Time once again to return to our old friend Stephen King.
Our friend from the apparently eternally-haunted state of
Maine has had countless adaptations of his work over the years—from the iconic
like Carrie, the charming like Stand By Me, uneven but memorable like 2017’s
It, the so-so like Christine…and then the absolute bullshit, like the offensively redundant 2013 version of Carrie. Or The Dark Tower. Or whatever the
hell Dreamcatcher was all about. So with
that in mind, I came to this new version of Pet Semetary with some interest
after seeing the trailers. I didn’t see the original adaptation and have only
just started the book, so I went in with clean expectations. Does this going to
wow audiences like It, or should be it discarded like the green snot from
Tommyknockers?
Jason Clarke, who I last saw in First Man and am glad see
looks less like an ersatz for Tarantino than in Genisys, plays a doctor that
moves into a pleasant home with his family out by the woods. It’s a horror
film, so we all know inevitably something eldritch, gore-seeking, or mildly unpleasant
is going to lie beyond anything thicker than a hedge. And with that in mind,
things soon start to get creepy as Clarke spots strange masked processions
entering the trees, weird visions start occurring, and eventually, the family
cat Church suffers a grisly fate. John Lithgrow plays a friendly neighbor who,
in desperation, offers to take Clarke to a weird spot beyond the woods that can
fix things—but only in a certain way.
The film gets off to a decent start—Clarke’s family feel
relatable enough, and their daughter Ellie, played by Jele Laurence, is
exuberant enough that certain events further on do hit hard. Lithgrow is
definitely the standout—you do get to like his character and all the material
he gets, he plays with conviction. Clarke himself is slightly less even, but I
did emphasize with his doctor as the film starts to ramp up the intensity. And
despite some slightly shoddy greenscreen at times, there is an atmosphere that
is gradually built up, which I like; there’s a few nice drone shots of forest
to set the tone.
But this turns out to be a film where the buildup is more
enjoyable than the payoff. Things start to get a lot more predictable in the
final third, and some things are never really properly resolved—those masked
kids in the marketing all look cool and creepy, but don’t expect them to amount
to anything. Neither are a few nicely macabre ideas occasionally bought up in
the proceedings. There’s one moment that really makes the desired impact, but
from that point on, it just sort of stumbles along and comes to a kind of a
crap ending that doesn’t feel like any sort of resolution.
In some ways, this one reminds me of Hereditary, in more ways
than one; both films I felt were definitely all about the buildup, and while
the former’s ultimate reveal fell slightly flat on me, it was still on the whole
definitely better done than this film. That’s not to say Pet Semetary is
completely without merit, but I definitely went away feeling like I’ve seen
better. For everything it does right, like the suitably disgusting and
detestable resurrected cat, there’s something that feels lacking, like Obssa
Ahmed as some sort of spirit guide to Clarke that amounts to…not much at all.
Overall, Pet Semetary isn’t a load of pointless half-assed
bullshit like 2013’s Carrie, nor is it going to be a crowd-pleaser horror
extravaganza like It. If you like slow-burning creepy flicks, this one might be
worth a watch at home, but I’d suggest stopping before the end and making up
your own. In the wide spectrum of quality that Stephen King flicks inhabit,
this one falls somewhere in the middle; like Cujo it definitely could’ve been
done better, but at least it won’t completely cause you Misery.
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