Stephen King: Everything Wrong With The Pet Sematary Remake

2019 saw the arrival of a critically derided Pet Sematary remake, but how did this reimagining of the 1980s Stephen King adaptation go so wrong? Ever since his debut novel Carrie became a bestseller upon publication in 1974, Stephen King has been the first name in literary horror and one of the bestselling novelists of the last century. However, despite King being a critically-acclaimed horror writer, the reception received by many adaptations of his work has been mixed at best.

King’s only directorial effort, the 1986 sci-fi horror movie Maximum Overdrive, was a flop that critics hated. For every blockbuster hit like the two-part movie adaptations of King’s doorstopper IT, there has been a major dud like 2003’s misjudged Dreamcatcher. 2020 saw another major King project, a television miniseries adaptation of The Stand, fail to wow critics or general audiences alike. The show was not helped by the fact it had to live up to the impressive reputation of 1994’s original directed by Mick Garris.

Many of King’s adaptations have been remade in recent years but, outside of the positive reception IT enjoyed (which waned by the release of the sequel Chapter 2), few of these updates have been able to match the success of their original adaptations. 2013’s Carrie retread was seen as an uninspired, toned-down take on the 1976 original, while the dour Pet Sematary was widely derided as one of 2019’s weakest horror offerings. Arriving in cinemas the same year as IT Chapter 2 to far less fanfare, Pet Sematary earned much weaker critical write-ups. So, what went so wrong with the remake of director Mary Lambert’s cult 1989 original?

The Big Twist (Isn’t a Twist)

In an attempt to convince audiences a Pet Sematary remake was a good idea, the re-do added a big twist to the original story. This time it’s not Gage who is killed by a truck accident. Instead, his sister Ellie is killed in similar circumstances when she chases the family cat out onto a busy road. If that sounds like a pointless misdirect that doesn’t change the movie’s story or really affect the driving action, that’s because it is. The twist was obviously added to surprise viewers who were familiar with the original, but outside of changing the child’s gender, nothing much is altered about the story. Even something like 2009’s My Bloody Valentine 3D, which was otherwise met with a lukewarm critical reception, added a new twist that totally re-contextualized the original story, rather than just throwing in a misdirect.

The Trailers Gave Away Everything

Speaking of said big twist, the trailers for Pet Sematary gave away which of the kids dies, how they perish and how they are subsequently different when revived. There was little left for viewers to discover in cinemas, a particularly galling misstep when Jordan Peele’s Us was running a contemporaneous publicity campaign which in contrast gave away nothing but was all the more effective for its enigma. Even the early trailers for the same year’s IT Chapter 2 did not divulge any of the movie’s big secrets, instead opting to build anticipation by offering brief glimpses and thus keeping its twists under wraps until audiences saw the movie in theatres.

Ellie Is No Gage

Young star Jete Laurence is at no fault here, giving a spirited performance as both the living and later undead Ellie Creed. However, the memorably weird costuming, creepy gait, and recurring subverted innocence motifs of the original Pet Sematary’s Gage are all absent in the 2019 remake. The unforgettably eerie villain of Mary Lambert’s seminal horror is replaced by a stock standard lank-haired ghost girl with no odd singsong voice or creepy, stop-motion-style movement. Make no mistake, the killer kid is not one of Stephen King’s best villains in either movie, but Gage is nonetheless far more memorable than the disappointingly forgettable monster of the remake.

The Wendigo Is An Empty Promise

Unlike the original movie, which never promises anything of the sort, Pet Sematary comes within a hair’s breadth of depicting the Wendigo that is supposedly responsible for the curse on the eponymous cemetery – and then falls short. The underrated 1999 cannibal horror Ravenous proved that Wendigo horror could work without ever depicting the monster as more than a pervasive idea, while the video game Until Dawn proved Wendigoes could work as non-metaphorical, terrifyingly literal monsters. Pet Sematary, however, opts for a neither-nor approach that is sure to frustrate audiences expecting either option. Establishing there is a real monster in the woods but then failing to bring the beast to life in Pet Sematary is a surefire recipe for disappointment in a story whose only other villain is a small child.

Pet Sematary Is A (Very, Very, Very) Dark Comedy

It may be hard to believe since the novel is famously one of King’s most harrowing books, but much like Kubrick’s adaptation of The Shining strayed from the source and made Jack Torrance a less relatable figure, the original Pet Sematary film did add some very dark comedy to proceedings to avoid becoming unwatchable-y gloomy. The prospect of losing a child is treated as the tragedy it is, but by the time the protagonist finds himself returning to the titular location for not a second, but a third time, there is a palpable sense of “not again” desperation to his plight. It is the sort of pitch-black comedy that only horror can work with, but it is absent in the dour, humorless Pet Sematary of 2019.

The brief, American Werewolf In London-style cameos from the badly mangled, casually talking corpse of Victor is gone from the remake, with the original using these unexpected shocks to both frighten and amuse the audience. Like the same year’s Dr. Sleep, this King adaptation went darker and more tragic but as a result, it instead ended up becoming dull and – ironically given its subject matter – lifeless. Injecting the shocks of pitch-black morbid wit that pervade Lambert’s original into proceedings could have really helped Pet Sematary avoid feeling like a retread of a Stephen King story for whom, like so many former pets, “dead is better“.

About The Author

Cathal Gunning
(1446 Articles Published)

See also  Alien: Covenant Writer Explains James Franco's Original Role

Cathal Gunning has been writing about movies and TV online since 2020. His obsessions include The Simpsons, Stephen King, the Scream series, and the horror genre in general. He has spent more time thinking about Stranger Things than the writers of Stranger Things, and he has never seen a Star War.

More From Cathal Gunning