The trouble with Stephen King’s literary works is that, although they’re superb and masterfully written, they’re not so easy to adapt into films. Out of more than seventy attempts, barely a dozen of his novels made a successful leap from the page and onto the screen. It takes more than a skilled team of directors, editors, production designers, cinematographers, and more to make something bearing King’s signature work. A good screenplay is usually the starting point, and if it wobbles before it takes off, chances are that it will disappoint.

Who could ever forget Brian De Palma’s ‘Carrie’ (1978), David Cronenberg’s ‘The Dead Zone’ (1983), Frank Darabont’s ‘The Shawshank Redemption’ (1994) and ‘The Green Mile’ (1999), or Stanley Kubrick’s now-iconic ‘The Shining’ (1980)? What about the more recent ‘It’ (2018) remake by Andy Muskietti or the ‘Mr Mercedes’ (2017) TV series by David E. Kelley? Clearly, it can be done.

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That being said, ‘Pet Sematary’, the second adaptation of King’s darkest novel, while beautiful in its commercial delivery as a horror-genre darling, fails to deliver the very core of what made the story so enticing, in the first place. 

Perhaps the problem stems from having two directors, one might be tempted to assume. Two visions that maybe matched in pre-production but struggled to stay in perfect synergy along the way. It does feel like there are two movies collaborating and clashing at the same time, made compact over the course of one hour and forty-one minutes. The first wishes to honour Mr King’s novel, while the other tries too hard to please a much wider audience. Kevin Kölsch and Dennis Widmyer, both of ‘Starry Eyes’ (2014) fame, took on the challenge to redo ‘Pet Sematary’ after its first cinematic execution in 1989. Some would’ve thought it easy to go above Mary Lambert’s directorial work, but, as this year’s revival proves, it is anything but.

Or maybe the problem is rooted much deeper, in the writing. The screenplay was penned by Jeff Buhler, best known for ‘The Midnight Meat Train’ (2008) and the ‘Nightflyers’ (2018) TV series. The expectations were high for ‘Pet Sematary’, especially since this wasn’t his first foray into novel adaptations—as clearly evidenced by ‘Nightflyers’, which was quite impressively done. But something is missing. ‘Pet Sematary’ is a loving tribute paid to the master of horror, no doubt. It follows most of the original story, but it isn’t enough. There is simply too much plot and very little attention paid to the characters, their relationships, and what makes the viewers suffer when they inevitably die.

Maybe Hollywood is just generally terrible at doing justice to the source material of Stephen King. After all, Mr King cannot be blamed, for his stories are legendary, most of them bestsellers all over the world, forever loved and prized by readers, young and old alike. There is a timelessness to his horror tales, and it does not stem from cheap thrills and sudden scares. It’s the characters. It was always about the characters.

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For those who haven’t read the book, ‘Pet Sematary’ will come across as a decent horror movie with a truly dark and difficult theme. After all, if there’s one thing humans are bad at, it’s dealing with death and its aftermath. ‘Sometimes dead is better’, says Jud Crandall, and that’s what our protagonist, Dr Louis Creed, has trouble with.

‘Pet Sematary’ follows Louis and his family as they move into a new house on the side of a busy Maine road, known to be dangerous because of the many speeding trucks. At the back of the house, a thick forest unravels, complete with a pet cemetery used by the local kids to bury their beloved pets, and an ancient Native American burial ground, hidden farther back. Ellie, Louis and Rachel’s eight-year-old girl, is the beaming object of their affection, followed closely by two-year-old Gage. A Maine coon named Church completes this endearing picture, and it’s the cat’s tragic death that kickstarts the horror of King’s story. We follow Louis as he is first shaken but enticed by what the ‘sour dirt’ does—namely, the ancient burial ground behind the pet cemetery revives the cat. But Church doesn’t come back the same, leaving Louis doubtful as to whether he made the right choice. It’s quite obvious he didn’t.

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Of course, and as expected from a mind like Mr King’s, Louis’s beliefs and strength are put to the test again when Ellie is killed by one of the rolling trucks. His grief makes him do the unthinkable, and the end result is as one would expect: darkness, violence, and terror, with a smidge of old-fashioned horror-trope gore and a plethora of fake-scares. The viewer is dragged through the plot, which is just layer upon layer of tension-building and predictable artifices, all the way to the end, where the concept of ‘Sometimes dead is better’ is brutally replaced with an unnecessary twist.

