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So I saw Pet Sematary in theaters a few days back, and I’ve gotta say, I was deeply, deeply disappointed. While I love the 1989 film about as much as I love the book, with the screenplay for the film being one of the only good screenplays written by King himself, it was admittedly in dire need of an upgrade. From Louis Creed’s hilarious line delivery, to the obvious switching to a Chucky-style doll during certain scenes with Gage, to the cinematography, the problems with the 1989 version of the flick were only in execution. The story could have been kept entirely the same (with a more ambiguous, book accurate ending), and it could have been an amazing remake. But instead, we got a very disappointing film.

First, I’ll go over what I liked. The cinematography, while gray, was still pretty creative at times in terms of camera movement. All the actors do a pretty good job for the most part, however, Ellie only does a good job after she dies. The practical effects were all pretty amazing, even though Ellie could have used a little more rot. The score is also pretty memorable and interesting. Surprisingly, the movie makes a few changes to the source material I actually really welcome. For example, the Zelda storyline is changed up in a way where it makes more sense why Rachel’s feeling of disgust towards Zelda added to her guilt by making Zelda’s death directly involve Rachel’s reluctance to interact with her. The Zelda flashbacks also have very creative transitions. However, those are all the praises I can really sing for this movie.

The writing is the most noticeable flaw with this movie. The characters never once talk like real people, they simplify story concepts way too often (for example, Rachel’s feelings of guilt in the first place are barely explored), and the movie brings up it’s themes of coping with death and loss in the most amazingly ham-fisted and basic ways possible. After Ellie asks about what will happen when Church dies, Rachel and Louis share a conversation IN PRIVATE about whether or not they believe in the afterlife. The movie quite literally decides it’s going to directly tell the audience that the character who is a surgeon doesn’t believe in the afterlife. Keep in mind, this isn’t really written into any other aspects of his character. I really don’t think these writers passed Screenwriting 101.

But on the other hand, the movie also has a recurring tendency to forget to write about the themes of the story altogether. For example, Pascow is criminally underused in this movie. You may remember in the original movie, Pascow was extremely important, as he spent his screen time trying to stop Louis from trying to cross the barrier between life and death, so Louis can learn to accept death. However, Remake Pascow is the most vague, boring, cookie-cutter horror movie ghost you can imagine, complete with never explaining what he means, and not influencing the events around him. Pascow also doesn’t appear at all during the ending. The writers genuinely don’t understand the importance he serves to the themes of the story. But his underuse is the least of this movie’s problems.

Now, I don’t have a problem with just the concept of changing things from book/old movie to movie. It’s necessary at times, and this remake has some welcome changes up it’s sleeve. However, this movie is almost entirely full of unnecessary changes that make the movie worse in one way or another. The first one I want to talk about is the decision to have Ellie be killed on the road rather than Gage. This is something that was explicitly revealed in the trailer to anyone who remembers the original story, and what’s worse? They extensively spoke about this major plot point in the film industry press surrounding the movie before release. I get that the trailer thing is a topic for a separate nerd tirade, but I can’t describe how stupid it was of these producers to talk about such a big change pre-release. Even though it’s a remake, it’s kind of alienating to movie-goers who don’t know the classic Pet Sematary story somehow. The filmmakers extensively spoke about how they made the change so that the resurrected child could be bigger and more threatening, though I think they were too weak to give us the true depressing movie we came here to watch. Because I guess movie audiences are somehow more emotional than they were 30 years ago? Comparing this attitude to how they actually put the scene together, it looks more like they were trying to pull an ol’ switcharoo on the people who know the story. Which begs the question: WHY ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT IT IN PLACES WHERE POTENTIAL MOVIE VIEWERS CAN SEE IT??

