Have you ever left by someone you love forever? If yes, did you think of a way to bring him/her back? And would you do it? Those questions are the main idea of the conflict at this adaptation movie. Based on a Stephen King’s novel, this movie in general answer the three questions and shows the impact of the selected answer to those who left by the dead.
Pet Sematary tells about Louis and his family who moved into a house at Ludlow. His land right also includes a mysterious land where his daughter, Ellie saw a group of kid carnival with strange masks onto it. The area turned out to be a cemetery for neighbourhood pet according to their neighbour, Jud. Since the sign is misspelled as Pet Sematary instead, they believed that the sign is written by kids. In addition, Jud warned Ellie not to trespass the woods at the cemetery. Strange things started to happen after Louis who worked as a doctor tried to save Pascow, a dying student who was struck, but he failed. Louis’ wife, Rachel also still had a nightmare due to the death of her sister when they were young.
Since the beginning, the movie has startled us by a fast-moving truck at the road of the town. The movie seemed want to show that the quiet road which seldom passed by a fast cars is definitely more dangerous than the traffic jam. Further, those fast vehicles would cause series of problems in the movie. One of the problem is the death of Church, the family’s cat pet that was struck at the road. Felt that Ellie is too young to know about death and a life after death, the parent decided not to tell the truth about Church. Further, Louis accept Jud’s offer to bury Church at the area beyond the woods on the Pet Sematary. Then, the cat was found resurrected but brought different aura at the following day. As a horror movie, this movie delivered quite startling jumpscares and mysteries which each of them seemed ran in parallel. However we’d see the correlation between the mysteries in the end. One of the scary aspect, the trauma suffered by Rachel seemed to be the least important horror aspect which could be eliminated. The movie should focus on less thrilling aspects at the proper order to achieve clearer storytelling. In this case, it could tell the death of Church first, then the struck student who Louis met at his dream on the following day. Then, the movie might continue telling the strange things caused by the resurrected cat, including the most important plot, Ellie’s accident.
The movie has only few casts and it’s effective to deliver the main horror and its cause and effect of the movie. It tells the origin of the Sematary quite clear via Jud’s background and character. Now, it’s clear why the poster said “sometimes dead is better” as its slogan. However the movie didn’t explain the way to stop the terror as hinted by Jud at the near end and made the story seemed incomplete. The youngest son, Gage, not only designated to be the lovable toddler in the movie. As the second show stealer, Gage made Louis and Rachel recognised Pascow’s message and made crucial appearance at the end of the movie. Pascow’s spirit itself later is revealed to warn Louis about the Pet Sematary which its ground technically belongs to him after Louis’ kindness when trying to save his life. If Gage is the second show stealer, then the first must be Church. If Captain Marvel has Goose as the adorable pet, this movie has Church which be the key role to the plots of the movie.
In short, the movie seemed not focus on the main terror the story wanted to bring. It also could be a more complete horror movie if the movie has an alternative for its tragic ending. Hence I rated this movie 5 of 10.
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