An Average Movie-Goer’s Review
Spoilers! If you don’t want spoilers – check out the Spoiler-Free post
I love horror movies and if I’m going to watch them anyway, why not write an entertaining review from the POV of an average movie-goer and not a professional critic.
Today we’re looking at an adaptation and the reason I can’t spell cemetery right most of the time, 2019’s Pet Sematary.
An adaptation of Stephen King’s Pet Sematary, the film tells the story of a family who move into a new home on land that has a supernatural ability to bring things back to life and making you ask, should the dead, stay dead?
I also have not seen this film so this review will be written as I watch it for the first time so that’ll be fun or bad, we’ll see.
Quick Review:
Dean Winchester of Supernatural during Season 10 episodes 1-3. If you know, you know.
Full review at the bottom of the page!
Is Pet Sematary (2019) Scary?
There’s not a lot of quick scares in this movie, most of the terror comes from the suspense created in the atmosphere of the movie, which it does well. You won’t have any trouble sleeping but you might not trust children or cats for a while.
Detailed Plot:
The film opens with the misspelling of cemetery and the camera panning over a house on fire. Zooming in on a home nearby we see a blood trail leading to a car.
We cut to a family of four driving to the town of Ludlow. The father Louis Creed (played by Jason Clarke), mother Rachel (played by Amy Seimetz), daughter Ellie (played by Jeté Laurence), toddler Gage (played by Hugo and Lucas Lavoie) and their cat, Church.
As they drive there are a few scenes cut in that are reminiscent of the opening credits of The Office, so either this is a reference to a nice friendly town aesthetic or Dundler Mifflin is now a horror movie.
The family arrive at their new home where Ellie marvels at the large open space. As she heads inside, Rachel is startled by our first jump scare, a tanker driving well over the speed limit flying past down the road. Pretty dangerous… so foreshadowing.
We learn Louis is a doctor who left the city working in the ER, to move his family to a smaller town, where he now appears to be the only doctor. The upside being he’ll be able to spend more time with the kids and his stay-at-home wife.
The following day Rachel and Ellie are throwing out boxes when a procession of children, banging on drums, walk by in the nearby forest. One appears to be carrying the body of a pet with the other carrying a collar. Oh, and they’re wearing animal masks for some creepy reason.
A little while later while Rachel is distracted Ellie sneaks out of the house and follows the trail the children in the procession were walking on. This leads her to a makeshift Pet Sematary. She sees a structure and, for some reason, decides to climb it but is startled and falls when their neighbor Jud Crandell (played by John Lithgow) tells her to get down.
While falling she gets stung by a bee but Judd helps her by removing the stinger and applying mud to it as he introduces himself. He tells Ellie the people around there make a ritual of burying pets pointing out his own pet, Biffer’s, grave.
Rachel appears and hurries Ellie out of there. Judd gives a final friendly warning that the woods aren’t safe. As they leave, Jud hears some whispers coming from the structure Ellie was trying to climb.
That night Ellie asks Louis why animals don’t live as long as humans and he tells her it’s a metabolism thing so pet’s internal clocks run out faster and they die sooner.
The conversation then turns into what happens after we die and it turns out Louis and Rachel aren’t exactly on the same page about what happens after death…. awkward. More importantly we find out Rachel’s sister died when she was young. This leads us to a flashback of a young Rachel bringing food to a sickly looking girl, presumably her sister.
We see a quick scene of Rachel and Louis in the present discussing the afterlife where it cements their beliefs for the audience, Rachel believes in an afterlife while Louis does not.
The following day Louis gets a new patient rushed in, Victor, who has been in an accident that has seriously damaged one side of his face. The scene is pretty gnarly and it clearly shows how inept the rest of the staff at the small hospital are at handling severe injuries. Louis, on the other hand, takes charge but is unable to save Victor.
Alone in the room with the body, the lights flicker, and Victor suddenly rises up telling Louis “the barrier is not meant to be broken.”
A nurse then enters the room and it turns out this was a quick hallucination or haunting or ghost thing that only Louis was able to see. Later, on his drive home, Louis is still clearly shaken by what he saw and is almost hit by a speeding truck.
The following day Ellie brings some cookies to Judd’s home but when he doesn’t answer the door, she just waltzes right in. What the hell. She places her basket of cookies on his table and starts wandering around his home, seeing stacks of books, a picture of Judd’s late wife, and stops when she sees a gun in an open drawer.
Judd enters and, instead of flipping the fuck out at an intruder, he is friendly. Ellie asks if he wants to see her cat, Church, which is short for Winston Churchill so the answer is always “yes please.”
We cut to Judd having dinner with the family which I can only assume is a bribe to prevent him from pressing charges on the whole breaking and entering thing. Judd reveals they actually own the pet sematary since it’s part of their property. When Louis asks just how far back is their property line, Judd responds ominously, telling him it’s further back than he would ever want to go.
That night Louis is woken by whispers and wind coming from outside. There he sees Victor who leads him to the pet sematary telling him he’s going to help him. Near the wooden structure Victor grabs Louis and yells at him to stop as the ground is sour.
This is revealed to have been a nightmare when Louis is woken up by Gage wanting to play. Or is it?! Louis pulls the covers off and sees his feet covered in mud. A little while later right before going trick or treating, Judd waves Louis over to show him the body of Church who has been hit by a truck.
The two decide to hide it from Ellie for now and later that night Louis and Rachel discuss what to tell her. We find out Rachel blames herself for her sister, Zelda’s death, as Zelda was born with a spinal deformity causing Rachel to fear her.
Her job was to bring her dinner but instead of doing so, one night she elected to use the dumbwaiter to bring it up despite being told it was broken. Zelda dragged herself to the dumbwaiter and somehow fell to her death.
Rachel tells Louis that even after she watched her body be wheeled out she would continuously hear her voice and her crawling through the walls. Louis tells her he and Judd will take care of Church’s body and he’ll tell Ellie Church ran away.
That night Judd and Louis arrive at the pet sematary but Judd, clearly not wanting Ellie to be sad about the dead cat, decides to take Louis deeper into the woods, up and over the wooden structure from Louis’s dream. While walking they hear the sounds of a creature wailing but carry on, arriving at what looks like to be the top of a mountain.
Louis buries Church following Judd’s specific instructions while Judd is coy about what is so special about the burial site at the mountain. The following morning Rachel and Louis tell Ellie that Church ran away but she tells them he hasn’t and actually returned last night.
She then says he is currently in the closet which turns out to be true. The bloody but alive Church hisses at Louis, possibly because he might now be a demon cat or because he tried to fucking bury him alive.
Louis heads over to speak with Judd and instead of starting the conversation with “what the fuck?!” he starts with a polite, “we need to have a little talk.” Judd reveals the place where they buried Church is far older than any of them and has a power no one can explain, able to bring back the dead.
That night Louis does some research on the area and finds some newspaper reports of missing dead. He also finds pictures of some people wearing the same masks as the kids were wearing during the procession earlier in the movie. He’s interrupted when Church hisses and scratches Ellie leaving her with two deep cuts on her arm.
Louis bandages her up telling her it will get better while she expresses her fear of Church and her desires to want to go back to their old house.
Back with Rachel, Louis and her are about to get busy when Church cock-blocks them by bringing and eating a bird on their bed. Louis grabs Church and is about to take him outside when Church bites him and runs to the basement. Louis goes after him but hears raspy breathing coming from a dark room and investigates.
There, he seems to be transported outside and sees Victor again who tells him his destruction is near. Why is Victor haunting Louis who tried to save his life? Hopefully we find out soon.
Back in the room, Rachel hears the sounds of her sister dragging herself along the roof. Following it to the bathroom she hears a dumbwaiter moving behind her. Instead of running and ducking under the covers she opens the sink mirror and sees her sister’s body fall from above just like it did when she was child.
The next day after Louis finds a drawing Gage made of a body with blood seeping out, he rushes to his room to find Church sitting on top of him preventing him from moving. Church hisses demonically as Louis tosses him to the side and picks up Gage.
We cut to Louis visiting Judd and once again, instead of starting with “why the hell do I own a demon cat now?”, it seems to be a very polite conversation. We learn the creature we heard wailing earlier was a Wendigo and the Native American tribes that lived on that land centuries ago, carved warnings into the trees before they fled as they feared the Wendigo.
Judd reveals he used the power of the land to bring back his dog decades earlier but when he returned it was more vicious leading to his father having to kill it. Judd believed it was going to be different with Church but he was wrong. I also don’t know why he would assume it would be different especially with a sample size of 1.
We cut to Louis about to euthanize Church but is unable to go through with it instead, he chooses to take him out far away and let him go free.
A little while later the family is celebrating Ellie’s 9th birthday by throwing her a party with friends on their front lawn. While playing a game Ellie spots Church walking down the road and runs to him, stopping in the middle of the road to greet him. Gage sees her and runs after her as well.
At that moment, a tanker is speeding down the road towards them both but Louis, who hasn’t seen Ellie, sees Gage and is able to grab him in time. The tanker is able to swerve and miss them but this causes the tank to detach and launch forward toward Ellie, killing her instantly.
At the funeral Louis gives Judd a look that says “I’m about to do something real stupid.” and I think we know where this is going. Rachel, unable to take the toll of losing Ellie, leaves with Gage to stay with her family while Louis decides to stay behind for a few days to finish up some things in the clinic.
That night he heads over to Judd’s and they have a drink but while Judd isn’t looking Louis pours something into his drink that knocks Judd out. Before he passes out, Judd warns him that Ellie won’t come back the same.
Louis arrives at the cemetery and digs up Ellie intending to bring her to the top of the mountain. On his way there, Victor appears attempting to warn Louis and tells him to stop but Louis continues on.
Victor then appears to Gage telling him to go home but he’s unable to understand because of the whole being a toddler thing. For some reason Victor is unable to warn Rachel as we see that she can’t hear or see him when she runs into the room to console a crying Gage.
Louis reaches the top of the mountain and buries Ellie.
Later that night Louis is awoken by the sounds of someone entering the home. Following the muddy footprints the intruder has left, Louis enters the basement and finds Ellie. Overjoyed he hugs her completely ignoring the fact she’s a zombie.
Unfortunately Creepy-Ellie remembers her birthday party and quickly realizes she’s actually dead but Louis tries to console her by telling her she’s not. You know, like a liar. As he puts her to bed she asks him to stay with her and tells him she can hear the woods. And if you think that’s a very weird thing to randomly say, you’re right.
The following morning Creepy-Ellie is dancing in the living room and starts to destroy items until Louis yells at her to stop. Before he can say anything he is interrupted by a phone call from Rachel but he declines it.
We cut to Rachel stuck in traffic on her way home panicking because she thinks something weird is going on since Gage kept repeating Victor’s name all night. She calls the now awake Judd and asks him to check in on Louis since he is not answering.
Judd heads over and questions Louis who lies, telling him he didn’t do anything but the dirt under his nails tell Judd the whole story. Before he leaves Judd tells him it’s not too late to undo what he did.
Walking away, Judd turns around and sees Ellie staring at him from a window and he rushes home, locking his doors, and grabbing his knife. Meanwhile Ellie goes into her father’s med bag and takes a scalpel.
Looking out the window Judd doesn’t see Ellie heading to his home but then hears sounds coming from his second floor. Investigating, he finds it empty and heads back downstairs where he’s startled by Church in a jump scare. The scare causes him to laugh but he laughs too soon, because Ellie sticks the scalpel through his Achilles tendon causing him to fall to the ground and drop his gun.
Ellie, wearing a cat mask, tells Judd she saw his wife, Norma, burning in hell for what he did to her. This tells us the audience that Judd did the same as Louis did and tried to bring back his wife when she died. Judd calls her a liar and Ellie tells him she’s going to bring him to hell as well.
In the almost-badass play of the movie, Judd tells her he’d like to see her try and for a split second you think he’s going to pull some big save but instead he’s promptly stabbed to death by Ellie.
Meanwhile Rachel and Gage arrive home and Louis tries to play it cool but Rachel notices blood and mud on his boots. He tells her he wasn’t ready to say goodbye and in that moment Ellie walks in. Ellie hugs Rachel who can’t bring herself to hug her back.
Visibly shocked, Rachel takes Gage upstairs and Ellie is easily able to tell she doesn’t want her there. Disturbingly she then says she doesn’t want Rachel there either… so this is going swell.
Upstairs Louis tries to explain to Rachel about the woods and it’s power but Rachel essentially tells him he fucked up but in a nicer way. Ellie overhears them and leaves the house with Louis chasing after but loses her once outside.
He then sees Judd’s lights are on and heads over that way.
Meanwhile Rachel has a hallucination of herself taking her sister’s place, unable to move and confined to a bed. She then sees her dead sister appear from a dumbwaiter. Rachel is able to snap out of it but is then attacked by a knife-wielding Ellie who slashes at her hand and stabs her in the stomach.
Rachel is able to throw Ellie off, grabs Gage, and leaves the room. Running into another room on the second floor, she immediately barricades it.
We cut to Louis who finds Judd dead with Church and rushes back to the house in time to see Rachel breaking the window. With Ellie almost in, Rachel dangles Gage out of the window and yells to Louis to grab him. She let’s go and Louis is able to successfully catch Gage, putting him in the car. Ellie finally breaks in and stabs Rachel in the back.
As Louis runs into the house, Ellie stabs Rachel again in the stomach and calls her mommy to which Rachel replies she is not her mother as her daughter is dead. Ellie stabs Rachel again before running off. Louis makes it to the room to the barely alive Rachel who tells him to not bury her in the mountain. Before he can say anything Ellie hits him across the head knocking him out.
We next see Ellie dragging Rachel’s body into the mountain.
Louis wakes up and runs towards the mountain but is stopped by Ellie at the cemetery who tells him it’s too late. She then stabs him in the shoulder and the two struggle with Louis getting the upper hand. As he is about to decapitate her with the shovel, he is pierced by an iron pole through the chest revealed to be a revived creepy-Rachel. Undead Ellie and Rachel then drag his body towards the mountain.
The film ends with the scene from the start of the movie except we close in on the still alive Gage in the car watching as the three undead members of his family and Church approach him.
Review
Pet Sematary is a great spooky time movie that, while you’ll definitely know what’s coming, there are a few twists and turns that will take you by surprise. The film also doesn’t rely on jump scares and creates a more suspenseful atmosphere that at times, depending on which character we’re with, feels more like a thriller than horror movie.
The acting and overall story is strong, giving pieces of answers to some questions you might be left with at the end, although some are vague it doesn’t detract from the movie.
Why does the place bring people back to life? Wendigo spirit thingy.
What are those whispers people hear that make them want to bury loved ones at the cemetery? Wendigo’s power over the area.
Yet there are some questions that aren’t answered in the movie and seem weird for example why does Victor appear to be leading Louis to the Wendigo’s area at the start of the movie then later attempts to warn him. Seems like conflicting actions.
Overall the movie is well done and if you’re looking for a mild horror movie that has a family story driving it, then this is a good choice.
Cast IMBD