Pet Sematary (1989) Review

Pet Sematary (1989) Review

Pet Sematary is about a family who moves in to a new house along a busy highway with big trucks always speeding past, and down a path across the road is a cemetery for all the pets that have died along it over the years, but behind that is an ancient Indian burial site where the “ground is sour” and dead things come back to life if buried there, only they aren’t quite the same when they come back.

Stephen King wrote the screenplay (based on his own novel) and briefly cameos as a priest at one of the funerals. It’s not a goofy role, like in Creepshow or Maximum Overdrive, it’s serious, which is fitting, because though you can tell the filmmakers had fun making Pet Sematary, it’s still a grim horror movie, and explores themes of death and the afterlife.  

It begins with eerie footage of the “Pet Sematary” (misspelt because it was young kids who came up with it) and establishes a haunting atmosphere that’s present from beginning to end. It almost feels like a classic Universal horror movie at times, with the fog creeping in and long shadows on everything. Two other elements that contribute greatly to the atmosphere of the movie are the music and sound effects. Both stand out in a really strong way, but that’s only the beginning of what makes this movie scary. 

It starts off innocent enough. We find out the husband/father is the new doctor in town, and he gets visited by the gruesome ghost of one of his patients, his head ripped open and brain exposed. The makeup effects are really well done here, as they are throughout—there’s nothing overly extreme, it’s just all smartly executed. The one major complaint I have is the actor doesn’t give a very good performance as the father. He’s mostly stone-faced and monotone the whole time, but the movie is strong enough on all other fronts that it didn’t ruin the experience for me, but having a better actor in this main role would’ve been a huge improvement. 

The rest of the acting is solid. The kids in particular do a pretty good job, especially given some of the dialogue and subject matter, but the younger kid who plays Gage is the standout. He seems so cute at first, but toward the end of the movie, becomes the total opposite. I’d definitely rank him among the scariest kids in horror movies. What makes it even more unsettling is he’s so young and so small, he barely can speak, but has this tiny little voice that just goes right through you, so when he does speak, it’s really unsettling. 

I have to give a shout-out to the cat, too, named Church. It was a very well-trained cat, and there’s a moment at the end where I wasn’t sure at first if it was the real cat or a prop one. The family’s elderly neighbour Judd Crandall is also a good character, and is the one who shows the father the cemetery and the burial ground. At first I wasn’t sure if he was a good guy or bad guy, but the family accepts him and he turns out to be one of the least threatening things around.  

 

What’s kind of funny is, while the movie is called Pet Sematary, no pets (or people) actually get buried there. In fact, they only go there once. After Church dies, they bypass it and go straight for the Indian burial ground. Church returns from the dead, and he’s all pissed off and stinky and has shiny eyes, but the father doesn’t really take note, until he has a bath and Church drops a dead rat in the tub. I hate rats, and this is one of three major moments that made my skin crawl.  

Flashbacks are used effectively at several points that both flesh out characters (the mother in particular) and move the story forward, instead of feeling cheap. The scares, too, are earned, and varied. There’s a sequence where the corpse with the head wound talks to the father, and it’s not clear if it’s a dream or real, even as he wakes up in bed the next day. Then he pulls back the covers and finds his feet covered in mud, revealing the truth. Why he didn’t mention this to his wife is a bit odd but forgivable. 

It’s also a little weird how the father just agrees to bury Church at the burial ground and follow the neighbour all the way out there, but I sort of just accepted it once again. Later, after the son is killed by a truck (yeah, this movie has the balls to kill a little kid!) the father has pretty much lost it, so at this point it’s believable that he’d think to bury the kid there in an attempt to bring him back. But, of course, this is like, the worst idea ever, and makes for a tension-filled final act. 

At the expense of sounding cheesy, I'll say Pet Sematary is a spooky good-time. It’s atmospheric, with a balance of old-school scares and gory moments, and there are several scenes that are sure to get under your skin. If the lesson hasn’t already been learned from Poltergeist, let Pet Sematary confirm that Indian burial grounds are not places to mess around in.