Dir. Kevin Kölsch, Dennis Widmyer
Reviewed by Matt Adcock (@Cleric20)
“Sometimes, dead is better.…”
Prepare for a whole different tale of resurrection arriving just in time for Easter. This remake / reimagining of the ‘80s Stephen King novel (and film) updates the dark tale of grief, horror and tragedy with effective scares and some excellent new ideas. Fans of the original will be right at home in this ominous retelling of the eerie power of reanimation that lurks in the New England Forests.
Big city surgeon, Louis Creed (Jason Clarke) moves his family - wife Rachel (Amy Seimetz), eight-year-old daughter Ellie (a fantastic turn from Jeté Laurence) and young Gage (shared between Hugo Lavoie and Lucas Lavoie) - to rural Maine in hope of a quiet life. But it turns out that in the extensive woods of their new home there is a ‘Pet Sematary’ where the town’s folk bury their animals. There is also a cursed other burial ground marked out by the native tribes as a place of danger years before, a place that is rumoured to give life back to the dead, at a cost.
cool cat...
As both Louis and Rachel start to be plagued with terrifying visions, there is a growing sense that the place is having an unnatural effect on their family. When they lose their beloved cat ‘Church’ (short for Churchill) to a hit and run, their neighbour Jud (John Lithgow) suggests that it doesn’t have to be the last they see of the kitty. But things that return from the burial ground are not what they once were - and the reanimated Church is mean and dangerous.
You can imagine how the story goes when one of the children is also killed… This harrowing plot is handled in a more gung-ho way by the new directors Kevin Kölsch and Dennis Widmyer who worked on the Scream TV series. Jump scares and a remix of some key plot points including more bleak ending mean that this version has enough new surprises to please those who liked the source material.
weird kids...
There is some really effective camerawork and haunting use of the wilderness setting that is shot through with effectively eerie notes of something primaeval that lurks in the woods. From the beginning, this is a family on the brink of damnation, manipulated by forces beyond their reckoning.
Pet Sematary delivers a great scary experience for those who can handle the disturbing subject matter. But is not for the faint of heart.
Out of a potential 5 - you have to go with a Darkmatters:
öööö
(4 - Sometimes Dead is Bleaker but it's a wild ride!)
Awesomeness öööö – Stong cinematic horror
Laughs ö – Not very funny
Horror öööö – Beware, this is grim and harrowing in places
Spiritual Enlightenment öö - Here kitty kitty...
intergenerational horror...
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