Pet Sematary

Stephen King’s 1983 novel Pet Sematary certainly seems to have all the ingredients for a timeless horror, with its themes of haunted lands, spiritual quandaries, and the hubris of men. But this latest rendition is so desperate to carve its own path that it loses sight of what made the tale such an effective one in the first place.

The skeleton of the story remains the same: Dr Louis Creed (played by Jason Clarke) moves his wife Rachel (Amy Seimetz) and their two children to a charmingly bucolic college town in Maine, where long-buried traumas begin to resurface and tragedy soon changes the family forever. Thirty years after Mary Lambert’s original adaptation (and its 1992 sequel), directors Kevin Kölsch and Dennis Widmyer wisely foreground the vital divide between Louis, an atheist, and Rachel, a Christian. They fundamentally disagree on how to explain death to their eldest daughter Ellie (Jeté Laurence), and in fact take steps to hide her from its reality altogether. And because Pet Sematary is primarily a parable of grief, fate exacts a cruel price for their deception.

One major divergence from the source material (implausibly revealed in the trailer) is arguably the film’s greatest strength, which it promptly proceeds to fumble. Perhaps the third act wants its audience to ask what does it mean to curl up with death and mourning, but the result is unintentionally funny rather than resonant. Clunky dialogue and an uneven screenplay undermine otherwise strong performances, particularly John Lithgow as the family’s neighbour Jud, who has next to nothing to do here. And this new conclusion neuters any possibility to read the film outside its phantasmic confines. The cinematography is often haunting and the jump scares are fun, but Pet Sematary ultimately becomes a deeply conventional horror. 

---

We're showcasing some of Scotland's best new short filmmakers in The CineSkinny on Tour this May – click here for more details, and to find out how you can get your short film on the big screen.