Pet Sematary (2019)

This entire post is full of spoilers because if I'm going to discuss this movie, I really want to be able to talk about everything I want to say. You've been warned. And anyway, it's not really like I can spoil anything worse than the trailer did before the movie's release, right?

I want to get to the most important points before getting into the actual movie. First off, forget anything you think you know because you've seen the original film. Next, for anyone who is highly sensitive to animal deaths, they do not show Church dying, but they do show his dead body. Personally, I am extremely sensitive to animal deaths and I was okay during the scene where Louis and Jud found him. Thankfully, they didn't focus on it too much. However, there is a scene where undead Church is eating a bird that's still alive and I hated it. It's very brief, but it's there. Lastly, The gore was disgusting and the movie is violent (no surprise there). I had to turn my head away from the TV a couple times. Less is more for me and I don't want or need to see it.

I had no intention of ever watching this movie because even though I enjoyed the original film, I disliked the book so much that it killed any desire I had to sit through this story again. But here I am anyway, watching a movie whose biggest plot twist was stupidly given away in the trailer. You know what though? I don't think that knowing ahead of time took away from how awful that scene, and everything after it, actually was. I was grateful for the 100 minute runtime, I don't think I could have handled more than that after the 16 hour audiobook. 100 minutes was the perfect length, the movie is fast paced and you're never really left waiting for something to happen.

If you want to know what Pet Sematary is about, here is the post I wrote about the book. Long story short, a family moves into a house on a busy road that trucks frequently travel on. Their cat is hit by one and their neighbor tells the father about a special location past the Pet Sematary, where if you bury something (or someone), they'll come back, though usually not the same as they were before. From there, everything goes very, very wrong. I don't want to elaborate on that, I've already talked about the plot in my post about the book, I want to talk about the movie now.

Parts of the film were extremely faithful to the novel (down to almost exact conversations, the bull, the war vet and the wendigo), while others were very different, most notably the "twist" where Ellie dies instead of Gage and the fact that everyone was much less annoying. I like that Ellie is the one who died this time around because at the end of the novel, Church and Gage teamed up to kill everyone, but Church was Ellie's cat and it makes more sense for them to work together. They're the ultimate duo and exhibited excellent teamwork in taking Jud out.

I really liked most of the characters (and the actors playing them) in this film. I found they made the characters so much more likable than they were in the original movie and the novel, especially Ellie. I won't lie, I almost cried when Ellie died. John Lithgow...I'm sorry. I have nothing against him personally, but I feel like the role of Jud was made for Fred Gwynne (I really missed his drawl) and I had a hard time watching someone else play him. As for Louis, he actually started off likable (I found him to be insufferable in the novel). But he really is just the absolute worst. I understand he's grieving, but he has no common sense and he's responsible for every bad thing that happens to his family. (You might argue that Jud is responsible, and maybe that's true, but you would think Louis would have learned his lesson after what happened with Church.) It's hard to sympathize with this man when all I want to do is yell at him.

The one good thing Louis did throughout this movie involved Church. (Again, this is probably arguable.) When Louis is about to put Church to sleep in the middle of his hissing and growling fit, Church begins to whine and purr, acting affectionate and making it impossible for Louis to go through with killing him. That is a smart, undead cat. Instead, Louis puts him in a cat carrier and drops him off in the middle of nowhere, telling him "Good luck." I was happy he couldn't go through with killing Church, but at the same time...Louis, you fool. This was really the beginning of the end and what sealed his daughter's fate.

Jumping ahead a bit, Ellie is dead (and then undead) and when Rachel finds out what Louis has done, she's horrified. Louis says, "Hug your daughter, Rach." She's completely panic stricken because she knows that thing is not her daughter. Rachel tries to reason with Louis that Church wasn't the same when he came back and Ellie isn't either, but Louis is in denial. He exclaims, "Let God take his own fucking kid!" which I'm pretty sure Ellie said in the novel (about a cat rather than a kid), and I just thought...You're an adult, Louis. Get it together. I felt absolutely awful for Rachel during this scene. I never liked her in the original movie or the novel, but I really liked her in the remake and my heart broke for her here. Especially knowing that a terrible fate was awaiting her.

And speaking of that...After being stabbed repeatedly by Ellie, Rachel tells Louis not to bury her in the "pet sematary," but he's selfish and stupid, and he does it anyway. And I was so happy that, without a doubt, she killed him at the end of the movie. The rest of the ending made me sick. The entire dead family, along with Church, walks up to the car Gage is waiting in and as the screen fades to black, you hear the door unlock.

There's an alternate ending that shows Ellie dragging Rachel (who isn't dead, yet) to the burial ground, with Louis following not far behind. Ellie tries to convince Louis to kill and bury his wife there, but he's learned from his mistakes and fights back. As he's about to kill Ellie, she pulls the same trick Church did earlier, pretending to be his little girl instead of the demon she really is, so, unfortunately for Rachel, she'll have to suffer the same fate as Church and Ellie. Louis and Ellie return home, where Gage is once again waiting in the car. Louis brings him inside, where they wait for Rachel to return. And she does. She walks up behind Louis, placing a hand on his shoulder (like she does in the novel), while Ellie puts her hand on his other shoulder and Church rubs against his leg. Gage is crying and Louis is as still as a corpse, which is appropriate because he'll probably be one soon. All I care about in either ending is Gage and it seems like he's screwed no matter what. I do think they made the right decision going with the other ending for the theatrical release because the alternate ending didn't pack the same punch.

There are several deleted and extended scenes, but most aren't worth noting as they don't add much to the overall plot.

Getting away from the story, the cinematography was beautiful. So were the locations. I believe they filmed in Canada, but it really looked like a New England town. I thought the soundtrack was well done, too, and very atmospheric. I almost didn't even notice it until I actually listened for it, but I like that it wasn't overt. Sometimes subtlety is better and I think it worked well in this case.

So what's the verdict? Well...Pet Sematary is just sad. And tragic. And disturbing. I don't remember the original affecting me the same way the remake did, but I watched that one when I was a kid and I think, as I've gotten older, it's become harder to accept movies like this as just works of fiction because I understand them better now and I always think, "What if?" (Before, they were a source of entertainment, now they're a window into every horrible thing that could happen to a person.) I think both films have positives and negatives to them, but if I had to choose which is better, surprisingly, I would have to pick the remake. Pet Sematary 2019 isn't a bad movie. I can't say I "liked" it because the things it deals with are so dark and I felt kind of broken by the end of it, but...It's not bad. It's something I definitely won't watch again (I can't handle it), but I don't regret watching it once.