifices planned?

The defence of Alien Covenant :: There is some nice use of darkness in this movie, and we also get to see the tale go nicely forward with hope for another sequel. We can also be sure about the presence of some nice scary moments, even though they are not that much lasting – the shower scene in which you had seen a screaming Callie Hernandez is certainly the scariest, followed by many scenes, but that creature in the end is certainly the reminder of how majestic a franchise this one is. With the performances, it is Michael Fassbender who excels as David and does a great job as Walter, with two androids being safe in his hands. Then there is Katherine Waterston, the real protagonist of this one replacing Noomi Rapace, and we hope that her character’s tale is not over with this title in the franchise, as we need Daniels to be there unlike Shaw who was gotten rid of. There are also some nice special effects to go with the same, and the creatures look great as usual – the visuals of the world also has your attention.

The claws of flaw :: We do miss the protagonist of Prometheus, and we also needed better explanations and more answers to how the creation was made. The possibilities were so much with how the earlier film had ended. There were mysteries going to come to light, and more worlds to be explored, but that doesn’t happen here. Except for the main characters, the rest are also rather less recognised, and even if some characters are intended to die early with smaller alien infections, or get into the shower and be killed by an alien later, memorable moments for all would have been better in a movie franchise which is supposed to go on and on – we need them to be distinct to know and understand when one dies, whether it is with an alien off the spine, stomach, chest or mouth. We could connect to Noomi Rapace’s character as well as Charlize Theron’s, and so being a sequel to Prometheus brings some certain damage to Covenant‘s journey, as it doesn’t build on what was left, and never tries to bring anything revolutionary to the franchise, and not even more of horror that could have been there.

How it finishes :: With a better explanation for its universe and its creatures, as well as more twists and terror from the creatures, Alien Covenant could have done even better, but it is a fine product as it is now, for it has something or the other from the previous movies of the franchise which have all entertained us in one way or the other. It has begun connecting things together, and is certain to finish the franchise some day as a complete product. As a whole, this one here is also a product that will make certain that there will another movie in the franchise, one that is even more interesting – you will know once you see how this one ends. The truth is that possibilities are endless with a franchise like this one, with the first Alien being the reason why I really developed love for alien movies when I was a child – I wasn’t born at that time, and it wasn’t the most popular movies among youth here, and so I had to wait more until I got to watch that – I hope that the next Alien movie doesn’t bring any more waiting.

Release date: 12th May 2017 (India); 19th May 2017 (USA)
Running time: 122 minutes
Directed by: Ridley Scott
Starring: Michael Fassbender, Katherine Waterston, Billy Crudup, Danny McBride, Callie Hernandez, Demián Bichir, Amy Seimetz, Carmen Ejogo, Jussie Smollett, Nathaniel Dean, Alexander England, Benjamin Rigby, James Franco (cameo)