Raising the Dead

Prolific storyteller Stephen King is perhaps the greatest Master of Horror of our generation, having written 58 novels and sold over 350 million copies in his remarkable career.  His stories are among the most adapted onscreen (movies and television) because, well, they’re perfectly suited for them.  Some stories are so good that they’ve even been given the treatment twice, like ‘It’ (TV miniseries and Hollywood film), ‘Carrie’ (Sissy Spacek and Chloë Grace Moretz versions) and now ‘Pet Sematary’ (three if you count PS2).  The most recent PS film is the subject of this review.

 

PS is the tale of a family who moved from the big city to a small rustic town in Maine (King himself is a Maine native who lives in Bangor and small towns are common settings in his books).  Thanks to a kindly old neighbor (Fred Gwynne of ‘The Munsters’ in the 1989 original but played by veteran actor John Lithgow here) who helped them with a cat problem, they discovered a not-so-hallowed burial ground for pets (Pet Sematary) that’s basically a zombie breeding ground.  After a terrible tragedy the family finds to their horror that bringing back a kitty cat is one thing, but zombifying a beloved child because you can't let go is something else altogether.

 

PS 2019 is a marginally better movie than its predecessor (which spawned a sequel believe it or not), owing largely to the believable performances of its cast including Jason Clarke, John Lithgow and newcomers Jeté Laurence (the resurrected daughter) and Amy Seimetz (the missus).  The build-up in suspense is also superior, courtesy of 30 years of progress in filmmaking techniques between the two movies. But it still begs the question: “Does ‘Pet Sematary’ really need to be rebooted?”  I’m not so sure.

Grade: B