Pet Sematary (2019) * 1/2

Directed by:  Dennis Widmyer and Kevin Kolsch

Starring:  Jason Clarke, John Lithgow, Amy Seimetz, Jete Laurence

I came into Pet Sematary wish a fresh set of eyes.   I did not see the original made three decades ago, so no comparison with that version is possible.   From what I've read, the 1989 version wasn't very good.   Well, this one isn't very good either.    It evokes a creepy atmosphere and I enjoyed John Lithgow's nuanced performance as an old fellow who unwittingly opens a Pandora's Box when he suggests his new neighbor bury his deceased cat in a part of the woods where the soil brings back things from the dead.

It is apparent no one knows how to spell "cemetery" in this movie.   The old, tattered sign which reads Pet Sematary in the woods can be excused.    When Louis Creed (Clarke), a doctor, Googles cemeteries in his new hometown, he spells it "cemetary".   You would think a doctor would know better.   When the Creeds, consisting of Louis, his wife Rachel (Seimetz), daughter Ellie (Laurence), and a two-year old boy, move to a new home deep in the woods of Ludlow, Maine, things seem off right away, especially as a tanker whizzes by their driveway out of the blue.   The tankers play a big part in things to come, although it is a wonder no one sues the company which owns them. 

The family cat is found run over on the side of the road, and in an attempt at subterfuge, Louis and Jud (Lithgow), bury the cat in a remote part of the woods where things were said to have been resurrected once buried there.   Louis doesn't want to break it to Ellie that her cat is gone. The cat comes back, alright, but it is mangy and in a lousy mood.   Jud feels awful about the cat, and shortly after, Ellie herself is killed by one of the speeding tankers. 

Jud warns a grieving Louis against doing the same thing with Ellie as he did with the cat, but Louis
doesn't heed the advice, and Ellie returns as a psychopathic killer.    Why the things which return from the dead are so pissed off is a question which isn't adequately answered.   I suppose if they came back grateful for a second chance at life there wouldn't be any stabbings, blood, and gore to populate the screen.

Pet Sematary soon becomes a depressing slasher film.    The Creeds are nondescript and flat, so why should we care what happens to them?    At least Lithgow provides some dimensions and mystery.
Poor Clarke is asked to shoulder an awful lot of nonsense here.   He has been better than some of the movies he has been in previously, but he is given so little depth in Pet Sematary that he can't make anything out of it.    If there is a sad moral to this story, it is this:  Better to cremate the dead.   And stop remaking bad movies in hopes you will do better this time around.    This is what the dummy Louis did when he resurrected Ellie in this movie, and look how well that turned out.