Review: Pet Sematary (Widmyer & Kolsch, 2019)
Dan joins Raquel for a chat about Stephen King horror film adaptations and a review of Pet Sematary (2019).
Synopsis
Pet Sematary is a horror film about Dr. Louis Creed and his family, who relocate to Maine at the beginning of the story. They soon find a mysterious pet burial ground hidden deep in the woods near their new home. When tragedy strikes, Louis turns to his neighbour Jud Crandall, setting off a perilous chain reaction that unleashes an unspeakable evil with horrific consequences.
Expectations (0:21)
This is what we hoped for before entering the screen!
Raquel: I’d like dialogue to not be cliche!
Dan: Pet Sematary, please make us care…
Review (12:25)
This is what we thought of the film. Score is out of five decaying cats.
Raquel (🐱🐱): Pet Sematary wasn’t scary at all, and the structure was all over the place.
Dan (🐱🐱🐱): Three decaying cats out of five. There’s a good movie in there somewhere, it just wasn’t there. The ending was the best bit, but then the credits came up.
Extended review
Horror films have definitely been making a comeback on the last decade, rising by almost 5% (of all feature films made) from 2007. But with their increased popularity come higher expectations. All we want from horror films (or at least all I wanted from this one) is to scare us, to flick popcorn, to scream…
Based on a Stephen King novel of the same name, which he claims is the only book he’s written that has actually scared them. But this this film measure up to this expectation? For me, it didn’t.
The plot moved fast enough not to bore the audience, however the structure was all over the place. With cutaways that didn’t really add much to the story, character inconsistencies, and what can only be compared to slapstick comedy, this horror felt short — as it was funnier than scary.
Lastly, the ending, which I’m not going to spoil, was one of the most interesting parts, and it was very disappointing when the credits came after it.
