Movie Review: Pet Graveyard (2019)
“Some say, when you leave this world, you go to a dark place, a purgatory before you leave it for good… Never to return. Some say that death cannot be cheated. Once you die, you cannot come back. For the Reaper will claim your soul.”
This is how the film begins. With a very chilling passage about not being able to cheat death. This is pretty much the same premise as Final Destination, but with suicidal people. It’s called “Pet Graveyard”, but we aren’t sure whether this was an attempt to trick people into watching it due to the hype around Pet Sematary or if it was just a name they come up with. It has nothing to do with a pet graveyard, though. There is a cat, and also a graveyard in the film, but they are pretty much unrelated to the story. At least Asylum would have kept it close to the source material. There are potential spoilers for some of the lesser-plot points ahead.
It starts off “3 years ago”, which is presumably 2016 with a panicked woman pulling into an auto repair shop after it has closed. One of the mechanics is still there. The woman keeps insisting that she work on the car after being told that they are closed. There is a bloodied man in the passenger seat. A couple of stabbings and a meeting with a shadowy figure in a robe later, and it fast-forwards to present-day.
Directed by Rebecca Matthews, and written by Suzy Spade, the film focuses on Jeff (David Cotter) who wants his sister Lily (Jessica Otoole) to oversee some kind of stunt ritual called “brinking” in which Jeff and his two new friends suffocate themselves so that they die for three minutes, so they can get to the afterlife to see their loved ones and then get brought back to life at the last moment. Zara (Rita Siddiqui) is wanting to see her brother who she lost when they were little, and Francis lost his girlfriend in a car accident in which he was driving. Jeff wants to see his dead mother. Jeff is failing school but has a somewhat successful channel on a video platform where he hit 50,000 views in his recent video in which he climbs a tall structure. We aren’t sure what platform is ok with killing yourself on camera, but the rules must be a bit loose wherever it is. 50,000 views are also really not a large number these days for a successful video, so this wasn’t thought out very well by Jeff.
So for some reason, his sister agrees to oversee the self-proclaimed “Daredevil Genius”’ suffocation ritual, and they go to a location to shoot the video. They all suffocate themselves using some plastic bags and then go looking for their loved ones in the afterlife while leaving their lives in the hands of Lily. It should be noted that Lily isn’t even a real nurse yet, and is also not doing well in school. They find out that after coming back from the afterlife, they are being visited by the ones they went to see, even to the extent of Zara’s creepy little brother showing up to watch her shower. Amy (Francis’ sister) has been visiting Francis, and Jeff starts seeing his dead mom.
Overall, Pet Graveyard is not a good film. Jeff seems like he’s almost got an accent at times, but not other times. The acting itself was just ok and was also hindered by bad writing. There was just no substance. It just came across as three suicidal people who miss someone. And when Death does come for them, it’s very anti-climactic. For some reason, the Grim Reaper is running out of creative ways to kill people. He decides a pipe wrench will do at one point. The film itself again also doesn’t have anything to do with a pet graveyard. We were actually hoping this would have been a cheesy knock-off, and it would have been better as one. The best thing about this film was the purring hairless cat that appeared on camera sometimes.
Pet Graveyard released on April 2.
