Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
Cast: Jason Clarke, Amy Seimetz, John Lithgow, Jete Laurence, Hugo Lavoie, Lucas Lavoie, Obassa Ahmed, Alyssa Brooke Levine, Maria Herrera, Frank Schorpion, Linda E. Smith, Sonia Maria Chirila.
Fashion may come and go with ease; the popular movements soon give way to the unmistakable surge in new wave and the cycle repeats in perpetuity. It seems though, and for all the time that he has been credited as being the greatest horror writer in American history, that fashion via the medium of film and television is finally understanding just how powerful the name Stephen King is when his work is adapted with him in mind.
There have been false dawns before, Misery with James Caan and Kathy Bates was an insightful and often brutal representation of the horror master’s work, Christine was edifying, as was Salem’s Lot, The Tommyknockers and the Tim Curry version of It, however it seems it is only in recent years that the true extent of the man’s work has really become appreciated, an especially perplexing conundrum considering that the films and television series are being devoured by a generation that wasn’t yet born when novels such as Insomnia, Rose Madder and Needful Things were being written.
It is in the remaking, the reimagining of past efforts that arguably the true sense of Stephen King’s earlier books have taken root in the sub conscious of a generation that has been betrayed by a more modern American ethic and which has been seized upon by the wider film world. There is no denying just how seismic the 2018/19 two-part remake of It was, captivating a new sense of horror whilst retaining the virtue of the novel, the salivating thought of a more up to date approach to The Stand, The Tommyknockers and The Dark Half to come, it must stand in excellent shape that one of the most frightening tales of terror in Mr. King’s arsenal Pet Sematary has come back to haunt the dreams of those that dare cross paths with the beyond.
It is to the direction of the film by Kevin Kolsch and Dennis Widmyer should receive endearing and positive praise and to the actors John Lithgow as Jud and the excellent interpretation of youthful anger portrayed by Jete Laurance as Louis and Rachel’s daughter, Ellie. It is in these twin pillars of the narrative, the older and informed and the subtext of bewitched Frankenstein like structure, that brings the film wonderfully and eerily to the very pulse of the viewer.
Horror is at its best when it employs innocence as a tool of devilry, when it openly instructs us to not dismiss the old ways of nature and the mysteries of the lands which once held a different belief; to that end, the 2019 version of Pet Semetary is a film of understanding consequence, of the maxim that you should accept that when someone is gone, to bring them back would be a mistake, no matter how much you miss them.
Brutal, eyes averting terror, Pet Semetary has sheer bite.
Ian D. Hall