'Pet Sematary' A Review

Pet Sematary is a supernatural horror film, a remake of the 1989 film, both adaptations of the 1983 novel by Stephen King. Creed family patriarch/physician Louis(Jason Clarke) moves his family from Boston to small town Ludlow, ME to spend more time with them. As his wife Rachel(Amy Seimetz), son Gage, and daughter Ellie(Jeté Laurence) are settling in Ellie discovers a pet cemetery in their back yard and meets their grizzled neighbor Jud(John Lithgow). When the family cat Church is killed by a truck Jud takes Louis past the pet cemetery to an ancient burial ground. The next day Church reappears, alive but changed.

The small ensemble all put in decent performances with moments of real emotion amongst the thrill and terror. Clarke brings his everyman competence and charm to bear and shades it well with some palpable internal conflict. Seimetz is given less to do but makes the most of her hysterical heights. Lithgow, looking scraggly than he ever has before, gives a grounded and pathetic turn as the well-meaning but ultimately impotent neighbor. Laurence has the most difficult task and does well playing the innocence of youth as well as the deprave darkness of the corrupt.

With rich visuals, a decent if negligible score, and a limited location and narrative scope the film is a tight, bizarre, and pleasing horror flick but doesn't have the time or the finesse to capture both the horror and the human pathos that's found in the original novel.

A serviceable, entertaining, if somewhat uninspired Stephen King adaptation.

Rent It.