The original film version of Stephen King's horror novel "Pet Sematary" was shown 30 years ago back in 1989. Following "Carrie" in 2013 and "It" in 2017, "Pet Sematary" also got its remake this year. This particular story had been acknowledged by author Stephen King himself as the novel that really scared him the most.
The Creed family moved from hectic Boston to the laidback small town of Ludlow in Maine. The head of the family is Dr. Louis Creed, an ER physician; and he brought with him his wife Rachel, and two kids, nine year-old Ellie and toddler Gage. In the forest behind their big country house, Ellie discovered a place where dead pets were buried, with a sign calling it the "Pet Sematary" (sic).
One day, Ellie's cat Church died because it was hit by a speeding truck. To spare Ellie, Louis was instructed by their friendly old neighbor Jud to bury the animal in an area beyond swamp above the barrier behind the Pet Sematary. When Louis came back to the house to tell little Ellie that her cat had run away the night before, there was Church in the closet hissing at him.
The role of Louis Creed gave Jason Clarke ample room to display his acting range as the distraught and guilty father. Amy Siemetz played the mother Rachel, who had a traumatic experience about the death of her late elder sister. Child actress Jete Laurence had a brave performance as Ellie who had to do some pretty intense scary stuff. Veteran actor John Lithgow did his best to keep us second guessing the motives of his character Jud Crandall, getting to utter the classic line "Sometimes dead is better."
In general, the story was built up very well by directors Kevin Kölsch and Dennis Widmyer in terms of tension and suspense. The editing was done very well by Sarah Broshar in consonance with the musical score by Christopher Young to raise the fear factor of each scene. Those crude homemade animal masks children used during the Pet Sematary burial procession were really creepy.
We will find out that the titular Pet Sematary was just a benign front for the sinister land with supernatural powers that lay beyond it. Sacred Native American burial grounds and wendigos were mentioned as part of the legend. The eerie ghostly horror of the first two acts of the film (with realistic nightmares and ominous warnings) shifted gears to become a bloody slasher horror in the final act (with a giant kitchen knife).
The way the trucks whizzed by so rapidly in front of their house (loud enough to cause a jump scare), there was an early foreboding on what was about to happen. The victim of that big vehicular accident was actually different from that in the original film. The final outcome of the whole film was also very different from how the original film ended. I believe this new ending was all the way more unnerving and outrageous. The final frame gave me major last second goosebumps right before the end credits rolled. 7/10.
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