The Creeds, Louis and Rachel and their young children, Ellie and Gage, move to rustic Maine and find out their property includes a creepy burial ground for pets, and behind that, an even creepier burial ground where the loved ones interred “come back,” as the Creeds’ avuncular neighbor, Jud, puts it. Louis and Jud try it out on the family’s killed-by-a-truck cat. That doesn’t work out well. Then other things don’t work out well.
King’s novel was adapted for the screen in 1989. Directed by Mary Lambert, that “Pet Sematary” was a squirrelly, wild-eyed movie. This version is more Hollywood smooth. It’s very well-acted by Jason Clarke, Amy Seimetz, John Lithgow and especially Jeté Laurence as young Ellie. Directors Kevin Kölsch and Dennis Widmyer, showing puzzling distrust of their strong source material, overload the movie with arbitrary jump scares. And they replace King’s despairing, tragic denouement with something altogether more glib.
But when they settle into a groove that aligns with the novel’s, the movie delivers great unsettling jolts that approximate the power of King’s vision. I also appreciate the respect and good taste of the filmmakers’ choice of closing song, a blistering Starcrawler cover of the Ramones’ theme from the original movie.
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Additional Information:
‘Pet Sematary’
Rated R. It’s ‘Pet Sematary.’ What did you think it would be rated?
Running time: 1 hour 41 minutes.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.