After Pennywise decimated the box office back in 2017, you knew it was only a matter of time before Stephen King's vault of horror was raided once again by Hollywood. And while the original Pet Sematary was certainly better than most 80's adaptations of King's work, I definitely saw room for improvement with a modern update. It seems fitting however, that Pet Sematary would have been better off not being brought back at all.
I really feel for Jason Clarke, the guy deserves to be Hollywood's next big breakout star but his current run of Child 44, Terminator Genisys, Winchester, Serenity, and now this - really call his judgement on picking scripts into question. But as was the case in those films, he stands out regardless, with a great performance in an otherwise disappointing outing. Amy Seimetz and John Lithgow are just as remarkable in their supporting roles which make this feel more like a high end drama than the schlocky horror film it devolves into during the final act.
Which overall leads to one of the film's biggest issues - the tone. Stephen King stories are hardly ever distilled down to straight horror and yet somehow resonate among the scariest of the genre. The incredibly grounded and dramatic build of the first half of this film, elevates it to King's more involved level of suspense but it never quite figures out how to intertwine the horror elements in a way that doesn't cheapen the atmosphere it's built.
The story itself definitely has enough to keep the viewer engaged, with the religious parallels drawn by Louis and the backstory of Rachel's sister, but the cliche horror elements like the creepy masked kids in the woods or Louis' vision of his dead patient feel incredibly out of place. So much so that it almost feels like something that would be added in a re-shoot to make it "scarier". But without the context and depth of everything else that's already built into the story, they stick out as if they were some sort of superimposed after thought.
But the biggest letdown is the finale, which really jumps off the deep end quite spectacularly. We're all watching and waiting for that truck to finally claim one of Louis' kids but in an unnecessary twist, this time it's not the toddler. Jeté Laurence, who plays the older sister, has to drudge up the whole 'scary little kid' horror trope that has been beaten to a bloody pulp for 20 years now. She's in no way threatening and turning her into an undead slasher villain, hell-bent on trying to murder the surviving members of her family, destroys all of the build up in the earlier parts of the film almost instantly. Imagine if Rosemary's Baby ended with 20 minutes of the baby hopping out of the crib and stalking down everyone in the apartment.
All of the subtext about mourning and death being just another part of life - all negated once the film becomes about a zombie daughter inexplicably determined to kill and re-animate her family. It was jarring to see it unravel so rapidly. But that's the issue with the slow build climax - once the action finally hits, it has to be be nearly flawless. And when your slow build climax is your film's biggest flaw - the audience feels like they just wasted 2 hours of their lives waiting for a payoff that never comes. Something that might have been seen as a minor flaw in a more eventful film, turns this movie into a total trainwreck.
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