Pet Sematary: Film Review

Pet Sematary: Film Review

Cast: Jason Clarke, Amy Seimitz, John Lithgow, Jete Lawrence
Director: Kevin Kolsch, Dennis Widmyer

The 2019 remake of Pet Sematary knows what it wants to do.

But unfortunately, in parts, its weaker characters and wider film squanders some of the chance of doing it so.

Clarke and Seimetz play Louis and Rachel Creed, parents who've relocated to the apparently idyllic countryside for an easier life, and to spend time with their young family.

However, when their cat Church is killed by a passing truck, Louis finds an offer of a burial from neighbour Judd (Lithgow, in venerable and stoic form) too irresistible to refuse....and before they know it, their world's changed in ways they could never have imagined.

Pet Sematary may have big themes such as dealing with death and the wider effects of grief, but it squanders most of the well-done earlier edges in favour of traditional jump scares, brooding and foreboding  and creepy edges.

The final result is that parts of the plot creak with the silliness that's clearly been imbued in them by the original pulpy schlocky page turner from Stephen King. And while parts of the movie deviate from the book, the 2019 version is more a portmanteau of jump scares and creepy scenes, rather than a coherently paced story.

That's not to say when they come, the jump scenes don't work, but towards the back half of the film, the scares border on the silly rather than the horrific and sequences which should be terrifying end up more laughable than anything.

Pet Sematary follows the Stephen King writing MO - it has a great set up, but the final portion falls over under either close scrutiny or the weight of what it's been set up for. It's not that the 2019 version isn't unentertaining enough, it's just that paper-thin characters with largely underexplored themes don't create enough of an engaging finale, and wider themes are used solely as a lazy crutch for scares.

Ultimately, the 2019 Pet Sematary is to be lauded for some initial creepiness, and some unnerving moments that catch you off guard. It's just that in the final wash, the schlock overwhelms the B-movie edges and drowns it in a madness that's hard to shake.