The name The Asylum is enough to fill anybody with dread, the odd surprisingly watchable one aside much of their films are mediocre at best and most are dreadful to an intelligence insulting degree. A vast majority of their output is cheap looking, badly written and acted and basically looks like little effort was put into the film in question. When they rip off films too (a vast majority of them good or more ones), which is the case often, they strip away everything that made those films in question work and produces something the completely opposite in quality.
Capitalising upon the release of 'Pet Semetary' with a concept that borrows a lot from 'Flatliners', 'Pet Graveyard' is not one of The Asylum's worst (of which there is a large group of) and is not even the worst film of theirs released this year. Every flaw that is seen in much of their output is here though and as a film in its own right it has next to nothing to recommend it. Anybody expecting to be scared or intrigued are best looking elsewhere, as both are nowhere in sight in 'Pet Graveyard'. The recent 'Pet Semetary', which has yet to be seen but do want to see it having fond memories of the older version (that needs a re-watch though), has to be really terrible to be as bad or worse than this.
Visually, 'Pet Graveyard' is poorly made. Drably and less than stylishly shot, less than tightly edited and too drearily lit, with effects that look like they were made as an afterthought and with next to no money left. The music when it appears has no atmosphere and always used inappropriately. The inexperience does show in the direction but hopefully that will improve over-time with the right budget and resources.
What particularly sinks 'Pet Graveyard' is the script and especially the story. The script is as flat as a soggy pancake, has no natural flow and is quite cheesy. The pace is dull throughout, with a story that has far too little going on or at least takes too long to get going. What should have been intriguing with the experiments instead bores and perplexes as well as looking distractingly cheap. There is nothing scary or suspenseful, and when there are any attempts the execution is too obvious and occasionally camp.
Found nothing interesting or investable about the dull or irritating characters with vague motivations. The acting is very poor at best, not being able to do anything with the poorly written characters and having practically nothing to work with.
Have to agree that the least bad thing about 'Pet Graveyard' is the cat, but sadly not enough to save the film.
The cat aside, a waste of time. 1/10
