Directed by Kevin Kölsch and Dennis Widmyer
Starring: Jason Clarke, Amy Seimetz, John Lithgow
Rated R for horror violence, bloody images, and some language
Pet Sematary is a remake of the 1989 film of the same name, which in turn is an adaptation of the novel written by Stephen King. In this horror film, we are introduced to the Creed family who are new to a small town in Maine (of course) and freaky and odd phenomenons start to occur when the family discovers a pet “sematary” near their home. One day the family cat, dies and with the help of their neighbor Jud, (John Lithgow) the cat is brought back to life which opens up Pandora’s box.
Pet Sematary seems to follow many of the tropes that we have to come known in horror films. The family moving to a new home that seems a nice place to get away from the city. Then on the first night things start to get freaky and odd without any explanations. The mother who sees this as trouble is wanting to go home but the father is insiting the family stays. In addition to those, we get the false jump scares, for example someone or something jumps out of no where as a wink to the audience to say “hey, we are still a horror film”. It seems very repetitive and when watching this film you can tell what would come next. This is something I have an issue with most horror films, not just Pet Sematary. Now I do understand that this film is an adaptation of the 1983 novel and maybe the novel has all of these tropes that I just described. But when making the leap from the pages to screen, something has to change and I feel that this could have been changed.
The biggest crime that Pet Sematary commits is that is just too boring. It takes a good thirty minutes before the plot starts to move along. There were many instances where I was checking my watch just because of the pure boredom that was presented on the screen. I am not asking for jump scares or action for every scene, but something interesting such as character development could be nice. Although I can give props that Louis (Jason Clarke) was not a believer of an afterlife or second chances but in the end he changes his mind. That is an interesting idea that does work in the type of situation he is in.
The film also fails to explain many of the ideas presented. Louis is a doctor who loses a patient and is haunted by that patient. It is never explained why that was happening. Was it a hallucination or was it actually a “zombie”? But Louis’ child sees the deceased patient, so that raises more questions than answers. It also doesn’t add much to the plot. Directors Kolsch and Widmyer could have cut this story arc and it would not have made the film better or worse.
But a horror film’s most important job is to scare the audience. Does it do that? Well, yes but the scares are filled in a boring film with tropes that we have seen before. If you are a Stephen King fan, I suppose you can watch it just to see how this differs from the book and the 1989 film, but I highly recommend to give it a pass. This is something that should not have been brought back to life.
2/4
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