Written by Josh B. Taylor
This weekend, Kevin Kölsch and Dennis Widmyer’s fresh adaptation of the Stephen King novel, Pet Sematary, was released in theaters, but is the film sour, or is the remake sometimes better?
It follows Dr. Louis Creed (Jason Clarke), who, after relocating with his wife Rachel (Amy Seimetz) and their two young children from Boston to rural Maine, discovers a mysterious burial ground hidden deep in the woods near their new home. When tragedy strikes, Louis turns to his unusual neighbor, Jud Crandall (John Lithgow), setting off a perilous chain reaction that unleashes an unfathomable evil with horrific consequences.
Let’s forget for a moment that the original film from Mary Lambert exists, and solely focus on this new adaptation. Is it faithful to King’s story? Yes and no. It’s not as close to the story as some book purists would probably like, but then again JAWS or even The Shining weren’t close to their books’ material, and look at how highly regarded they are by fans across the globe. The moments that this new film is close though to its source or the references it makes to other Stephen King stories (IT, Cujo, The Shining, to name a few) are amazing, that even a King fan would appreciate them. The cats that portrayed Church in this new film were terrific! It must have been a hard task to get them to portray this demented hairball, but they pulled it off—and what a terrifying cat Church was in this new film!
I at first was not a fan that they SPOILER switched Ellie (Jeté Laurence) dying instead of Gage (Lucas Lavoie) in this new film, but after giving it some time, and then actually seeing this film, I’ve got to say I’m fine with this change. It still is such an emotional/powerful scene that will make your heart break for the Creed family. Then the third act, I don’t want to give anything away, for those that haven’t seen it yet, but it is a very risky move and I really dug it. It’s so dark and haunting that it overall works.
The only complaints that I have are that it feels a bit choppy, as if there are some moments cut from the final version we saw in theaters. I also wish Jud and the Creed’s relationship was better fleshed out like it was in the novel.
Overall, I think it was one hell of a film adaptation, with incredible performances (much better than what we had from the original film), and a score from Christopher Young (composer for Drag Me To Hell, Hellraiser and Sinister) that will get stuck in fans’ heads, but not as iconic as the original score from Elliot Goldenthal. I highly recommend horror fans and Stephen King fans not miss this film in theaters, and to ignore the complaints it has been getting just because this new film made some changes. It’s a great adaptation that I think will be talked about for years to come.
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