From a screenwriting point of view, two major changes were made to the original story—in this second version of ‘Pet Sematary’, Ellie is the one who is killed and foolishly resurrected, not Gage. The end is certainly not what Mr King offered to his readers, either. The former was understandable, not only because of the complicated logistics of working with a toddler-zombie, but also because it opened up a realm of possibilities for Ellie’s character, superbly played by Jeté Laurence. The latter, however, has a lot of King fans polarized, and for good reason. We’re all asking the same question: what was the point? What was so underwhelming about the original ending that prompted Jeff Buhler to twist it beyond recognition? Not only is it pointless, but it also defeats the entire theme of the story, which is all about grieving and the unwillingness to accept or deal with death.

Louis and Jud’s relationship is practically ignored. That is probably the screenwriter’s biggest mistake. Without it, even the dynamic between Jud and Ellie is difficult to swallow, much like a bitter pill. The viewer has a hard time accepting Jud’s decision to show Louis where to bury Church, in the first place. The characters are simply spread thin, like butter over too much bread, and it is a shame, because there is still so much potential in this reboot.

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For example, the cinematography is outstanding. Laurie Rose, best known for her work in ‘Peaky Blinders’ (2016), does an exquisite job of playing with tight and wide shots, weaving them into a smooth canvas that commands the viewer’s attention. The characters, whilst lacking in development, are given room to breathe, or suffocated entirely when overcome by crippling fear. The panoramic views of Maine’s countryside are not easily forgotten, either. And let us praise almost every frame of Church, coming across as feral, fearsome, and with an untold plan long before Ellie.

The production design, helmed by Todd Cherniawski, further enhances the cinematography through its costume and set design. Having worked on major projects such as ‘Avatar’ (2009), ‘Star Trek: Discovery’ (2017), and ‘Star Wars: Episode VIII’ (2017), it is no wonder that Cherniawski was able to faithfully reproduce Mr King’s Mainestravaganza in impeccable detail. Every corner of Louis and Jud’s houses is a physical manifestation of the novel. The children’s masks, the way the pet cemetery headstones are displayed, the gritty overall vibe—they all serve to anchor the viewer deep inside the story, filling in for the screenplay’s emotional gaps.

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Another noteworthy aspect of ‘Pet Sematary’ is the sound editing. Crisp and sharp enough to cut through flesh like stretched filament wire, and accompanied by Christopher Young’s skin-prickling score, the sound is a sterling method to deliver good old-fashioned scares, of which there are plenty. While loyal to the thriller and horror genre, it is commanding, cold and in wicked correspondence with the film’s cinematography and design.

Production quality aside, however, what truly carries ‘Pet Sematary’ and stops it from causing too much anger or discomfort to its viewers—many of whom are likely King aficionados, is the actors’ performance. Aside from Jeté Laurence’s portrayal of Ellie, before and after death, Jason Clarke is startling and heart-breaking in his performance. Instrumental as the main protagonist, Clarke’s Louis Creed is a father we can all understand. He’ll do whatever he can to make his daughter happy, to keep her from getting hurt, and, eventually, to send her back where she should’ve never been taken from, to begin with: her grave.

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John Lithgow jumps out with his interpretation of Jud Crandall, a father figure to Louis in the novel but merely an almost-friend in the film. Lithgow’s thespian talents are beyond reproach, and it’s almost gut-wrenching to think of the relationships that could’ve been explored between him, Louis, Ellie, Rachel, and Norma—who doesn’t even get a second’s worth of screen time, since she’s already dead when the movie begins. Even Amy Seimetz’s Rachel Creed feels incomplete, though the directors did spend some precious moments delving into her childhood trauma regarding her sister, Zelda.

The actors were exceptional and crucial pieces to an otherwise lacking story. Unfortunately, they weren’t enough to save ‘Pet Sematary’ from some truly scathing reviews from both critics and viewers. There is only so much a team of film professionals can do, when they have insufficient material to work with. Nevertheless, the final product is good, somewhat superior to the 1989 version, for sure. But it does not hold a candle to the book, and that is the risk that every filmmaker takes when adapting a story for the screen.

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Past the praiseworthy cinematography, production design, sound editing, and the actors’ poignant delivery, ‘Pet Sematary’ feels like forced horror, perhaps too commercial for what the source material intended.

There was too much effort put into making it palatable for a mainstream audience of the aforementioned genre, and not enough attention paid to all the bits and pieces, all the threads and trinkets so carefully sculpted into the original story. 

‘Pet Sematary’ promised a lot, even through its trailer. It didn’t exceed expectations. It didn’t really meet them, either. After two endeavours, one can’t help but wonder: is the novel impossible to adapt into a feature film on a level of, say, ‘Carrie’ or ‘It’, or are we better off thinking that maybe the third time, another thirty years from now, will be a charm?