The long and short of it? It’s a hollow exercise. I really, really loved that novel — and I’m savvy enough to know films can’t be the novels. It’s futile and foolish to think they ever can be.
But no sane filmmaker should look a gift horse in the mouth, and the jewel of Pet Semetary is its theme. Any horror film can be about death, or supernatural shenanigans, or zombies. Those are carnival trappings. Pet Semetary is about grief, and grief is a powerful emotion because it centers around love and bonding. I believe George C. Scott would help the ghost of a dead child in The Changeling because the filmmakers privilege us with moments where Scott emotes. In Don’t Look Now, we believe Julie Christie is open to psychic advice and Donald Sutherland would chase down his own death because the director gives us an honest glimpse into what finding your dead child would be like.
Even the original Pet Sematary movie, for all its faults (and there are many), understands how close the utter horror of losing your child in front of you is. The scream Dale Midkiff emits as his son is struck by a truck still haunts me.
This new remake plays as Cole’s Notes to not the novel, but to the 1989 film. I didn’t feel once there was a connection between the family. It’s as if there were no rehearsal period, just everyone showed up on the first day of photography, said “hi” and a voice behind the monitor cried “action.” The scenes are there, but there’s no heart in them. And without heart, you can’t care, and if you don’t care, you’re just waiting for the jump scare. Or the zombie. Or the next empty beat.
To be honest, there are a lot of problems with the movie: a score in the first act that wants to desperately remind you this is a horror film; a monster with no motivation; a monster with no rules established. Even the first movie was wise enough to have our main character ask the obvious question, “has anyone ever buried anyone up there?” followed by a flashback warning him that the spirit of the burial ground brings nothing but chaos.
I absolutely loved the directors’ last film, Starry Eyes, a metaphor for the perils of seeking fame in Hollywood. I praise it every chance I talk about great new horror films. It’s filled with meaning,
If the original novel was buried in the soiled ground, it came back as the 1989 movie. And if that 1989 movie was dragged up to the old Mi’kmaq cemetery again, it would come out like this. I hate to be glib, but yes, sometimes dead is better.
