Pet Sematary (1989)

Don't listen to the Hype. It's awful

Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

Based on a Stephen King book, "Pet Semetry" is a horror film that looks at death, desire, reanimation, and why you should never build on top of an ancient Indian burial ground. A young 2.4 family move into the country, the new house they move into is right next to a big and dangerous road. They learn from their new neighbour that the road is deadly and has killed lots of local resident's pets over the years, and as such there is a local cemetery that was built by kids for their pets. While the family, minus the father, are away for a holiday tragedy strikes and the family cat is killed. The young father takes the cat to "Pet Semetry" and buries him, little does he know about the magic and witchcraft sown deep into this ancient Indian burial ground. The cat is reanimated, but is not like his former self, instead of being a loving cat; he's now feral and vicious. These are only the beginning of the problems though. Film's made out of Stephen King book's don't/didn't always make the grade on the silver screen, a lot of them never captured the tension of his writing and the movie adaptions ended up a little cheesy. This film however managed to do well, and doesn't detract massively from the book. I remember watching it as a youngster in the 90's and it was quite frightening. Watching it back closer to the age of 40 yo I can say that he film still manages to hold its own. The reason for this is because it's a solid story. Rather than get too deep into scientific reasons for events, or the history of the location, or even what form evil is taking in the film - it's handled from the point of view of the young father - we don't learn any more than he does, we just have to go with it. Nowadays there would likely be an entire additional hour looking at why reanimation affects different people differently, and why the evil is there in the first place. Granted, the book does delve into some of these things a little to build the tension, but in the film, there just isn't enough time to do so while maintaining the pace of events. So handling it the way it was generally works. The casting and acting is good, the young father is played by Dale Midkiff and is generally believable throughout. Denise Crosby plays he wife and does well, although I've never really been a fan for some reason (she has limited expressions and emotions - sorry). Fred Gwynne is the narrator and neighbour and drives the film forward, his performance is really good actually - sometimes hard on the ears to understand due to the random accent, but he's a rock in this film. The real winner is Miko Hughes as Gage Creed, the youngest child. He seems to be play sweet and creepy real well - I can see why he went on to have a decent career beyond this. Fair enough his lines are a little staged early on, but the switch in persona he manages later makes up for the cheesiness of the opening performance he brings. All in all this is a decent film, I can see why it's been rated highly amongst reviewers and I concur with them for the most part. For me this gets a 7 out of 10 - It's an all-around decent horror film, with a mix of emotions on display, despite being nearly 30 years old it manages to not look dated and out of place.

This movie is not scary. It is just a lot of hype. I has an awful story line. It has an awful ending. Pet Sematary 2 is a lot better. Do not see this movie. Just see Pet Sematary 2. This a 4. Not a 6.6

I'm not sure if it is my age, or if it is that Hollywood has fresh run out of ideas but it feels as if they simply don't make films like this anymore. Okay, I would hardly call it the perfect film – far from it – but compared to a lot of the mind numbing films out there this film is simply superb. Basically it is the tragedy of a doctor who has moved out to the new England countryside, and it certainly is a tragedy – as one death after another haunts him we see him descend further and further into a madness rocked by grief until he commits a sin so horrendous that it ends in his death. I remember a teacher telling me that the sign of a good tragedy is when you want to scream out to the protagonist to stop but you are powerless and simply end up watching his (or her) descent.Basically he moves to this house and just down a path is a cemetery where pets are buried. He lives on a road that has trucks endlessly roaring down it, which is why there are so many pets buried in the place. However, when his daughter's cat is killed the neighbour shows him another place where if the dead are buried they return to life – but they are changed. The thing is that the dead basically want to stay dead, and when they are yanked out of that peaceful rest they are simply not happy at all – as is the case with the cat.However, grief makes people do stupid things – they simply don't think clearly, and in the throws of grief will lash out and attempt to change the past. The thing with the past is that it simply cannot be changed. Even though it may seem possible to make things right, the more we attempt to make them right, the worse things turn out, so when his life descends into a fit of despair he starts to make decisions that have enormous repercussions. The thing is that it isn't as if he is a bad person – far from it – he is just a normal man who has suffered a great loss, and seeing the opportunity to rectify it he does so, with horrendous consequences.The great thing about this film is that it is focused entirely on the protagonist – it is his story, and it is his descent. Okay, I haven't read the book, but it is something that I would want to attempt to do sometime in the future (if I am able to get my hands on a copy). Actually, I remember watching this film multiple times when I was much younger, so you could probably imagine my joy when I discovered that it was actually on television again.As I mentioned, it isn't a perfect movie, but it certainly ages well. Okay, the lack of modern technology, such as mobile phones, certainly stands out, but that isn't the biggest problem. In part it seems to descend into a slasher flick at the end, but I guess that is the purpose of the film. However, I certainly wouldn't call it a slasher flick, namely because such films have a group of protagonists being killed one by one, and that isn't the case here. However, since it does fall into the horror genre the film makers do make an attempt to ramp up the blood and gore, which isn't necessary at points.The other things that got me is that there seemed to be this friendly ghost – Pascal – but while he spends a lot of time apparently helping the wife, this seems to come to naught. In part he pops in and out to warn people, but in another sense he seems to be leading them, or at least the wife, to her death. The other thing is that he seems to haunt other characters, so I'm am not entirely sure of the nature, purpose, or even need of that particular character. However, for an older film, it is certainly one worth watching, even though it has probably drifted into the mists of history.

One thing i admire in this movie is the themes it attempts to explore, and even though i find those themes very intense and terrifying, this film just doesn't translate it in the correct way. Yes, its a film that does try to be good. You can tell that everyone involved with it did what they could to make a good movie. Unfortunately the result was way less than awe-inspiring.While i don't consider this to be a "bad film", it is very lacking. The direction is... okay. What disappointed me the most was its complete lack of suspense. The editing is sometimes very choppy and that doesn't help either when you are trying to build up tension. The other thing is the writing. Now, I am a Stephen King fan, but every time i see that he wrote a screenplay... i get sacred. Because both times I've gotten very excited about that, I've been let down. King does try to stay faithful to his novel by almost never straying from the original story-line, which i appreciated, but some of it just doesn't translate to film that well.In the end, this is a perfectly enjoyable one-time watch. And also i can understand if you love this movie, because it has very good guilty pleasure potential, but in my humble opinion, the film is sadly unremarkable. 5.5/10