Pet Sematary: Directed by Kevin Kölsch

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Given the opportunity, could you resist bringing back a loved one from the dead? Even if trialling such a procedure on a pet first resulted in a less than ideal outcome, like your pet comes back violent and smelling like the corpse it had been?

That’s the premise for Steven King’s 1983 novel, and Mary Lambert’s 1989 film adaptation. 20 years later Pet Sematary is resurrected. This time set in current day with the contemporary trappings of late model cars, and flannel shirts that amazingly (but pleasingly) have not gone out of style.

At the start, when the kids walk with through the bushes with the animal masks and wheelbarrows, I thought we may be in for an interesting remake. But sadly that was all we got of them; Pet Sematary 2019 remains mostly faithful to the original, with a couple of welcome plot twists.

Jason Clarke as Louis and Jeté Laurence as Ellie, deliver the performances that give the movie energy. I was convinced by Louis as a desperate dad who adored his daughter to the point of madness after her death. Laurence as a vengeful, undead eight year old was far more entertaining and relevant than Gabe as child protagonist in the 1989 film, though Gabe 2019 is a dead ringer in cuteness for Gabe 1989. Victor Pascow’s character was sidelined in 2019. This was a pity as Pascow dispensed an IT level creep factor in 1989.

I wasn’t quite convinced by Rachel (Amy Seimetz). Rachel appeared just as melancholy and miserable before the death of her daughter as she was after. The link to her anguished sister, although true to the original, was perhaps the subplot that could have gone the way of Pascow. Neither was John Lithgow quite as convincing as Fred Gwynne in his regret for introducing Louis to the ancient cemetery beyond the pet sematary. Jud knew exactly what he was doing. It was as if he welcomed the intrusion to his saturnine daily grind, perhaps a fateful wish even. Jud does give us some delicious laughs though, the observation that “sometimes dead is better” is ridiculously on point.

Pet Sematary is an enjoyable but predictable ode to 80’s horror, offering anything new. In an era of genuinely terrifying horror in the last year with films such as A Quiet Place, and Bird Box and horror as social criticism with The Get Out and US, had it tried to be anything more it may well have failed. I’m glad the credits rolled to Pet Sematary by the Ramones, performed this time by LA punk-rockers Starcrawler.

A couple things I learned from the flick – I shall never live next to a major truck route, and I no whave a burning desire to yell, “someone please wash that cat.”

Andy Baker

Andy Baker
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