|
Time has not been kind to Mary Lambert's adaptation of Stephen King’s Pet Sematary. Wait. Another lousy Stephen King movie, you ask? Big surprise, I know, as there are a ton of them. More so than there need be for source material that is so incredibly rich with rock and schlock. The novel is a classic from King. The film, while memorable for some late occurring nightmarish happenings, is sadly not as memorable.
To be fair to this twenty-three year old movie, I don’t take issue with the somewhat dated look of the film nor is there fault to be found with the performance of then five-year-old Miko Hughes as the scalpel-wielding baby turned psycho Gage. It’s in the rather uninspired direction from Lambert and the so-straight-it’s-boring performances from Dale Midkiff and Denise Crosby that lay waste to the continued appreciation of Pet Sematary.
Adapted by King himself, Pet Sematary is the supernatural tale of a doctor gone insane with grief after the death and resurrection of the family cat, Church, and, more importantly, his little boy. Moving always brings a nice change and for the Creeds moving from the city to the country is a nice change of pace for their once busy lives. Little do they know that living so close to a country highway could be so dangerous.
The Creed’s first taste of tragedy comes when a full-throttled diesel truck mows down the family cat. Prompted by his easy-going neighbor Jed (Fred Gwynne of television’s “The Munsters”), Dr. Louise Creed (Midkiff) buries the family cat within an Indian burial ground known to the locals as Pet Sematary. Soon, it returns. Of course, it’s not really of the same disposition as it was before; it smells and is viscously angry toward Louise.
Next in the supernatural burial ground is his son. When Gage is mercilessly taken out by another speeding semi-truck, Louise ignores Jed’s dire warning that “sometimes dead is better” and puts his son in Pet Sematary. And when he returns, his vengeance is paid at a costly price.
Lambert’s workmanlike direction undermines the rich visuals and emotion of King’s screenplay and plays it safe with a paint-by-numbers approach to movie making. So much for her creativity on display in her numerous music videos and debut. Her direction here is maybe too smooth and – outside of Gwynne’s sorrowful performance and Gage’s creepy post-mortem lines – leaves a lot to be desired.
All too soon this close-knit family falls apart and are shuttled away to Chicago. While King centered the script around emotional loss, the acting and rapid sequencing of events has that quality bubbling out as almost parody. The pre-resurrection scene where Gage’s coffin is tipped over by Louise and his arguing father-in-law is a bit too overdramatic. There’s also little sense of atmosphere that, in my opinion, is weird since we are dealing with a spooky old graveyard where the dead return to life.
Pet Sematary isn’t all bad and, perhaps just barely, there is enough twisted occurrences to keep it on this Halloween season. But it is material that is just dying to be brought back to life…
MPAA Rating: 
Add this page to your favorite Social Bookmarking websites
