In 1983 the Stephen King novel “Pet Sematary” was published. King himself had kept the book locked away, considering it too disturbing for public consumption, only to produce it to fulfill a legal obligation to Doubleday. The book is something of a slow burn, heavy on atmosphere with a building sense of dread.

By contrast the movie Pet Sematary, made in 1989, was a visceral horror film that dove straight into jump scares and gore. Despite having a screenplay written by King himself the film lacked much of the atmosphere and sense of building dread from the novel. The question, then, for the new 2019 film is which direction will it go in? Will this be a more earnest attempt to capture the slow building atmosphere of the novel, or will this be another jump scare-fest created more to capitalize on the recent success of King’s It movie rather than being its own sincere work of artistic inspiration?

The answer turns out to be more of the latter than the former. This Pet Sematary, directed by Starry Eyes helmers Kevin Kölsch and Dennis Widmyer, immediately begins with imagery of a house with blood stained walls and then flashes back to tell a tale that effectively goes from one jump scare scene to the next.

In this respect, for someone hoping for a more faithful adaptation of the novel, the movie disappoints. It readily becomes apparent that this film was made in hopes of cashing in on It and that the studio is looking to take a similar approach to what worked for that movie, even though Pet Sematary is a very different story.

That being said, taken for what it is, this is an overall better movie than my (admittedly dated) memories of the one from 1989. It assembles a solid cast and finds some haunting locations to shoot in. It employees some unsettling special effects work and manages to set up some genuinely suspenseful moments. I found the changes from the book to be welcome, as they upended some of my surety as to what was coming. While I did think any sense of real terror fell apart at the end, as the violence became simply too over the top to be scary, the movie still managed to entertain.

In total, despite its shortcomings, Pet Sematary still manages to make for a fun night at the movies with a few truly eerie moments. As an adaptation of the novel it disappoints, unable to capture the lingering feeling of fear and dread, but as a Saturday night diversion it isn’t bad.

Rating: Three out of five stars

Based on the seminal horror novel by Stephen King, Pet Sematary follows Dr. Louis Creed (Jason Clarke), who, after relocating with his wife Rachel (Amy Seimetz) and their two young children from Boston to rural Maine, discovers a mysterious burial ground hidden deep in the woods near the family’s new home. When tragedy strikes, Louis turns to his unusual neighbor, Jud Crandall (John Lithgow), setting off a perilous chain reaction that unleashes an unfathomable evil with horrific consequences.

Cast: Jason Clarke, Amy Seimetz, Jeté Laurence, Hugo & Lucas Lavoie and John Lithgow
Director: Kevin Kölsch & Dennis Widmyer
Screenplay by Jeff Buhler
Screen Story by Matt Greenberg
Based on the novel by Stephen King