Adapting Stephen King novels is practically a mainstay in the horror genre. Hollywood has been cranking out adaptations of King’s novels, horror or otherwise, for decades, but it’s only in recent years where these adaptations are getting more attention than usual, especially with 2017’s critical and financial juggernaut IT making shockwaves in horror. Pet Sematary is but the latest in this legacy of adaptations, and it’s safe to say it stands out as one of the better adaptations in the bunch. But still, Pet Sematary plays it safe and unambitiously as a well-directed, well-acted, well-shot Wikipedia page, but a Wikipedia page nonetheless.
Dr. Louis Creed (Jason Clarke) and his wife Rachel (Amy Seimetz) have successfully traveled to rural Maine to live a quieter life outside of the big city with their children Ellie (Jeté Laurence) and Gage (Hugo and Lucas Lavoie). All seems right as the family settle themselves into their new residence, but they soon realize that there’s more to their new residence that previously thought. Beyond the trees lies a cemetery for the pets of kids in the area. But little do they know that deep within the woods, beyond their home, beyond the cemetery, something ominous lies in wait, something that can cheat death itself.
Pet Sematary excels on the majority of its technical aspects, creating a foreboding sense of dread and uneasiness. From the clustered and dark woods that surround the Creed home to the inner walls of the house itself, there’s a presence of evil felt throughout and around every corner, as if something is always watching the Creeds. This effect is further enhanced by skillful direction by Kevin Kölsch and Dennis Widmyer. Their use of music and admittedly rich cinematography help create admirably tense sequences, including one particular sequence towards the middle of the story.
That dreadful feeling can also be felt throughout the woods that surround the complex. Whenever we visit the “Pet Sematary” itself or go beyond the barrier that lies beside it, it’s not unlike visiting an alien world, a place composed of the unknown, and while our heroes traverse the mulchy, foggy terrain, there is an ever-present force of pure malevolence we feel throughout. The forest is meant to be a collection of our darkest, most sinister desires, with our greatest desire being that we cheat death, and that narrative through-line is made even more grim and ghastly by the haunting cinematography.
The acting also effectively contributes to the overall distressing tone and atmosphere, particularly with Clarke, Seimetz, and Laurence. Clarke doesn’t oversell his role of a man going down the rabbit hole trying to defeat death, and solidly performs the “average joe” type of role and enriching it with misery and desperation as he attempts to beat death. Whenever he is desperate to save the ones he loves, you can see the distress in him, and that makes for a fairly chilling performance, and that sentiment can be shared with Seimetz, who delivers a much more passionate and haunting performance as she attempts to come to terms with her tragic past involving her sister. Laurence, however, was a nice little surprise as we watch her develop from a sweet and cheerful little girl to a spine-tingling menace.
John Lithgow also shines bright in this relatively dark story as the Creed’s neighbor Jud Crandall. As expected, Lithgow excels, presenting our brighter side as the sweet old man next door who befriends Ellie and the Creeds, who have exceptional chemistry together, as well as our darker halves once he himself tells the tales of the woods and what lies beyond as well as its ethereal dark magic.
But despite these praises, it sadly can’t completely overcome the film’s greatest blunder: it’s script. Stephen King has often referred to Pet Sematary as the scariest novel he has ever written, which is truly saying a lot. But to be fair, it’s easy to see why since nothing scares us more than the thought of death, and Stephen King’s signature dread and ominousness help enhance that fear. However, the story that unfolds in the film fails to capture that terror effectively. While it looks great, it fails to have something worth fearing. It’s as if the script is less a “deep philosophical analysis of the concept of death and how we often face it when it comes at our door” and more of a “Wikipedia page.”
The story doesn’t successfully develop its dark material into something meaningful. It feels more like your average, basic horror-thriller that happens to be a book by Stephen King. It has all the signature motifs of the novel (i.e. Church the cat, the cemetery, the woods, etc.), but while they can create a fairly tense sequence here and there, it doesn’t add up into something that leaves us trembling in fear and anxiety. Speaking of the book, it’s also worth noting that a lot of people, especially fans of the book and somewhat the original adaptation in 1989, are going to probably have a problem with this movie as it deviates strongly from the book, especially with the ending. Speaking as a film fan, I feel that the ending is cheap and hollow. It’s a grim ending that tries to be grim because it wants to be grim. It feels less like it earned its dark and grim ending and more like it just happens simply because the directors wanted a dark ending.
Overall, Pet Sematary is nothing special whatsoever. Everything is expertly crafted on a technical level, from the cinematography to the visuals to the music, and the acting is nothing to sneeze at by any means. All of it, unfortunately, can’t get around the one-note script and underwhelming lack of depth and meaning. Stephen King is a highly regarded author, especially in the horror genre, and I feel his works should deserve to have a high bar set for themselves. Pet Sematary is by no means a bad movie, but it sadly could’ve been so much more.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zK0LNzU2TQI&t=1s&w=585