One picked by the missus for a pre Halloween movie night, it was my first time catching ‘Pet Sematary’ tonight and, while overall I quite enjoyed it. It is a film that isn’t without its problems.

While the plot itself is engaging, and I can imagine the novelisation of this is quite thrilling, it’s translation to film isn’t the smoothest in the world.

Clocking in at just shy of an hour and 45 minutes, it keeps a good pace primarily on its charismatic and engaging characters, but the plot itself does seem to run thin at several points throughout, with lots of repetition, padding and Jud saying the word ‘road’ to a frankly illegal level.

The tone is bleak with a slight dark comedy edge, which is fine, but there’s WAY too many continuity errors in this thing, or just…plot points that don’t entirely make logical or physical sense. With the ending in particular being a big problem for me as all rationale went out the window and the thing just became overly silly.

I also had some issues with the effects in this film…they’re kind of lame…a bit of white face paint and some ketchup is about as interesting as the general effects get, and even the bigger ‘showstoppers moments really haven’t aged as well as you’d think.

The direction and cine however are astounding, really rock solid, easily one of the nicer shot horror films of the back end of the 80s, with a genuine sense of suspense and thrill running through this thing. It’s stylish, well coloured and looks great!

Add to this the performances, which are also really rock solid and are genuinely the one thing that properly carries this movie through even the most questionable moments. They’re animate, charismatic use their set space well and really work with the props too.

All in all? While I really got on with the vibe this film was putting out (and I’m sure I’ll watch it again) the wobbly effects, combined with a lacklustre ending and plenty of padding kind of holds this back from really achieving its fullest potential. I’m sure many have strong nostalgia for this one, but as a first timer…while I can see the appeal, its flaws are quite pronounced.

Recommended if you’ve seen ‘the classics’ but not one worth rushing to in my opinion.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/pet-sematary/