SXSW 2019 review: Pet Sematary is a terrifying new take on the Stephen King classic

This review contains minor spoilers for Pet Sematary (nothing more than the trailer reveals).

Stephen King has admitted that his 1983 novel Pet Sematary scared him so much in the writing process that at one point he locked up the manuscript in an attempt to drive it from his mind. That apprehension makes sense, given that the novel deals with how the death of a loved one can tear a family apart, a universal fear that King pushes to the extreme in his terrifying novel.

Pet Sematary first made its way to the screen with director Mary Lambert’s 1989 film, which remains one of the most successful King adaptations to date (especially in the unsettling portrayal of the ravaged Zelda, the sister of Rachel Creed, the matriarch of the tragic family at the heart of the story).

Now comes the inevitable “reimaging” of King’s classic story, a proposition that carries a lot of weight when it comes to one of King’s best novels, and one of the best cinematic takes on his material.

Directed by Kevin Kölsch and Dennis Widmyer (Starry Eyes), this new version of Pet Sematary retains the tragic themes at the heart of King’s novel, while building out that world in a number of surprising and welcome ways.

As the film opens, Louis Creed (Jason Clarke) and his wife Rachel (Amy Seimetz) have just moved from Boston to a small town in Rural Maine with their children Ellie (Jeté Laurence) and Gage (twins Hugo Lavoie and Lucas Lavoie). Louis has taken a job as a doctor at a local college, in the hopes of living a simpler life with his family.

That tranquil existence is soon shattered when a young man named Victor Pascow (Obssa Ahmed) is brought in to Louis’ office with life-threatening injuries after getting hit by a car. Victor gives Louis a vague, supernatural-tinged warning before he dies, which sets off a series of devastating events for the entire Creed family.

The Creed’s new residence is a beautiful country home, but is located right next to a busy highway, with large transport trucks screaming by day and night. One of those trucks eventually runs over the family’s beloved cat Church, which leads their grizzled neighbour Jud Crandall (John Lithgow) to suggest that Louis bury the cat beyond the pet sematary at the back of the Creed’s property (originally misspelled by the children who established the cemetery to mourn their pets).

Those familiar with the book or Lambert’s film know what comes next – Church returns the next day, but he is different. Apart from looking like he just crawled out of a grave (which he did), Church is suddenly vicious, lashing out so violently that Louis brings him to the edge of town and sets him free.

Shortly thereafter, the ubiquitous transport trucks claim another victim, when one runs off the road and kills Ellie as she is trying to lure Church back to their home. Kölsch and Widmyer stage this scene in a way that’s reminiscent of the shocking death scene in last year’s Hereditary – dealing with the death of a minor is a delicate and brutal act, and the scene is heart stopping in its intensity. It also deviates from the novel and initial film, where the younger Gage was the one killed by a truck. Devastated by the loss of his daughter, Louis decides to bury her in the “pet sematary,” in a desperate attempt to bring her back, which needless to say, does not go according to plan.

That crucial change (clearly shown in the trailer, so not really much of a spoiler) pushes the film into a number of new and completely unexpected directions. It shows that Kölsch and Widmyer, working with a script from Jeff Buhler, have really thought out their approach to this material, and how to make it even more meaningful. She is the one who questions her parents about mortality, so her death (and resurrection) land with a much deeper visceral impact than Gage’s death in the 1989 film. It also means that as an older actress, Jeté Laurence can imbue Ellie with a much deeper performance than any infant could ever provide, and her remarkable dual role here is equal parts heartbreaking and terrifying.

Throughout Pet Sematary, Kölsch and Widmyer play with the audience’s expectations — they assume that we’re familiar with the first film, and tease a number of beats that either play out differently than we expect (many of which got big bursts of nervous laughter at the premiere), or are deviated from completely.

The first half of the film basically follows the beats of the 1989 version, but after Ellie’s unexpected death the film branches out into a number of new directions, which makes for an exciting viewing experience for those of us who’ve become so familiar with the original story beats.

While it was sort of eerie to see young Gage turn bad in the original film, there is something inherently silly about a toddler running around with a scalpel. There is no sort of goofiness surrounding Ellie’s return here – this is true dread, and her confrontations with her family following her “return,” (especially in the heartbreaking scenes with her mother) land so much harder than anything in Lambert’s film. This film doesn’t treat Ellie as simply a resurrected villain – it plays on the fact that Louis and Rachel each react differently to the return of their daughter, and what follows packs an emotional punch that is pretty surprising for a mainstream horror movie.

Stephen King’s work has been notoriously difficult to bring to the screen, with the original Pet Sematary being one of the better adaptations, but this new version is one of best translations of King’s vision that we have ever seen. Kölsch and Widmyer nail down the heartbreak of grief, and how the loss of a loved one can drive a person to unspeakable acts, fears that are only accentuated by the pure supernatural terror of what transpires in the actual “pet sematary.”

The film gets the eerie and inexplicably primal pull of the afterlife in a truly disturbing way, while managing to inject a much-needed dose of dark humour to balance out the horrors that transpire. The performances are strong across the board, and the fog-drenched visuals and Christopher Young’s eerie score combine to sustain the tension throughout.

Pet Sematary is legitimately frightening, deeply unsettling, and often laugh out-loud funny. It’s the rare film that truly understands the appeal of classic Stephen King, and embraces the deep primal fear of death that is interwoven through all of the best horror stories. Pet Sematary respects the essence of the original, and updates it in a number of welcome new ways, making this one of the best King adaptations yet.

Pet Sematary is in theatres April 5, 2019.