Pet Sematary (1989)

Pet Sematary (Dir: Mary Lambert, 1989). 

Probably to my detriment I have never read a Stephen King novel, although I have enjoyed many movies based upon his works notably Stand By Me (Rob Reiner, 1986), Misery (Rob Reiner, 1990), Shawshank Redemption (Frank Darabont, 1994) and the recent It (Andy Muschietti, 2017). So I sat down to this, my first viewing of Pet Sematary, with reasonably high expectations. 

King’s novel was first published in 1983 to critical and commercial success so a movie adaptation was inevitable. The plot, which concerns the resurrection of dead pets and - whoops!- one or two humans, should have made for a creepy, maybe even darkly humorous horror. Instead we have a movie that feels cheaply made, is both schlocky and hokey and is occasionally unintentionally funny. Herman Munster himself Mr Fred Gwynne is a welcome familiar face and offers easily the best performance from an otherwise no star cast. He and the decent end-title song by a past their prime Ramones are the undoubted highlights of this sorry affair. 

To be honest, I am not particularly a fan of the horror genre; gore does nothing for me but I do enjoy a creepy atmosphere. Pet Sematary has its share of gore but unfortunately little atmosphere, unless the atmosphere is that of a made for TV movie. Although critically reviled upon release the movie did spawn a sequel: the largely forgotten Pet Sematary Two (Mary Lambert, 1992). A remake was released in April 2019 and for once, perhaps, a remake is justified as it will almost certainly be an improvement on the original. 

Perhaps I am being a little too harsh on a film belonging to a genre of which I am admittedly not fond. I realise this movie has its fans and if you can see something in it that I cannot then fair play to you. Ultimately I just expected more than Pet Sematary was able to deliver.