'Pet Sematary' Will Revive Your Nightmares

Adapting a Stephen King novel into a film is common but not an easy feat as it is inevitably going to be compared and nitpicked. Remaking a film adaptation of a book is even trickier as it has to at least hold the level of both the book and the film that it's going to remake.

Directors Dennis Widmyer and Kevin Kolsch held up their sleeves and rose to the challenge by remaking one of King's most famous and iconic horror novels, Pet Sematary, and modernized it (complete with smartphones!) like they didn't care

Photo Credit: United International Pictures

This newest remake stars Jason Clarke and Amy Seimetz as Louis and Rachel Creed, a couple who relocated with their young children and their pet cat from Boston to an eerie woods in rural Maine where high-speed trucks pass in front of their new home. Near they discover a strange burial ground seemingly built by kids wearing pet masks, and there they discover their old neighbor Jud, played by John Lithgow, who has grown a wholesome endearment to their daughter.

When one day they found out that their pet cat Church died, Jud introduced Louis to a place beyond the woodscraps surrounding the 'pet sematary' to appease their daughter's possible outcry of their loss. There starts the spooky tale of the dead coming back to life.

With its strong tagline "Sometimes dead is better", there is no surprise that this has something to do with the dead, and writer Jeff Buhler establishes that it's not only meant literally. Even the subject's childhood and present nightmares come into play.

Pet Sematary's scare tactics will revive nightmares in a sense that it restores our childhood illusions about our traumatic dreams and the dark corners within our homes. It has a lot of hair-raising scenes that make sleeping in the dark a bit scary again.

It's effective in its scare factor, and moreso in mixing all of the characters' storyarcs. Pet Sematary is a straightforward horror story with a great exposition that doesn't distract with its sequence. It's able to incorporate the couple's struggles--Rachel's haunting past and Louis' ongoing dreams and how it affects the family especially with their daughter--with the horror concept of the 'pet sematary' bringing dead creatures into life.

Photo Credit: United International Pictures

It backslides however in keeping the terror intact with its tonal inconsistencies. Outside the 'pet sematary', everything looks somber and realistic even in their dreams and haunting past (apart from the alienesque backbone of Rachel's sister). It loses a bit of its authentic vibe once we were introduced of the magic of the cemetery. The set is complete with smoke, thunder and lightning, and a full moon which looks straight from an MTV from the 90s/2000s era.

The third act is also noteworthy when things get way weirder. It's fun and exciting and made the theater go berserk, but it completely stepped out of the atmosphere of the first act that it's almost like watching a different movie.

I love crazy movies, and it's appreciated when films go overboard but this doesn't knock out. The feeling went from unsettling to just plain morbid. By the end of it, you're not rooting for the family anymore, although it's definitely enjoyable.