Pet Sematary (2019)

*WARNING: the following blog will contain SPOILERS. So if you have not checked out this movie, highly recommend you do like now!! It’s available for rent on most streaming services (I.e YouTube, Google Play, Vudu, etc.). Okay? The movie review will start in 3...2...1!!

“Sometimes, dead is better.” - Jud Crandall (John Lithgow)

Pet Sematary is about Louis Creed (Jason Clarke), his wife Rachael (Amy Siemetz) and their two young children, Ellie (Jete Laurence) and Gage (Hugo and Lucas Lavoie). The family moves from their home in Boston to a rural area called Ludlow, Maine (shocker). They soon discover a Pet Sematary down the road from their house deep in the woods, along with an ancient burial ground that’s even deeper into the backwoods of their property. This place the “soil is sour.” Jud later explains that this is the place where if you bury something, it will come back to life; but not in a way you remember.

A little background on the family. Louis is a doctor at the university hospital. Rachel is living with the past drama that she murdered her sister, Zelda. She has a twisted spine and couldn't get out of bed. So one night while their parents were out, Rachel used the dumbwaiter to bring up her sister’s dinner. Long story short, apparently her sister fell down the dumbwaiter (pause for inappropriate laughter), which I don’t get at all; but yeah. Honestly I think they talked about her sister way too much. It literally had nothing to do with the Pet Sematary. Anyway, moving on, Ellie is a little explorer. She discovered the Pet Sematary as well as made friends with the neighbor, Jud Crandall (John Lithgow). Jud is the typical old timer who lives across the street. He makes the mistake of telling Louis of the Cemetery beyond the Pet Sematary, and as for Gage he seems to be the innocence in this film. He is just sweet and innocent. He is always the last one to survive...or so I hope.

Later in the movie, A student named Pascow, is hit by a car and brought into the hospital. Soon after his arrival, he dies. Now this become Louis’s conscience throughout the movie. He is reminded over and over again not to go passed the Pet Sematary; but despite the countless efforts, he goes ahead always. On Halloween, Jud finds the family cat, Church had been struck by a truck. They decide to take care of it at night and would tell Ellie that the cat ran way. However, before going ahead to bury him in the Pet Sematary, Jud eventually tells him that he can bury Church in the place where the “soil is sour,” so that Ellie would not be sad about losing her cat. It just seems with this family, death is a hard thing to talk about and I don’t get it, because it’s a natural part of life. You cannot protect your kids from death, no matter how hard you try.

Regardless, once he discovers the power of that place, he doesn’t want to let it go. On Ellie’s 9th birthday, a truck is driving down the road and it strikes her as she tries to reach Church, who is wondering in the road. (Again, why the hell didn't this guy have a fence built before the family moved into the house? If Louis built a fence, he could have avoided this whole thing.)

Anyway, Louis can’t seem to let her go and felt he needed more time with her. Rachel, on the other hand, decides to leave with Gage to stay at her parents' place for a while. While she is away, Louis steals Ellie’s body from the cemetery. He buries her up in that place, and waits for her to return. But just as expected, she doesn’t come back the same. You think he would have learned his lesson when he buried Church up there. Well, she eventually murders Rachel who then murders Louis. (Damn karma is real.) They all become a “dead” family...expect for Gage. This makes the ending very open ended. Does Gage get away? Does he become dead too? It just fades to black, so it leaves it up to the audience to decide.

I don’t know, certain aspects of this movie have been explained better in the original version rattan this one. I feel like the original explained the ways of the burial ground a lot better than this one. Like it mentions the Wendigo and all that, but I would have liked to hear more about the cemetery rather than the family to centers around; after all the movie is called PET SEMATARY!! It’s not called Louis and the Creeds!! It should have put its focus on the cemeteries in the film; which I don’t feel like this one did. They briefly showed a group of kids going to bury their dog; but nothing else. It was barely ever mentioned again. Jud mentions that he buried his dog in the Pet Sematary for the second time; but I mean they could have deeply explored the idea and made something completely different. The problems with these remakes sometimes is that they try to recreate the original, while at the same time creating something new. It's very hard to do. There are two movies who have done it pretty well, which was Halloween (2018) and IT (2017) (in my opinion). 

Something that bothers me about this film is who the hell buys a house site unseen!? Like don’t you think that you would want to at least look at the place before buying it? Also don’t you think the realtor would have at least mentioned that they are the proud owners of not only a pet Sematary, but also and ancient burial ground they bring the dead back to life? I know I’m probably nitpicking at this point, but I mean seriously. Who in 2019 buys a random house in the middle of nowhere site unseen?! It makes no sense. Another is I don't like when they show the ending of a movie first, so you already know some stuff goes down before you even watch the movie. I didn't notice it at first, but upon a second viewing, I noticed it immediately.

Aside from all that nonsense, the special effects were good. I read that a lot of them were practical effects and not all CG; which is a nice change of pace. Most horror movies today are all about the CG and less on practical effects. For example, Church’s fur was matted with organic red food dye and egg whites. The animal was not harmed at all and even ate/used the litter box while in their make up. Of course Zelda’s effect was CG, but the makeup on Ellie after she was raised from the dead was very believable as a corpse and even her eye was a little lazy; which was a good touch. It was appropriate, because she was brained by a truck.

Now the ending, I don’t know. Like I had mentioned before, it was very weird and appeared to be open ended. It makes me start to believe that they are going to make a sequel and I honestly think it’s a horrible idea. I mean they tried it once before and failed. I think it should be a stand alone movie and there shouldn’t be a sequel. However, if they do a sequel, try to focus on the PET SEMATARY. How about a prequel instead with a little background information? That would be awesome, different and unique. Or it could be a flashback then a flash forward. I’m just saying. It was a good movie, I just think it could have been done a little better. Also I don’t think any film adaptation of Stephan King’s novels will be as good as the books; because he writes so well. Another interesting fact is that I heard he has an issue with them using this book for movies, because it’s so personal to him. He almost lost his son to a truck (just like in this movie), and that’s why he wrote this book. So, I totally get that.

This movie was interesting and I don’t hate it, but I’m not totally in love with it either. It was good. It was a good remake. Also it’s been awhile since I’ve seen the 1983 version, so I think I was far enough removed that I could have a good view of it without comparing it to the original one. Unfortunately that’s what a lot of people have done so far, they would try to compare it to the original and I believe that you need to see it with a fresh pair of eyes. There were things that were changed, for example, Ellie was the one who was killed by the truck and not Gage. I don't know. I think it's an interesting film and it's worth a viewing, especially if you love horror movies.

So, do I recommend it? I do. It's a good movie. Special effects are good and the horror is on point. If you read this movie without seeing the remake, I do still recommend you see it.

Well, I hope you all check out this movie and I will be back as soon as I can with (hopefully) ANOES Part 3: Dream Warriors!!

Sleep Tight,
A Nightmare on Movie Night