Pet Sematary (2019)

Based on Stephen King’s novel, Jason Clarke and Amy Seimetz are husband and wife who move to the small town of Ludlow with their two children. The large country house they move into is everything they had dreamed about. But the price to pay for such a dream is the long stretch of highway right outside their front yard, with many a juggernaut speeding by. As well as the eerie, misspelt, pet cemetery behind the house, which seems to exacerbate Seimetz’s guilt over her sister’s death when she was a child. Her issues dealing with death are a precursor to what follows when the family cat, Church, is found dead on the roadside.

John Lithgow is the geriatric neighbour and catalyst for the events that unfold when he convinces Clarke to unwittingly bury the cat behind the pet cemetery. Which, unbeknownst to Clarke, is an ancient burial site that causes whatever is buried there to come back from the dead.

Church comes back but is not quite the same loving cat that they once knew. Cue the tag-line: sometimes dead is better. From there tragedy strikes once again and events lead further down the spiral. The film has its fair share of tense moments and scares. And the performances from Clarke and Seimetz are amicable, although I felt the writing and direction could have added a more grief-stricken element to their characters in choice scenes. Ultimately it is eleven year old Jeté Laurence, who plays their daughter, that probably shines the most with the juiciest of all the roles in the film.

Having to contend with the original film from 1989, Directors Kevin Kölsch and Dennis Widmyer do a good enough job that will probably live up to the average viewer’s expectations. Ardent horror fans, however, will probably be disappointed with a lack of gore and what feels like a film lacking emotion in key scenes, that the original movie so deftly conveyed.

Directors: Kevin Kölsch, Dennis Widmyer
Writers: Stephen King (novel), Matt Greenberg (screen story by)
Stars: Jason Clarke, Amy Seimetz, John Lithgow