Rating summary

Movie		2.5
Video		4.0
Audio		4.5
Extras		3.0
Overall		3.5

Pet Sematary Blu-ray Movie Review

Sometimes the original is better.

Reviewed by Martin Liebman June 27, 2019

Stephen King will tell anyone who asks that, of all his works, he finds Pet Sematary the most difficult and frightening of all his novels, the one that he believes pushed to far. That's a striking, stand-out thought from the man hailed as one of the great writers of human horror in literature history.

When I'm asked (as I frequently am) what I consider to be the most frightening book I've ever written, the answer I give comes easily and with no hesitation: Pet Sematary...It's the one I put in the drawer, thinking I had finally gone too far...I had gone too far in terms of my own personal feelings. Put simply, I was horrified by what I had written, and the conclusions I'd drawn. -- Stephen King, from the introduction to Pet Sematary (Nook edition).

Indeed, it’s a horrific story, on the surface and within its characters’ souls. It tells the tale of a physically broken family that attempts to mend from the outside rather than the inside following unspeakable tragedy. It’s a dark, deep work that explores crushed spirits and hope in something ungodly and practically otherworldly to find peace in the midst of pain and a return to normalcy where normalcy can no longer exist. The 1983 novel, as with many King tales, made its way to the screen in a successful and tonally and structurally honest 1989 film adaptation. Three decades later, Paramount and Directors Kevin Kölsch and Dennis Widmyer return to the world of Ludlow, Maine for another, updated take on King's frightening tale of physical, emotional, and spiritual destruction.

The Creed family -- father Louis (Jason Clarke), mother Rachel (Amy Seimetz), daughter Ellie (Jeté Laurence), and son Gage (Hugo & Lucas Lavoie) -- is moving from Boston to the small, idyllic town of Ludlow, Maine where Louis has taken a job as the chief physician at a university. The family’s new home rests on a beautiful piece of land against a seemingly tranquil forest on one side, but on the other is a highway where big-rig trucks hurtle down the road at dangerous speed. On Louis' first day on the job, a young man named Victor Pascow (Obssa Ahmed), bloodied and broken, is rushed into the hospital. Louis does his best to save the young man, but the wounds are too severe and he succumbs to his injuries. That night, Louis is haunted by visions of the recently deceased Victor leading him to the nearby Pet Sematary, as it is called, where local children bury their dead animals. Louis is warned that “the ground is sour.” When the family cat, Church, is killed by one of the trucks on the nearby highway, Louis’ kindly, elderly neighbor Jud Crandall (John Lithgow) takes Louis beyond a deadfall barrier separating the pet cemetery to another, older, darker, more horrific place. Church is buried in an old Indian burial ground and is resurrected, setting in motion a series of terrible events that will destroy the Creed family.

The 1989 film adaptation followed the novel very closely. It misses some of King’s critical exposition and a few quasi-key moments and revelations, but for time constraints and the differences in film and literary structure it’s a surprisingly close and robust adaptation. This 2019 version makes some wholesale changes but also folds in some plot elements and scenes missing from the original film adaptation, too, so it’s of value in its own right. This movie is certainly very dark and grisly -- of course it couldn’t be anything else -- but it’s also missing the gut-churning psychological horror that truly defines the tale. It feels more procedural than it does personal, and the reworked plot points don’t work any better than the long-established story and narrative cadence King and, later in film, Mary Lambert created.

Indeed, the movie’s problems are not simply its reworking of key plot points, whether they subjectively work or not. The film has a feel of generic construction and at times almost torturous genre contrivance, favoring bland cadence and stale imagery and execution and emotion rather than more profoundly exploring the consequential narrative elements of loss, fear, pain, and the human response to the unthinkable that defined the original, the movie and the novel both. Here, the film plays out with scenes appearing together in quick succession without allowing for much of the critical character breathing room. Church is dead very quickly after only some cursory background and world exploration and, while the film does a good job of recreating the deadfall and the dangerous, diseased land beyond the Pet Sematary, there’s very little feel for emotional draw and the terrors that exist there. Characters are reduced to stock figures and there’s never any feel for legitimate pull to them and the emotions they experience that drive the story. It’s all very makeshift, more concerned with creating scenes than telling a story, more concerned with introducing concepts rather than crafting honest human horror.

