'Pet Sematary' Review: Three Reasons To See It |

As a “wise” Ludlow, Maine resident once assured, “sometimes dead is better” – but such isn’t the case for Kevin Kölsch and Dennis Widmyer’s Pet Sematary remake. The duo behind 2014’s Starry Eyes and 2016’s “Valentines Day” Holidays segment take a stab at adapting Stephen King’s cautionary reanimation narrative, translating to film the Creed family’s grief-stricken undead nightmare with debilitating darkness. It’s a known tale, but luckily, Kölsch and Widmyer don’t stick to standard remake formulas. As good filmmakers do, these orchestrators of terrifying parental unrest – with the help of Jeff Buhler’s screenplay – take liberties to ensure 2019’s Pet Sematary is distinctly their own. Tweaks that, in my humble opinion, elevate the film’s most horrific elements.

Paramount Pictures is releasing this slice of zombified country living in just a few weeks on April 5th, so you won’t have to wait long to bear witness for yourself. In the meantime, here are three reasons to see Pet Sematary when it hits theaters.

**Suffice it to say, minimal spoilers will follow from this point on (but only what’s appeared in trailers).**

1. Jeté Laurence Is A Knee-High Demon As Ellie Creed

As you might recall from 1989’s original feature adaptation, the Creed family’s pint-sized toddler Gage (this time portrayed by twins Hugo and Lucas Lavoie) serves as the film’s pint-sized antagonist. To shake things up, Buhler’s 2019 script opts to off the older Creed child in daughter Ellie (Jeté Laurence). Some might cry foul on nostalgia-flipping, but allowing Ellie to rise from the grave permits the film a more menacing villain. Where Gage stalked and hunted based on preconceived unbelievability suggesting a (reanimated) child with his level of innocence couldn’t commit vile crimes, Ellie is more in control. She showcases even more understanding of her actions and relishes in morbid objectives. Meaner, nastier, and played with such malicious yet tempered rage.

The above, without doubt, is thanks to Jeté Laurence’s turn as Ellie Gage. Makeup work staples her head and reflects rigor mortis colorization to mimic a walking cadaver, but her performance is very much alive. A bit Children of the Corn as she maintains her facade of guilelessness, but never a full rebirth of her once living self. After Louis buries Ellie’s dead body and she rises once again, we’re treated to a sinister presence that deeply disturbs over and over again. As she dons a procession animal mask, threatening Jud Crandall (John Lithgow) at scalpel-point, or twirling like a ballerina and smashing decorations in the Creed’s hideaway home, Laurence is the definition of “creepy kiddo horror” in Pet Sematary, and a damn fine performer to boot.

2. If You Want Blood (And Darkness), You Got It

Kölsch and Widmyer kick the cemetery gates open and let the ghouls take control with devastating tonal voracity. Early, often, and throughout, Pet Sematary submerges cinematography in the blackest nights and the utmost sensation of constricting dread. Even during daytime brightness, we’re subjected to consistent dangers – careless truckers whizzing past the Creed’s home well over speed limits – while post-bedtime excursions with Jud Crandall flow foggy mists over boggy marshlands. Lighting alone doesn’t spell instant fear, but Kölsch and Widmyer are confident in their aesthetic conjurings. Filmmakers with vision and command, crafting their deepest, deliciously destructive horror fantasies on screen with surreal imagination.

Look no further than the film’s first few minutes, bathed entirely in sunlight, as a memorial parade wheels into the “sematary” – children in homemade masks tapping drums in somber rhythm. Effective and eerie off the bat, and it only gets worse (a.k.a. better). Rachel’s (Amy Seimetz) flashbacks to sister Zelda (Alyssa Brooke Levine) – bedridden by protruding spinal deformations like some rigid hunchback – recreate a small child’s paralyzed reaction at the sight, just as Louis’ (Jason Clarke) interaction with a badly mangled Victor Pascal (Obssa Ahmed) emphasizes visceral brutality. Pet Sematary 2019 isn’t to be underestimated – Kölsch and Widmyer are are responsible for a more beastly Native American/Wendigo-tinted horror story that makes the 1989 version seem defanged in comparison.

3. Reimagines The Story While Staying Faithful To The Original

Studios will never stop remaking nostalgic “classics” and popular properties from years past – or international hits of literal yesterday à la Train To Busan – but the entire Pet Sematary team chases a more ambitious motivation: creating a Stephen King adaptation in spirit, matched in tenacity, but unique to its creators’ signatures. The unexpected result is Pet Sematary is not a churned-out blockbuster product that follows tired ideas to linear completion (2016’s shot-for-shot Cabin Fever remake, anyone). No one else would make this namesake retelling, nor could they.

Specifically, Rachel Creed’s given far more inclusive character development and usage that benefits Seimetz’s empathy-wringing heartache. Louis’ actions set Ellie’s traumatic homecoming in motion, but Rachel isn’t simply a pawn sacrifice as proof of murderous intent here. The entire Creed family are assigned their respective roles, and emotional instability sneaks in as Louis’ new lifestyle is met with contemptuous blankness while Rachel’s recollections of Zelda’s dumbwaiter drip with bloody regret.

Pet Sematary is creepy as all hell, beholden to its passionate respect for King’s literary intent – not simply “update culture” brand recognition – and quite a scary decimation of family structures through tragic, grief-stricken spellbinding. As far as King adaptations go? Inarguably one of the best yet. Ferocious enough to put you off children and cats if you’re not careful. The ground may be sour, but Kölsch and Widmyer’s Pet Sematary is oh-so-sweet.