Another huge issue I have with this movie is how fucking seriously it takes itself. The original had a very light sheen of comedy to it, think something similar to An American Werewolf in London. This is extremely prevalent in the scenes involving Pascow, where he casually stands around the afterlife, contrasting against everything and everyone as a walking corpse that nobody can see. The remake genuinely lacks all intentional comedy, which makes it really really hard to actually remember the experience, or care about it. It also ends up making certain parts of the movie unintentionally funny. For example, during the scene where Louis does his internet research on the Pet Sematary, he finds a fucking newspaper clipping about a literal fucking bison being implied to have been buried in and resurrected by the Pet Sematary. I subsequently chuckled out loud in the theater, as my mind was crossed with the mental image of a grieving child lugging an entire bison to the Pet Sematary, and struggling to find a place to bury it in the already cramped cemetery.

The editing and scene pacing is legitimately the most stereotypical modern horror film schlock ever put to screen. Firstly, jumpscares are all over this film, and it’s not a look. From the Orinco trucks, to Zelda in the dumbwaiter, to Church, everything in the film is given a loud THUD effect to accompany it, and I was supplied with many Silent Hill: Revelation 3D pop-tart jumpscare flashbacks through it’s run-time. The placement of the THUDs at times felt like watching one of my Spooky Guys episodes. Again, back to Pascow being utterly useless in the story, he instead spends this film being relegated to “look at me, I’m vague and say 3 spooky sentences I repeat over and over and I’m in a modern horror film and that’s my whole character I’m scary I say stuff about ghosts and death”.

Now here’s the big one. The ending. The ending is genuinely the worst thing about the entire film. Here’s a basic summary from what I remember. So Louis buries his dead daughter and waits for her to come back as his family tries to contact him, while Gage is troubled by visions of Pascow (who does nothing of note through the whole story). Ellie comes back and catches on to the fact that she died, but Louis denies that and gives her a bath. Jud goes over and suspects that Louis has brought Ellie back from the grave, and Ellie gets mad about it and kills Jud. Rachel and Gage arrive back at the house after Louis stops returning their calls, and Rachel is greeted by an undead Ellie. Ellie thinks that Rachel doesn’t want her around anymore, and tries to kill her, Gage, and Louis. Rachel manages to allow Gage and Louis to escape, but she’s impaled and buried by Ellie. Louis puts Gage in the car and tells him to not open the door for anyone, not even Ellie. Louis faces off with Ellie in the Pet Sematary, before being killed by the now resurrected Rachel. Rachel and Ellie resurrect Louis, and for some reason unlike Ellie, Louis and Rachel are big dumb traditional zombies. At daybreak, they approach the car with a can of gasoline, having burned down Jud’s house. However, instead, they decide to unlock the car for Gage. I have a lot to say about this.

First off, this ending is fucking weak compared to the original ending. In the original film, the process of Louis killing Gage with the lethal injection is so indescribably heart-breaking. It’s actually a high point for the actor’s performance, and he definitely sells the sheer emotion of the scene. The remake’s ending definitely suffers from how frequently it fails to actually capture the emotion of the original story and film. With that, let’s just say, this movie is the prime example of why horror movies with dead protagonists fail so often. If you aren’t both careful and skilled, killing your protagonist can result in your protagonist’s character arc not being fulfilled or completed. The original Pet Sematary story has a very strong and compelling character arc for Louis. In the final scenes of the original film, after Louis has begrudgingly put down Church and Gage, and has burned Jud’s house down, he carries Rachel’s corpse with him. Pascow tries to get him to no longer try and cross the barrier between life and death, and that he needs to let go of those he loves. He needs to learn to cope with death, and understand that dead is better. Louis, however, doesn’t listen, and finds a reason to think it’ll be different this time: because she just died. Pascow realizes that Louis has failed to learn his lesson, and shouts an admittely hilarious “NOOOOOOO” as he fades away. Louis waits in his home after burying Rachel, and as she walks in, now decayed and deformed, Louis makes out with the walking corpse, before being killed by her. What works here is Louis has completed his character arc. Granted the character arc consists of failing to learn his lesson, but it’s a powerful arc no less. It drives home how much the movie is truly about being as grateful for death as we are for life, and how a life spent yearning for those who’ve passed to return is a life spent suffering. While the more ambiguous book ending is more favorable, the 1989 film version still drives home this theme extremely well.