Pet Sematary
by Kevin Kolsch, Dennis Widmyer

If you’ve never heard of Pet Sematary until now, you should honestly just be ashamed of yourself. Based on the wildly popular Stephen King novel, Pet Sematary terrified audiences in 1989 when the film adaptation debuted. Now, thirty years later, a remake hit screens this past weekend with some major changes to the core of the story.

Some people, as you might have read on social media, were taken aback by the fact that Gage, the younger child of the Creed family, was not the one to die and be brought back to life. People were literally saying they were going to boycott this film and blah, blah, blah… you know how social media goes. As for me, I don’t care what changes are made to a story, as long as they make sense and I am entertained throughout. Some information for you, in case you didn’t know, was that the choice to have Ellie be hit by the truck and be resurrected was due to the fact that the producers didn’t think a three-year-old would be as effective in disturbing audiences with certain dialogue. Producers also said that they wanted to express that Ellie was aware of what happened to her and to show the audience the psychological impact dying, as well as experiencing what’s on the other side and then coming back to life, has on a child. I am on board with this reasoning.

I’m not a purist. I’ve said it a million times both in reviews and on my podcast. I’m not offended or outraged when source material is blended or changed altogether. Like I said earlier, as long as it makes sense and it entertains me, there’s nothing wrong with it. In the case of this film, however, I can’t say that I was blown away or entertained by very much. I was hoping to really enjoy this remake, just as I enjoyed 2017’s It, but in my opinion, they should have just let this one be. As Jud says, “sometimes dead is better.”

The jump scares in this movie were so overused that it became annoying. The story took so long to get going that I found myself instinctively reaching for my iPhone for amusement and had to remember, “oh, I’m in a crowded theater.” The choice to change Zelda’s death didn’t make much sense since she had an immobilizing disease. John Lithgow as Jud was underutilized and we had maybe fifteen minutes of a resurrected Ellie terrorizing anyone at all. Someone else also poked a bunch of fun at the over utilization of the fog machines so I’ll bring that in to the mix of things that I didn’t like about this film as well.

There were a few enjoyable things, however, so I can’t make this an entirely negative review. The makeup team was awesome! Ellie’s aesthetic was truly creepy, especially those eyes, and Victor Pascow looked horrific. Church was enjoyable, as to be expected from the talented kitties playing him, and the actors were great in their roles. These things, though, were simply not enough to carry the film into the realm of greatness.

My overall impression with this remake was simply “meh.” I didn’t like it, I didn’t hate it, I just didn’t care about it at all. It’s theatrical releases like this that remind me why I enjoy being a Movie Pass subscriber. Let’s all just hope that whatever Stephen King adaptation comes next doesn’t disappoint as much as this one does.