"Pet Sematary" Movie Review
In Pet Sematary, Louis Creed played by Jason Clarke learns that there’s a place near his family’s new home that brings things back from the dead. So when one of his children dies from an unfortunate semi-truck accident, he attempts to bring them back using this mystical place.
As Louis carries his child up the dark and gloomy stone stairway leading to the “sour ground”, I hear something startling to my left in the theater…
Zzzzzzz. ZZZzzzzz.
The snoring of a fellow cinema patron resounds over the slow-brewing film score. Moviegoers in surrounding seats chuckle, not because falling asleep is a moviegoing faux pas, but because we all understand exactly why he did.
Pet Sematary tries hard to win viewers over with striking visuals and sleek cinematography. The problem, however, is that it suffers from a severe lack of suspense-building. A shell of Clark’s revived child terrorizes the family near the end, but blaring semi-trucks racing in and out of a scene provide most of the jump scares horror audiences desire. Besides that, the film’s pacing offers less life to its entertainment value than the sour ground offers to its resurrected subjects.
The result is a remake that makes for great horror trailers, posters, and marketing material…but not a great horror film. Like the movie’s semi’s, Pet Sematary chugs along from point A to point B, but it’s easy to imagine that maybe it should have considered a better route.
Acting and Casting - 1 | Visual Effects and Editing - 2 | Story and Message - 1 | Entertainment Value - 0 | Music Score and Soundtrack - 0 | Reviewer's Preference - 0 | What does this mean?