Starring Jason Clarke, Amy Seimetz, John Lithgow. Directed by Kevin Kölsch and Dennis Widmyer.
In his fantastic non-fiction dissection of horror fiction Danse Macabre, Stephen King talks about ‘Bad Place’ stories. Stories in which the place in which our characters go to is the root of evil. It’s a subgenre of horror that King has mined time and time again. The Shining is a Bad Place story, Salem’s Lot is a Bad Place Story, as is Duma Key, and as is Pet Sematary.
The misspelt title refers to a small plot of land where local kids in Ludlow, Maine, bury their dead pets ina quaint, altogether charming way. It’s a place in the forest that connects to the new home of Dr Louis Creed, his wife Rachel and kids Ellie and Gage. But beyond it is a deadfall, and beyond there? Evil.
King’s original novel is perhaps his darkest work, it deals with many of the themes that King would return to time and time again, including the idea of impending doom, fate, ancient horror, guilt and children. King himself described the book as being a little too grim for even his standards, and one that got put in a drawer until a contractual obligation forced him to give another novel.
What the book actually is, is one his best works – a dark tale of the cruel hand of fate looming over one man and how trauma, fear and guilt can rot you long before death comes to take you away. The original 1989 film is considered a cult classic among many, and whilst it features a good turn from Hermann Munster himself Fred Gwynne, it has aged terribly, and features badly hammy acting – though the theme by The Ramones is catchy.
Now, Kevin Kolsch and Dennis Widmyer – directors of the fun but flawed Starry Eyes – bring us the 2019 take on the material, in a time when King is once again popular with audiences, thanks in no small part to Andy Muscietti’s It, and Mike Flanagan’s Gerald’s Game.
The story is much the same, Dr Louis Creed and his family move to a new home, they find the Pet Sematary, befriend kindly old man Jud Crandall and then tragedy and horror follow. What’s different this time is a much better performance from the cast and a more intense study in horror.
From the beginning Kolsch and Widmyer both manage to create an atmosphere of dread and terror that is perfectly in keeping with the tone of the story. For anyone who saw the trailer there are new twists on the story, but for what it wants to do in terms of telling King’s story it does it well.
Best of all the score by Christopher Young is very ominous and sets the right tone, while the change of design from the real world to the place beyond the Cemetary is off-putting and filled with an otherworldly horror that fits the mood very well.
Jason Clarke, Amy Seimetz and John Lithgow are all great in their roles, with Clarke easily able to show the painful everyman in a way that few other Hollywood actors could, while Seimetz is really well cast as his wife who has deep-rooted insecurities based on her childhood.
While the film isn’t the worst adaptation of a King book, there is a little feeling that it isn’t bringing anything radical to the table. Despite that ominous trailer, the film doesn’t do much with that scary animal-masked motif, something that the film could have done really well if it had decided to go for a more abstract out there horror story.
As it is, it’s better than the original, which could bring about more renditions of book that never got the good adaptation that deserved. But even so, and for all the “sometimes remade is better” jokes, it is a better movie that we could have expected.
