Review Transcript

Pet Semetary is a remake of the 1989 film and is based off the novel by Stephen King, both also titled Pet Semetary with an S. Dr. Louis Creed played by Jason Clarke and his wife, Rachel played by Amy Seimetz, move into a new home with their two young children. When Louis finds the family cat dead, John Lithgow who plays the Creeds neighbor, shows Louis a way to bring this beloved pet back to life. However, this gato resurrects extremely pissed off and is clearly not the same adorable creature it was before.

While the movie starts off fairly bland, I will admit that the 2nd act after the cat is resurrected was interesting as the film will make you wonder what will happen next and what or who is behind these mysterious semetary powers.

However, any movie that gets you to ask questions is going to fall flat if those questions aren’t answered or if you’re given an answer that’s not very compelling…and that’s exactly what happened with this film. I was invested for a short amount of time but as the story drags on, I quickly came to the realization that the film was not interested in telling a clever narrative that is truly disturbing but it instead falls into the same tropes that are in so many other horror films. There’s lots of walking around, lots of shots of the camera panning and then a loud noise going off, and there’s a mirror scare in this movie. All things that we’ve seen in other scary movies.

There is an attempt to flesh out the characters. Louis’s wife, Rachel, has a backstory involving her sister. However, I unfortunately didn’t think it was very strong. The backstory felt very contrived and the performances could’ve been more compelling considering the hardships Louis and Rachel were going through.

The tension is often diffused by subtle comedy which wasn’t necessarily good or bad. It didn’t hurt the story but it didn’t really help either. You can decide if comedy amidst a serious horror film is something you like.

One of my favorite aspects of Pet Semetary is that it is only 1 hour and 40 minutes and so if you end up trapped watching this movie, you get to get out really quickly and I was very thankful for that.