After the success of It, the adaptation of Stephen King’s creepy clown novel, it seemed we entered the golden age of Stephen King film reboots. It: Chapter 2 was immediately confirmed for release later in 2019 and a film adaptation of Doctor Sleep was announced. Hot on its heels was the announcement of another reboot of one of the horror author’s classics, Pet Sematary. Early trailers showed off a film in the same vein of the It reboot, a grounded self-aware horror tale eschewing the cheesy camp of the 80s original. However, while the film does attempt its own retelling, it doesn’t fall as far from its predecessor as one would hope.
In the novel, and the new film, Pet Sematary begins with the Creed family moving from Boston to a small town in Maine. Dr. Louis Creed takes a job at the local university hospital, which his wife Rachel hopes will allow him to spend more time with their two kids, Ellie and Gage. Their new property comes with a lot of land, and when Ellie goes exploring she finds a cemetery where the locals bury their pets. Their neighbor, Jud, tells her about the cemetery but warns her never to go into the woods past it. When her cat dies, Jud and Louis decide to make an exception, going into a part of the woods where the “ground is sour,” and also happens to bring things back from the dead, but not quite as one hopes.
This first half of the film really comes together well, introducing us to the Creed family and slowly exposing their fears and insecurities. Rachael has a strong fear of discussing death, ever since she accidentally caused her sister to die when she was tasked with taking care of her as a child. As a doctor, Louis is more open about the subject, but nevertheless starts to regress upon losing a patient. When Ellie asks about what happens when people die, the parents debate over how to respond. This section of the film really hammers home the themes of regret and response in losing a loved one too soon. Interestingly, it also has some of the films best scares, as Rachel and Louis’s trauma manifests in noises and apparitions seen around the house.
Despite the strong start, Pet Sematary gets into some muddy waters, and I’m not just talking about the swamp behind the Creed’s home. Halfway through, the film makes a big change from the book, which impacts everything that follows. While this change is an interesting one (Stephen King himself approved it), the more the film deviates from the source material the more it struggles to hold its narrative together. By the time it ends, with a cheesy finale that feels completely at odds with the rest of the film, everything kind of falls flat. The tonal whiplash is so strong that even I could tell the ending had changed, and I hadn’t even read the book nor seen the original film.
I’ve said before that sometimes the most disappointing film is one that starts off promising and then runs out of steam halfway through, and Pet Sematary proves to be one of these. The first half absolutely nails the tone, juggling scares with thoughtful ruminations on loss and death. The Creeds feel like a real family struggling with moving on, so it’s all the more disheartening that they get reduced to caricatures in the second half.
This is by no means the fault of the acting, which is really versatile across the board. Each role calls for variety, as characters are put through various stages of worry, grief, and being undead. Jason Clarke and Amy Seimetz do a solid job of selling the many emotions these poor parents are put through, while John Lithgow shines as Jud in finding a perfect balance between outgoing warmth and secrecy. Child actors get a bad rap, but Jete Laurence is a standout as Ellie, who is certainly put through the wringer in this film.
Kevin Kolsch and Dennis Widmyer prove more than capable for the serious and scary events of the film. They build suspense gradually and appropriately, with occasional fake-outs or brief moments of relief to keep audiences on their toes during the film’s scarier scenes. Once they foray into more b-movie elements, they lose their touch, and it’s never clear if the schlock is intentional or not. On a side note, the shots of the burial grounds are really creepy and detailed, and I wish the film spent more time here. As for the CGI, it had some really patchy moments, surprising for a film of this caliber.
Summary
Pet Sematary digs up another reboot of a Stephen King classic. It boasts some decent scares and an intriguing first half, but the second half shows signs of decay as things begin to fall apart at the seams. Even as things get a bit goofy, the cast still plays to their strengths throughout.
