Pet Sematary

Jason Clarke (Actor), John Lithgow (Actor), Kevin Kolsch (Director), Dennis Widmyer (Director) và 1 more Rated:

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5.0 out of 5 stars Respects the original film"s tone, source material, tones down absolutely nothing...
What can be said? Yes, it"s another reboot. I would"ve preferred a sequel recounting prior events with new characters.However, enough is done so well in this movie you feel lượt thích you have that while also keeping lớn the original tone of the original film, with some extra accuracy to the book và suprises. If you"ve never seen Pet Semetary 1, you"ll definitely be suprised at turn of events, & if you have, still applies. This film was made for whomever was coming khổng lồ see it.Jason Clarke as the lead was solid casting. If the original film had one problem, it was the lead could"ve used a few more acting lessons. I did miss Fred Gwynne as Judd, but John Lithgow did an excellent job và I wasn"t thinking about while watching the film. The rest of the cast-actually the biggest standout-is BY FAR Jeté Laurence as "Ellie," the daughter who is just downright terrifying và her acting is stunning. If you"ve seen the little girl in the first Silent Hill, you know what khổng lồ expect from good và bad (evil). Và yes, Gage is still in this film, as is Church, the latter plays a bigger role, the former plays a smaller but it works so well and it"s not as if a film like this there"s a happy ending anyway.The tone here is consistent & creepy, it feels lượt thích a genuine horror film, not watered down lớn super PG-13. No random jokes everywhere, or silly stuff (something that despite being underrated, the sequel to the original suffered from). The atmosphere feels both modern horror & 80"s horror-the semetary and the burial grounds are even more creepy, and the "ghost" character is played more as a ghost. The mom with the "sister in bed" is also played out a bit more here and adds even more lớn this already psychologically horrifying film.You can tell the heart was in it and respect is paid lớn the original even with some deviating plot points, & the films extra creepy ending, as well as a couple very minor, some even subtle plot points that make it all the more a better film.I would say the only little thing about this film was the whole "trailer showing kid cult" thing isn"t more than "what the kids in that town do" và I kinda expected a little more than some creepy mask-play from one character for a brief time. If they did make a sequel of any sort, this would be something lớn explore more.So yes, as someone who would give the original Pet Semetary a 8/10, I"d give this one a 10/10. No, it"s not the best movie ever, but for everything it phối out lớn do, it did it all incredibly well. When horror remakes or reboots come out this is how it should be done, and others should definitely be taking notes.

These days, it seems as if virtually any movie that"s at least 25 years old and not named "She’s Out of Control" is now considered a classic. This attitude has become so prevalent that even a film lượt thích the 1989 version of “Pet Sematary” is now considered to be a work of greatness in some quarters, even though that take on Stephen King’s infamously dark 1983 novel was, aside from a good performance from Fred Gwynne at his most avuncular và a cheerfully cheesy title tuy nhiên from the Ramones, little more than gross, stupid, & incompetently made garbage. Of course, for anyone contemplating the notion of doing another adaptation of the book, there"s an advantage in that they don’t have a true classic along the lines of Brian De Palma’s “Carrie” or Stanley Kubrick’s “The Shining” casting a shadow over their efforts—all they really have to vị is come up with something marginally better than an unforgivably terrible movie. With their take on “Pet Sematary,” co-directors Kevin Kölsch và Dennis Widmyer have managed to vị just that, though in this case, the emphasis is much more on the “marginally” part than the “better.”

For those unfamiliar with the story, it begins with the Creed family—husband Louis (Jason Clarke), wife Rachel (Amy Seimetz), eight-year-old daughter Ellie (Jete Laurence), two-year-old son Gage (Hugo và Lucas Lavoie) and beloved house cat Church—arriving in the quaint rural town of Ludlow, Maine to lớn move into a charmingly rustic home with plenty of curb appeal. Alas, if one makes the mistake of stepping off said curb, they run the risk of getting pancaked by one of the semi trucks that incessantly roll down the highway just off of their driveway. If that weren’t a jarring enough discovery, consider the fact that the back part of their property houses a local pet cemetery where kids have been interring their furry friends for decades. Before long, Church gets killed by a truck và when Louis despairs of how lớn break the news to lớn Ellie, next-door-neighbor Jud (John Lithgow) offers to lớn help Louis bury him. After being assured that Ellie really & truly loved him, he takes Louis far beyond the pet cemetery lớn another area of the woods và has him bury Church there instead.