Pet Sematary Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Pet Sematary was shot on digital and comes to Blu-ray with a well-rounded, though not visually memorable or distinct, 1080p transfer. Low light interiors are very noisy and there are a few soft, hazy shots, such as in the 27-minute mark after Jud and Louis find Church dead on the side of the road. The image is otherwise in fine shape, featuring quality detailing and color throughout. Overall, it's a very capable image, failing to reach spectacle due to a fairly flat source, but core clothing and skin textures, natural woods, home accents, and the like are very sharp. Church's messy post-death hair maintains strong essential detailing, while some of the most impressively complex shots are close-ups of Jud, showing age spots and his nicotine-stained facial hair with impressive complexity. Colors enjoy good natural contrast, whether under bright sunny skies or under the shrouded, hazy darkness beyond the deadfall. The image offers everything from vibrant greens to dead grays and blacks with equal accuracy. Skin tones appear spot-on, blood is a brilliant red (with special note of Victor's face) and black levels are firm and steady. This is a quality all-around image from Paramount.

Pet Sematary Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Pet Sematary's Dolby Atmos soundtrack spans the range from quiet to intense. The track's first example of heavy weight comes as the family arrives at its new home and an Orinco truck greets them by powering across the stage from left to right with quick speed and rumbly intensity. The pet funeral procession enjoys solid depth to each bang on the drum, and several other deep and horrific sounds find similar low end push, full stage usage, and excellent clarity. The track folds in some impressive woodland atmospherics, amplified to be sure at times, particularly at night when Louis and Jud cross the deadfall to bury Church and, later, the former another. The overhead channels offer both general support and some discrete effects in chapter seven when Rachel hears noises above, fearing again her childhood trauma from her time with her malformed sister Zelda. Music enjoys good stage presence and clarity. Dialogue is well prioritized and detailed from a natural front-center location.

Pet Sematary Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

This Blu-ray release of Pet Sematary includes an alternate ending, deleted and extended scenes, and three featurettes. A DVD copy of the film and a digital copy code are included with purchase. This release ships with an embossed slipcover.

• Alternate Ending (1080p, 9:16).
• Deleted and Extended Scenes (1080p): Included are Daddy's Nervous Too (2:17), Your Kids are Lucky (1:53), I Wanted Her to Die (3:27), She Didn't Come Back the Same (3:44), It's Not Real (1:58), I'm Leaving in the Morning (1:11), and Did You Miss Me Judson? (1:43).
• Night Terrors (1080p) Scenes of three characters facing their fears. Included are Louis (1:40), Rachel (2:08), and Ellie (1:09).
• The Tale of Timmy Baterman (1080p, 3:04): Jud Crandall tells the tale of a boy killed in war and resurrected in the Micmac burying ground.
• Beyond the Deadfall (1080p): A four-part feature.
  
  
  • Chapter One: Resurrection (16:54): Cast and crew recall reading King's works, followed by a look at the process of bringing the tale back to the screen, including changes, moving on from the original, crafting a film for contemporary audiences, casting this film, performances, and more.
  • Chapter Two: The Final Resting Place (12:38): Shooting in Montreal, exploring specific locations, costumes, and creating the title locale.
  • Chapter Three: The Road to Sorrow (13:59): Training and working with cats, shooting on both sides of the deadfall and the locations created for the world beyond it, making the truck death scene, building the father-daughter relationship, and more.
  • Chapter Four: Death Comes Home (18:07): The perspective and themes of death in the story, "undead" makeup, Jeté Laurence's performance, keeping Zelda and Victor in the movie, Zelda makeup, on-the-fly changes on the set, and more.

Pet Sematary Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

2019's Pet Sematary is not a faithful recreation of the original King novel, and neither is it a particularly effective movie. It's adequate if it's anything, more alluring for witnessing whatever changes -- some big, some little -- have been made to the now-familiar tale rather than experiencing a deep-seeded story of inward sorrow and outward suffering. When I recently read the book -- after reviewing the 1989 film version's latest releases and before seeing this one -- there were times when I didn't want to turn the page, knowing what was coming and considering King's penchant for painting a horrible picture of physical and emotional brokenness. The book is superb, highly effective, and greatly affecting, the 1989 film is a very good recreation, and this one is merely there, in a way like some of the characters from the story, lingering about like a resurrected thing, a shell of itself, familiar yet somehow not at all whole. Paramount's Blu-ray is fine, however, featuring quality 1080p video, a strong Atmos soundtrack, and a handful of extras. Worth a look.