I was obsessed with Stephen King when I was a little kid and Pet Sematary was one of my favorite books. I read it when I was 7 or 8 years old, so I don’t remember it much beyond the broad strokes and that it was creepy and sad as hell. I have seen the original film version from 1989 many times and I consider it to be one of the best adaptations of King’s work. It’s not a perfect film, but it’s pretty damn good and close to the novel and, consequently, I saw little point in this new version. After seeing it, I still see little point to it. The new Pet Sematary isn’t a bad film, but it’s a blah film that is the third best version of this story.
Louis Creed moves to a small town in Maine with his wife Rachel and their two children, Ellie and Gage. They quickly meet their new neighbor, an old man named Judd, who warns of evil in the woods behind their new house and they shouldn’t go down that road (if you heard South Park in your head when you read that, yeah they ruined that for me too). The evil is in the form of a cemetery that resurrects those that are buried in its soil, but they don’t come back the same way that they go in.
This movie does have a few things going for it. Most notably, Jason Clarke is great as Louis. I think that Clarke is a great actor in general and is entertaining in even the shittiest of movies. Even while watching Terminator: Genisys (or however the fuck they spelled that), I generally lost all hope for humanity and considered blinding myself to make the movie go away, but Clarke was still good in it. Here, he does manage to convey the level of grief needed for the part and makes Louis a more tragic figure than he was in the original. I also love John Lithgow and think he’s one of the most underappreciated actors ever, so I was very happy to see him cast as Judd. Lithgow’s performance in the part isn’t as animated or quotable as what the great Fred Gwynne did with the role in 1989, but he is certainly more sinister in the part. The film also looks nice, with atmospheric and borderline gothic cinematography, and has some solid practical effects.
The biggest problem is the pacing of the film. The original wasn’t a particularly fast-paced movie either, and this version is actually 2 minutes shorter than the original. However, considering what is missing, it should be a hell of a lot more than 2 minutes shorter. Entire subplots and even characters are removed from this version, including the flashbacks, Louis’ in-laws and the housekeeper. The character of Zelda also has a more limited presence here, and is a hell of a lot less scary than in the original. Even Pascow’s ghost gets much less screen time in this version. Mind you, none of these characters or subplots are really essential to the story. They add depth, but they aren’t essential. That’s not my point. My point is that this should not be basically the same length as the original with so much missing. The result is that this drags like a son of a bitch until you get to the last act, as the film is trying to stretch itself to feature length without using much of its own story.
This paragraph will have spoilers, but this was all already spoiled by the film’s trailers. For the first hour or so, this is a pretty straightforward adaptation of the book and first movie (aside from cutting out a whole lot of stuff). The last act, though, is where it diverges completely from the source material by changing which kid dies. Instead of 2-year-old Gage, its 9-year-old Ellie that gets run down by a truck and brought back to life this time around. Normally, this kind of thing would piss me off and, honestly, I don’t think that this is nearly as disturbing as the baby with a scalpel in the original. I really don’t think that a 2-year-old could get the jump on me like that, but the kid was still a creepy little bastard. However, I’m also torn on it because this change at least allowed the movie to do something different. Without this change, this version would be completely pointless. At least it gave me something different. While I don’t think it works as well as the original story, evil Ellie’s makeup is done well and she does have a couple of scenes with her parents that allow for more depth of interaction than the dynamic of the original. But, at the end of the day, it’s not enough to make me want to watch this over the original.
Overall, this isn’t bad. There have certainly been far worse versions and even remakes of King’s work (ever watch the miniseries version of The Shining? I would rather be castrated by a flock of rabid owls than watch that again). But, despite its admittedly bold efforts to do something different, the new Pet Sematary just feels unnecessary and forgettable. I do hope that we get a remake of Pet Sematary 2, though. My god, what a fucking glorious disaster that movie is.
Image By: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pet_Sematary_(2019_film)#/media/File:Pet_Sematary_(2019_poster).png
