Review: Pet Sematary (2019)

Pet Sematary (2019)

Directed by Kevin Kölsch & Dennis Widmyer

Starring Jason Clarke, Amy Seimetz, John Lithgow

Paramount Pictures

As a fan of the original and Stephen King in general, I admit, I was reluctant to see this new take of Pet Sematary at first, especially because the trailer made it look very generic, and they changed the most important plot point to something that seemed less tragic—and, I thought, was made to appeal to the masses. However, reviews started pouring in, and much to my dismay, they were positive. One even said that this went darker than the original—which would be a welcome change—and King actually came out and said that it scared him. With a blessing from the author himself, I became hooked, and my initial skepticism turned into high expectations. Turns out, I should’ve held on to that skepticism.

The Creed family has just moved into their new home where they also own several acres of forest at their backyard. Included in the forest are Pet Sematary, a place where kids bury their pets in a mask-wearing ritual, and further, a mysterious burial ground. After their cat, Church, has died unexpectedly, the father Louis buries him there with the help of his new neighbor Judd. However, Church shows up the next morning, alive and well, albeit slightly… “off”. It becomes clear to Louis that the burial ground is nothing like any other land out there. So, when a tragedy struck, he does the unthinkable and takes advantage of this new found discovery. Save to say that it does not go well because sometimes, dead is better.

The original Pet Sematary was not a great movie. The male lead underperformed, the tone quite campy, and the climax quite goofy. However, it had charm. It knew what it was, so it never gone off the rails and resulted in a lean movie that you could enjoy every time. Moreover, it actually had some very disturbing images (fans of the original, you know what I am talking about). This new one boldly made changes in a way that the more you know about the original, the more unexpected it actually becomes. I really admire this choice, and I think it is a great, if not the right, way for one to approach doing a remake and adaptation. These changes resulted in several nice moments, but unfortunately, also some pretty bad ones.

Spoilers from here on out. One of the welcome changes is the tone. The new Pet Sematary is a lot more serious than the old campy one. It was very atmospheric, and it was easy to make me uneasy. This came from many things, mainly the music, the cinematography, and the acting. Jason Clarke did a better job than Dale Midkiff as the conflicted Louis, and Jeté Laurence was the perfect pick for the daughter-turned-undead Ellie. Amy Seimetz had a much better arc as the matriarch of the Creed family than her original counterpart as in this version, Rachel is a more complete character as she goes through a clear journey from the start until the end. Seimetz struggled in some parts, but that doesn’t diminish her overall strong performance. John Lithgow did as much as he could with Jud, but I found Fred Gwynne to be more iconic. Both are better suited for their respective movie, though (I couldn’t imagine Gwynne in this new version). By the way, whichever feline it was who played Church, he deserves some credits as well.

Now, let us speak of the bad. Although it was quite successful in providing the eeriness, the cinematography and the writing failed in providing us with the full sense of the world. The original did a great job in setting up the place with many establishing and outside shots, whereas the new one feels “contained” with its tighter shots, and there were several moments where the green screen looked obvious and distracted from the experience. From the writing, we do not get much outside of the Creeds and Jud. We do not get many scenes of the family outside the house, and even when we see Louis doing his job, it was only one scene with a few extras. We do not hear many people talk to the main characters even when they are having a party, and when we see Rachel’s parents (who got quite a dramatic scene in the original), they do not get to speak at all. This is a problem, not just for this movie but also for any movie because we aren’t immersed into the world as there isn’t a lot of world to be immersed to.

Furthermore, I have not watched the original in quite some time, so there were elements that I forgot, and this movie just did not fit those missing parts right. For example, it was not clear what the burial ground can and cannot do (or maybe it was, and I was just not paying attention), so when Pascow first showed up in Louis’ dream, I thought it was because the burial ground made it so (even though Pascow actually warned Louis against it, yeah, I know). Therefore, when he also showed up to Gage, I was confused because then he would be a separate entity from the burial ground, with agency and is capable of showing up wherever he pleases, which brings me to the next question of why didn’t he just show up to Rachel? I was also not sure why Rachel had those visions of Zelda when she got to her parent’s house. I understood its purpose of developing Rachel’s character and supporting its bigger theme of being afraid of death, but it just didn’t make sense within the world of the movie. At least in the original, Rachel had visions of Zelda only in their Pet Sematary house and in her dreams, right? I couldn’t remember.

The editing did not help as well. With its very similar running time with the original, this movie somehow felt so fast and boring at the same time. I believe it was because we did not get that full sense that we did not get attach as well, so in a way, it felt like things after things just went by without any lasting impact. I believe if they add an extra 10 minutes or so, the movie would be a lot stronger and ironically, tighter. It would be so neat and creepy if we could see more of how Louis and Rachel deal with their new undead daughter. Instead, after giving us an actually nice twist by killing her rather than Gage like in the book and the original (as she is actually aware of what is happening to her), we went into the same path where she just becomes feral and slices her way through everything. One of the best parts of the movie for me was when Louis is brushing her hair and notices the staples on the back of her skull, and how Ellie asks him all these questions about death in her bed after she wakes up from the dead.

In the end, this new adaptation is a nice alternative to the original, it just fell a little short. It is not a bad movie by any means, but it could've been something more.