Movie Review: Pet Semetary (2019)

I know that Pet Sematary (2019) (hereto-after as PS19) has been out for a couple of weeks now (or more specifically 42 days ago), but last Tuesday night, Conklederp and I went out to see it at a local theater because it was buy-one-get-one-free night; $22 for two tickets, two pints of blackberry cider and a large popcorn isn't too shabby.

Both of us have seen the 1989 film of the same name, and have read Stephen King's 1983 book, just so that you know where I am coming from.  So brace yourself, because there are going to be spoilers all over the place.  I am also going to be assuming that you, the reader, have also either seen the movie (either), or read the book.

There is also a lot that Pet Sematary (2019) does that is its own beast, but the main takeaway from is that you will need to have either seen the 1989 movie or read the 1983 book in order to appreciate the movie in the way that the writers Greenberg/Buhler, directors Kölsch/Widmyer, and the editors have intended.  There is a lot that happens in the movie that is banking on the audience having knowledge of at least one of the previous installments, primarily the movie since the medium is the same.

Because the story deals heavily with the concept of loss and how people manage that loss, one would hope that developing those relationships would be a cornerstone of the movie.  Unfortunately, PS19 moves very quickly through the early story, seemingly only introducing characters before moving on, not taking much of any time to build the relationships with the audience for them/us to actually care about what is happening to them.  Interestingly enough, the audience is introduced to Rachel's sister Zelda so early on in the movie, that the audience does not have enough time to get to really know Rachel before finding out about her trauma; or at least that was how I felt.  In another instance, after their neighbor Jud is invited over for dinner, the audience comes in as the daughter Ellie is finishing an ballet-ish dance performance, their cat Church enters the scene and there is a brief interaction between Church, Jud, and Ellie.  A few scenes later is when Church is found dead and Jud tells the dad Lewis to meet him later that night to take care of the cat.  When Jud offers to take Lewis beyond the barrier to bury Church (in order to bring the cat back to life), he says that he does it because of how much Ellie loves Church.  The problem is that the audience is never given the opportunity to really experience Ellie's love for Church, or Jud witnessing that love.

In the scene where Lewis actually buries Church, his first couple of hits against the stony ground with the shovel is all the audience gets to indicate that this act of burial and resurrection should not be an easy task.  The shovel scrapes twice, then it cuts to Lewis putting Church in the ground and covering the body.  There does not seem to be any indication of passage of time, that digging a small hole, even for a cat, took anything longer than 10-15 minutes.  Anyone trying to dig a hole in incredibly rocky dirt knows that that is going to take you longer than 10 minutes.  And then in the third act when Lewis buries Ellie (more on this decision later), he uses a rock to pound a hole into the ground?  He picks up a rock to dig a hole.  I guess this is to show the desperation/love that Lewis has for his dead child, but this just seemed like a silly/odd choice.

Okay, let's talk briefly about how PS19 felt like Kölsch/Widmyer expected the audience to have already seen PS89.  When Lewis shows up to his first day at his new doctor's job at the university, there is a little bit of tension as you expect Victor Pascow to be wheeled in any second, only for this to happen on a subsequent day (possibly the second day, but it was hard to tell).  During Ellie's birthday party and Gage runs out into the middle of the road, there is the expectation that he is going to be hit only to be snatched away at the last second with the feeling that K/W are going, "Gotcha!"  In the scene when Jud is walking through his house looking for the revived Ellie who is now tormenting him, the camera, from underneath the bed, holds on his ankles for just long enough for the audience to think that once again we are going to see his Achilles tendon cut with a scalpel; even the retrieving of the commemorative scalpel is completely glossed over, as if Lewis just keeps readily available scalpels lying around the house.

My other gripe with the film was how underutilized Victor Pascow was as a character.  In PS19 he was introduced in the scene where he dies; during Lewis' first dream sequence; again briefly (but only as a Carrie inspired hand from the ground) trying to stop Lewis from crossing the barrier; briefly heavily concealed in shadow during another dream sequence; and lastly before he utters a final warning and fades from existence.  I know that doesn't sound like underutilization, but from someone who was initially terrified by Pascow in PS89, I was looking forward to being scared poopless in PS19.  As it turned out, I was more scared during Rachel's flashback and waking-dream sequences involving Zelda.

I genuinely feel that I could probably continue for another complete article, going into what I did not like about Pet Sematary (2019), such as Jason Clarke's acting as Lewis, the lack of interesting music (sorry Christopher Young) which made me sad because I usually like Mr. Young's music, the pacing (which I kind of touched on), the glossing over of previous instances of things (people/animals) coming back, the lack of connection/interactions between Ellie and Lewis and Ellie's family, that there was more telling and less showing (like seeing a newspaper clipping referencing Timmy Batemen with a font that was too small and that was on camera too briefly to actually understand the importance of why this was even brought up), and probably some other things that I cannot think of.  I did not at all mind the switching of Gage for Ellie being the child that was killed.

Now, there were some elements that I liked about PS19 despite the eight former paragraphs, but that may have to wait for a non-existent article. For me, throughout most of PS19 I felt like I was being reminded of PS89, but when those comparisons are being made by a movie that I am not enjoying as much as the film from 30 years prior, I do not know if constant references are the best way to make a movie.  I guess that is my takeaway?



~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian