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They just don't make horror movies like this anymore

Dr. Creed (Dale Midkiff) learns about Pet Sematary, where a lot of people who were real close to their pets supposedly buried their pets. Dr. Creed's close friend, Jud (Fred Gwynne), tells him that animals that are buried there can come back alive. Dr. Creed's young daughter's cat got killed and Dr. Creed knows that his daughter thought the world of her cat, so he takes the cat and buries it in Pet Sematary. But what Dr. Creed doesn't know is that when animals are buried there, they come back alive with an evil and deadly spirit in them. They don't come back as the same pet that everybody knew before the animal died. But has any human being ever been buried at Pet Sematary?

"Pet Sematary," like most Stephen King based movies, is scary and suspenseful in its own chilling effect. The movie has spectacular special effects, a good plot, good acting, and I would say that it's a must have for anybody who likes great classic horror movies. They just don't make great, scary horror movies like "Poltergeist" or "Pet Sematary" anymore. Don't get me wrong, there are still some great horror movies being made these days such as "The Sixth Sense" and "Stir of Echoes," but they just don't have the effect and the suspense that many of the older horror movie greats such as "Pet Sematary" had. At least to me they don't.

macrabe

Huh?
if you like necromancy perhaps you will like this.

"I finally came back for you, Rachel . . . . "

The book "Pet Sematary" is, perhaps coincidentally, perhaps not, one of the deepest AND most frightening things that Stephen King has ever written, possibly because he was driven to write by two things that happened in his own family - The death of the family cat and the near death of his son, at that time a toddler, who ran toward the road. According to one of the extras on this DVD, King thought of the basic outline of the story as he was carrying his son, who he had successfully stopped from running into traffic, back toward his home.This story is, quite literally, about death itself; the conflict between Louis (Dale Midkiff) and Rachel (Denise Crosby) over what, if anything their young daughter (Blaze/Beau Bernthal) should be told about death; the ACTUAL death of the family cat, followed shortly by the son (adorable and born actor Miko Hughes). The question: If you knew of a way to bring back the pets/people you loved and lost, would you do it? For Louis, the answer, tragically it turns out, is YES. Early on in the film, his is cajoled into "promising" his daughter that nothing will happen to their cat, Church, although he knows the futility of promising her that "nothing will happen" to anyone, as this is ultimately beyond his or any human being's control. When the cat does indeed die by being run over by a truck, his is guided by Jud Crandall (the wonderful Fred Gwynne) to the Micmac burial ground, a place where dead animals - or people - who are buried will come back. Although the film makes no reference to this, the book mentions the "wendigo", a spirit in Native American folklore that can possess a human and turn them into a cannibal - the implication being that perhaps it is a "wendigo" that is reanimating the bodies of people and animals that return after being buried on this ground. In any case, what comes back ain't the same, and it ain't pretty. In the case of Church, it doesn't seem to be THAT big of a deal; the kitty seems moodier, hisses a lot and, in one "EEEEWWW" scene, tosses the remains of a nicely mutilated mouse into the tub while Louis is in it. Yucky, but the cat isn't going to kill anyone. Meanwhile, Rachel has explained her hang-up about death to Louis, telling him the unpleasant story of her sister Zelda, who died of spinal meningitis - while a very young Rachel had been left alone with her. Rachel is quite literally haunted by her sister; haunted by guilt over having wished by the end that her sister would just die and end her own and everyone else's suffering. She admits to being frightened as a child that she would be accused of murdering her sister by people who knew her every thought and feeling. Scary stuff.But then, adorable toddler Gage is killed when he runs after his kite toward traffic, and his father is NOT able to stop him in time. There ensues, of course, deep grief, and a nasty fight between father-and-son-in-law, between whom there was never any love lost before Gage's death, at the funeral service. This scuffle, in film and book, leads to the little coffin being knocked down and, momentarily, jarred open, giving us a heartbreaking glimpse of a small boy's hand and funeral suit cuff.Shortly after the tragedy, Rachel and Ellie go to stay with Rachel's parents for a time, leaving Louis at home by himself (see where this is going?). Louis, perhaps inevitably, does bury his little son in the forbidden burial ground, and the results are far more horrific than before. Gage comes back, a killer still packaged in the body of a sweet little boy. His first victim, in one of the most genuinely frightening scenes, is old Jud (the shot of the knife slicing his heel is truly cringe-worthy). Louis, who has gone home exhausted and fallen asleep, wakes up to remember what he has done. Then, the phone rings. Louis hears his tiny son's voice again, asking him to "come play". He goes, taking with him a vaccine he has prepared that can be used on any resurrected body to "put it back to sleep". He gives this first to Church and it works. Next is Gage - but before a surprisingly believable fight between a grown man and a three-year-old boy, Louis discovers that Gage has already claimed TWO victims - Jud and RACHEL, who got to the house first and saw Gage just after imagining that she was being confronted with her long-dead sister, who warns her that she will "never get out of bed again!" Foolishly, Rachel rushes to embrace her boy, who says to her, "I brought you something, Mommy" . . . that something is a knife.Having long since been pushed beyond sanity, Louis administers another syringe of the drug to his little son, who does indeed go back to sleep . . . and buries his wife in the forbidden ground. What happens next is probably the biggest difference between book and film . . . but I've gone into enough detail. The book AND movie are recommended for all my fellow King fans, just don't read the book's ending at night before going to bed and trying to sleep (I made that mistake once).Cheers.

Very accurate rendition of the novel.

Reiterating what other reviewers have stated, "Pet Sematary" is one of the most disturbing and suspenseful books that I have ever come across. And as opposed to most Stephen King flics, which are usually half or one-star disasters, the movie, Pet Sematary is actually just as good, if not better than the novel and follows the novel very accurately.

The actors used in the movie are just the way that I imagined them being in the book: down-to-earth family people, but interesting and solid. As far as I could tell, there were no inaccuracies between the novel and the movie and the few parts of the book that the movie may have omitted were unimportant, non-suspenseful sections. In a nutshell, the acting was great, the suspense was even better than in the book, and this is probably the best King film that I have ever seen.

SCARIEST MOVIE I HAD SEEN IN YEARS!

In the beginning, i really wasn't expecting too much from this movie. It was a rainy day and i looked at it as just something to watch. How wrong I was! I watched this movie with the lights OFF and regreted it from the start. It was the scariest film i had seen in years, and it was the first time in a long time that i wanted to close my eyes at a frightening scene. By the end of the film, lets just say i was too horrorfied to move. It left me shaking in my seet, and i've NEVER reacted like that to ANY horror movie. It really stuck with me for a long time afterwards, and facing this movie a second time was a hard desicion. (I will admit, the second time i watched it it did not effect me as much), but if you're looking for a scary movie, that at times, even beats the Exorcist, watch Pet Sematary!

Stephen King...nuff said.

Great adaptation of an even better book.

DEATHLY CHILLING!

This movie was soooooo scary- no kidding. I saw it at midnight with my friend once, and even though it was the 3rd time I saw it, I was still petrified. My friend and I were afraid to open the door even! I think the main attraction of the movie was Zelda, a deceased relative who had suffered from a debilitating disease. Her living sister would have these flashbacks about Zelda coming to get her. Sometimes you can even see through the scary part of it all-- then the "Zelda" scenes are good for a laugh. Still, as cheesy as the movie gets sometimes, I guarantee you plenty of nightmares from this movie. If you like "Pet Sematary", I recommend "Eraserhead" (it is a hard-to-find David Lynch movie). By the way, do not see "Pet Sematary II"; it is the dumbest, most not-scary movie ever, and whoever wrote the script for that one was trying way too hard to please the gore-loving audience.

The only adaptation scarier than the book

May contain one small spoiler:I love Stephen King novels. "IT" is my favourite book of all time and The Shining scared me so much that it even did so when I used to work at a convenience store during the day. His work is so vivid and has a style of his own, and that is perhaps why many people have a hard time taking his written word and put moving images to what we already have in our heads. To this day I have not seen "IT" because I didn't want to picture John Boy as Stuttering Bill or see Jack Tripper as Ben Hanscomb. But Pet Sematary is unique. As much as I have enjoyed many of King's adaptations ( Misery, Shawshank, Stand By Me, The Langoliers, The Shining ) I hadn't seen a film that I actually liked more than his book. But this film takes that honour. Perhaps to have such wonderful actors and a perfect setting is what made this film as great as it is.King's ideas have always been borderline psychotic. And many people have said that King was probably a violent kid and that is how he gets some of his ideas. But I read an interview with him once and he said that he was far from that, he just had an overactive imagination and that is how he gets some of his ideas. I personally think he takes a bit of acid when he sits down to write because I don't think anyone can write as well as he does when they are sober, but that is a different story.One of the elements of this story that makes it so good is Fred Gwynne. You couldn't have cast a better actor to play Judd Crandle. His drawl and his long, exaggerated face are almost exactly how I pictured him in the book and this was a casting triumph.The idea of this story is what makes it scary. If you knew that you could perhaps bring back to life someone that you loved, but you knew there "could" be dire consequences, what would you do? Tough question, and in King's world people will always do the silly thing, if they didn't there would be no story. But here it works well. We can feel the guys pain when he loses someone that he loves and inspite of Judd's objections, he goes ahead and does it anyway. And that is when things get freaky. As long as I live I will remember Gage and his maliciously creepy voice. When he comes back, well, really sometimes dead is better.This is a good horror film and if you do like to be freaked a bit and feel that chill as it runs through your veins, this is the perfect film for you. The one King movie that is scarier than the book, and that is not easy to do.

Effectively Disturbing!

After reading Stephen King's novel "Pet Sematary" and being a little disturbed by it, I figured that I would rent the movie to see what a terrible adaptation some money-hungry fellow made. After viewing the film I was quite surprised. The first half of the film starts out nice with a happy family enjoying thier new rural home. But then we see the second half of the film in which all turns to hell. After Gage is killed you can't help but feel bad, no one wants to see a boy that cute skin his knee let alone what happens to him in this film. The performances in the film were mostly well done, especially from Fred Gwynne (Jud Crandall), Denise Crosby (Rachel Creed) & Miko Hughes (Gage Creed). The Pet Sematary novel was meant to be disturbing, and this film certainly is just that. Most likely the reason people hate this film and think it's sick is because they too were disturbed by it. It's definitely not a film to give you a positive outlook on life, but I guess that's what makes it such an effective horror film.

A great if not really faithful adapation of Stephen King's classic novel!

Dr. Louis Creed (Dale Midkiff) along with his wife (Denise Crosby) and two children Gage and Ellie (Miko Hughes and Blaze Berdhal) has just moved from Chicago to a small town in Maine. He befriends a kind and good old man who lives right across the road from their house named Judd Crandall (Fred Gwynne) who gives them a tour of the area especially of the local pet cemetery that has a secret beyond the hills, for it's an old indian burial ground with magic powers to resurrects dead animals and other living beings back to life. One day the family cat gets killed but luckily Louis and Judd resurrect it but it seems harmless but acts different as a zombie and even one day the 3-year old son Gage gets killed by a truck and Louis must try to resurrect him unfortunately there is bad results.

An exciting, gruesome and macabre if not entirely faithful adaptation of Stephen King's novel, this supernatural zombie horror thriller offers good frights, nice acting and shocks abound. Fred Gwynne whom you remember as Herman Munster does a fantastic and perfect performance as the lovable old man and there is a memorable score with some genuine tension, Miko Hughes makes a memorable performance as the three year old zombie murderer with a fetish for scalpals. It's also a gripping tale of supernatural horror you'll never forget and coming in 2008 is a remake that will be more faithful to the novel.

This DVD has great picture and sound with only three extras being three featurettes and no trailer, but this is still a must have for zombie and horror fans.

Also recommended: "Cemetery Man", "The Fog (1980)", "Inferno (1980)", "Demons", "Stephen King's IT", "City of the Living Dead (a.k.a. Gates of Hell)", "House By The Cemetery", "The Curse (1987)", "Re-Animator", "Bride of Re-Animator", "Beyond Re-Animator", "Poltergeist", "Silent Hill", "Hellraiser 1 & 2", "Sleepaway Camp", "Nightmare (a.k.a. Nightmare in a Damaged Brain)", "Versus", "A Nightmare on Elm Street", "Haeckle's Tale (Masters of Horror)", "Homecoming (Masters of Horror)", "Grindhouse", "Burial Ground: The Nights of Terror", "Ju-On The Grudge", "The Ring (Japanese and American)", "It's Alive!", "The Pit", "Creepshow", "The Return of the Living Dead", "Return of the Living Dead 3", "The Children", "Dead Alive (a.k.a. Braindead)", "The Evil Dead", "Evil Dead II", "Suspiria", "High Tension", "Grindhouse", "Night of the Living Dead (1968 and 1990)", "Dawn of the Dead (1978 and 2004)", "Day of the Dead", "Land of the Dead", "Cujo", "Cat's Eye", "Shaun of the Dead", "From Dusk Till Dawn", "Candyman", "Freddy Vs. Jason", and "Demons 2".

Scary for 10 year olds

This movie wasn't scary to me when I was little and it's not scary now. This is one of those Stephen Kings stories that you wonder why it was made into a major motion picture. There are much better stories of his that could have made better films. The acting in the film is good (aside from the wife character - she's doesn't fit her role very well) and the direction is excellent. My main dislike for the film is the drawn out story line. This might have worked as a book, but not as a movie.

THERE ARE SPOILERS IN THIS REVIEW SO BEWARE!

This is absolutely one of the stupidest movies I have ever seen in my life. I admit that it did have some scary scenes but the plot was just stupid and the end of it was morbid. First Louis buries his son in the graveyard so that he will come back to life, then he kills his son. Then he buries his wife and she comes back to life and kills him. That's just really morbid in my opinion. It wasn't ALL bad though. Like I said, it did have some really scary scenes. And I thought that Dale Midkiff and Denise Crosby were pretty good together. You might enjoy it if you like stories with really morbid endings. But this is definitely not my type of movie.

"The soil of a man's heart is stonier...."

A lot of Stephen King's books and short stories were made into crappy movies, but this one is good. It scared me in a lot of places and I purchased the DVD and have watched it numerous times. "The soil of a man's heart is stonier...." is the truest thing I ever heard. Eventhough I have no idea what it means.

Sometimes Dead Is Better

Pet Sematary was an excellent horror film on pets that was really beyond be-life that a movie tat should ever have,this should be in the top 50 scariest film and be placed in number seven.This scared the s**t out of me,this was not crap,this is not a disappointment,this is the top scariest movie of all time.A very disappointment when I saw in guide to see the stars in Pet Sematary,it showed one,one.This should deserve three or more stars easily,I saw worser movie than this fabulous movie.And it showed Fred Gyeene from the t.v series the Munsters.He did great in he and so did he in The Munsters and My Cousion Vinny.Pet Sematary was the greatest horror film the I had seen in my miserable life.It made me love horror and life,thanks to this I have a reason to live,to make horror films just like this imagination.

Quite Good (Spoilers)

I hadn't heard too many great things about this film. I'd always loved Kings work (books and movies) so I figured I'd check it out.This movie surprised me. It has some very very great atmosphere, the plot was unique and good, and it had it's elements of great horror. Gage's death is, from any parents standpoint, terrifying. Jud Crandall is the nice man with elements of creepiness. And the Indian backround is very eerie. The movies only downfall is the acting. It's overall good but it has its moments of (in search of a better word) badness. It has gore but nothing Evil Dead-ish. If you want a good little horror movie to sit down with some night (and get scared, which frankly I wasn't expecting to happen) then rent or buy this movie. A strong 7.5 to an 8. Great,surprising little horror movie.

Scary and Disturbing.

This film has a very depressing outlook on life. It is a very scary and disturbing movie, which is why alot of people don't like it. Most people I've had watch this couldn't get through the whole movie. This is what horror movies should be like.

Great!

It does not too much gore. Its mostly suspence and action at the same time. You must see this movie.

Sometimes Dead is Better... this movie SHOULD be dead...

If you were really into the book, how the movie is brought to life is a love/hate relationship. I'll be frank and honest, here, though. The movie follows the book VERY well, and very closely, but it's the things the actors and director needed to do to make it good. The lack luster acting, and bad cinematography make this movie lack in areas where it could've been successful. In short, Pet Sematary had potential.


Louis Creed (played by Dale Midkiff) and his wife Rachel (Denise Crosby) have just moved to a new house in Ludlow Maine. Louis has gotten a job as a doctor at the local univeristy. The problem is that they live just a little ways from a factory that sends out these huge Onrico trucks and they always pass right by the Creed's house.


Loveable neighbor Jud Crandall (Fred Gwyne) wanrs Louis of what the road has done to animals. He takes his family (with daughter Eileen and brother Gage) to a place called the Pet Sematary which lies just beyond their home. This is proof of what the road has done.


When Louis's wife and kids leave for Thanksgiving, Elieen's--referred to as Ellie for short (Blaze Berdahl)--cat gets run over on the road. Jud then shows Louis that the cat can be brought back to life. Beyond the Pet Sematary is an ancient Indian Burial Ground: The Micmac Burying ground. Louis buries his cat and soon the cat comes back to life.


Ellie never notices that Church has died. Church smells like death, and acts different, but Ellie doesn't notice. Then disaster strikes the Creed family as their little boy, Gage (Miko Hughes) runs into the road while a truck is coming their way. One should be able to tell the rest of the story from there.


I wanted to rate this movie so much higher. It was closer to the book than most adaptations, but the parts that should've been scary, turned out to be funny. The parts that should be moving... turned out to be funny.


The dialogue in the movie is bad. It COULD'VE been good dialogue had the actors and actresses worked on their delivery of it (if you read the book, a lot of the dialogue is the same).

The movie had a lot of potential to be good, but it somehow manages to fall short. It's as if the actors didn't give it their all. The delivery of their lines is bland and almost monotone at times. The music has it's moments, but mostly it is just too over the top. The music can't be scary if at the scary parts you're laughing your ass off at how fake everything looks.


One thing this horror movie does fairly well, I must say, is the gross-out. There are some images in the film that can be genuinely stomach turning at some parts.


However, the bland acting definitely strikes the movie down by a lot. There's no feel for the characters. The movie also moves too fast in the beginning, and too slow in the end. It moves so fast in the beginning that we don't get time to feel for these characters. In short, there's no character development. I could care less about what happened to Louis and his family. The emotion is absent from the film because of this.


I give it credit for staying true to the book it's based off of (probably because the screenplay was written by Stephen King himself) but I don't give it credit for it's shallow acting and unsteady pace.

Unpleasantly Good...

I can't say that I actually like Pet Semetary, but this isn't a movie that your supposed to like. The whole movie is very creepy and disturbing and from the opening credits you know that this movie is going to be unpleasant. Pet Semetary is not a jump out of your seat horror movie, but rather one that has a very erie and sinister feel to it that is very effective. From when the little toddler died to the flashbacks of the mom's sister Zelda everything about this movie is tragic and extremely frightening. If you love horror movies then you've got to see Pet Semetary. Regardless of your taste in movies, if you are not disturbed by Pet Semetary then something is wrong with you.

Incredible... instant classic.

It may be an overused cliche, but there's no other movie more deserving if the term than this - instant classic. Even after reading the book - and being thouroughly scared to hell - the movie will send chills through you and make you keep a watchful eye at the windows and doors. This film displays how a movie adaptation of a novel SHOULD be done - almost perfectly. The casting was absoluetly on the money. Watch this one with the lights on.