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Even if you"re unfamiliar with the particulars of the story, it will probably not come as a surprise to lớn learn that the next day, Church returns, albeit somewhat worse for wear—he smells awful, he is ill-tempered & begins lurking about as if he was a prop in a horror movie. Yes, it turns out that this burial ground has the power lớn bring the dead back, though, as a now-regretful Jud points out, they are not the same as they once were. It will probably come as even less of a surprise to lớn learn that, following an even greater tragedy, a grieving Louis will choose khổng lồ take advantage of the burial ground once again in the belief that things will surely work out better this time around. Needless lớn say, it all goes bad as Louis’ well-meaning attempt lớn cheat death quickly devolves into a Grand Guignol-style procession of flashing knives, spurting blood, & sliced hamstrings.

Granted, King’s original novel was little more than an extra-gruesome riff on the classic tale “The Monkey’s Paw.” But while it was not one of his more elegant efforts, the book hit readers with a gut-punch that allowed them khổng lồ overlook all the plot holes (ranging from why Jud would even bring up the burial ground in the first place to wondering why a family with two young kids would buy a house that close lớn a busy highway) & also worked as an exploration of people struggling lớn process intense feelings of grief & loss và how short cuts can lead khổng lồ disaster all around. In adapting King’s book, screenwriter Jeff Buhler mostly sticks lớn the plot basics but cannot figure out how to execute them effectively. “Pet Sematary” quickly becomes an increasingly dire contraption in which every third line of dialogue is overly fraught with portent, used khổng lồ mark time between the increasingly ineffective jump scares & gross-out moments.

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Those who are familiar with the previous iterations of “Pet Sematary” will notice a couple of fairly major deviations this time around—one of them revolving around the victim of the tragedy that inspires Louis’ mad act of attempted resurrection, & a new ending that tries to outdo the already bleak tone of the original. The former is not a bad idea in theory & might have led lớn some legitimately creepy moments in a film made with more grace than this, but ultimately adds up to lớn nothing. (In a bizarre move, the producers have inexplicably elected khổng lồ highlight this particular deviation in the trailers, thereby killing off a moment that might have legitimately shocked viewers.) Likewise, the new ending is one that might have sounded good in theory but comes off here as a pointless twist that takes one of King’s most haunting finales và reworks it into something that seems to lớn have been repurposed from an abandoned “Creepshow” story.

Although “Pet Sematary” is a largely dreadful film, it is slightly better và never as offensively bad as the first version. And a couple of the performances are pretty good—Seimetz and Laurence are both reasonably touching và believable in their roles & Lithgow’s amiable old coot trò chơi is strong as well. That said, this is still one of those stories whose ghastly power works best on the page, because it forces the mind lớn conjure the kind of imagery that most people go lớn extraordinary lengths khổng lồ avoid having khổng lồ contemplate in real life. Brought khổng lồ life, both then và now, those unimaginable horrors can’t help but come across as greatly reduced and rather silly by comparison. As a result, an unforgettable work of horror literature has once again been reduced to lớn an eminently forgettable movie that may vì well at the box office for a week or two before disappearing from view & evaporating from the mind. The only genuinely scary thing about this "Pet Sematary" is the possibility that a couple decades from now, some may convince themselves that it too is a classic.

Peter Sobczynski

Peter Sobczynski is a contributor to e
Filmcritic.com and Magill"s Cinema Annual & can be heard weekly on the nationally syndicated "Mancow"s Morning Madhouse" radio show.