El cementerio maldito

Dale Midkiff and Denise Crosby move to Maine with their two small children and cat in a big house on a highway with lots of truck traffic. Close at hand...is a pet cemetery where all the dogs and cats killed on the road are buried. Neighbor Fred Gwynne shows another cemetery with incredible powers just beyond...the power to reanimate the dead. Trouble is the dead are nothing like they once were. Although I have not read the book by Stephen King, he did write the screenplay and must have remained relatively faithful to his own work. The film has many flaws but is also worthwhile. Coincidence and some muddled flashbacks from the past help make the script somewhat erratic and implausible. The acting in the leads is OK, but in the second half really deteriorates. Fred Gwynne is literally and figuratively a cut above the rest. He gives a heartfelt performance as a man run down with time and over-burdened with knowledge he should or would not have. Brad Greenquist is also good in his role as a ghost. His character also causes some believability factors. Director Mary Lambert does do some things rather nicely. There are some well-shot scenes of the cemeteries. The peril of the trucks is made very real, and she also relies heavily on human emotion that is universal. At its heart, Pet Semetary is about loss, coping with loss, and grief, and what are some of the effects of not coping with those things well. The film has many suspenseful moments, and although the ending became a bit tiresome - still manages to keeps its mood and message throughout. Author Stephen King has an interesting cameo as a preacher!

One of the reasons Kubrick's The Shining is considered a masterpiece is because he intuitively knew what and what would not work from the original novel in cinematic form. Apparently this upset Stephen King a bit, but frankly, Kubrick knew what he was doing. I think the problem with Pet Sematary is that the director really tries to be true to this huge paperback work of fiction in less than two hours. So the mistake here seems to be biting off more than one can chew instead of cutting it into manageable bites.

That being said, I personally like Pet Sematary and I think that it's decent as a cozy horror flick. Zelda and Victor Pascal terrified me as a twelve year old. The first time i ever stayed up all night by myself was when I read the book. I think this 1989 flick has an undercurrent of 70s charm to it, it has a touch of that nostalgic supernatural feel.

It's older, and maybe stylistically a bit dated, but it's the better version of the two, imo.

First, it doesn't mess with the story, which is great because you don't need to mess with the story. The book is good. Aside from the obvious (no spoilers) character switch, it was structurally better. Like the book, it's not a scary-right-off-the-bat horror story, like a slasher movie would be, kill scene at the top. Rather, it's structured more like a campfire story. It starts pretty normal and then, piece-by-piece, the horror builds. This is not very common for horror these days, but I don't think it is non-existant. More experimental films have been using it - Midsomer or Hereditary, for example, or Aronofsky movies. Wish either of those filmmakers would have tackled the remake, gone Kubrick and pushed King "artfully" as opposed to "pop," but I digress. King said this was the first the he really wrote which disturbed him due to the major 180-degree plot point mid-way, and this movie has a strong sense of that devastation. The best horror is often about family.

Second, the cast is better in this version, probably more due to the directing than the actual actors. Mary Lambert let the actors tell the story, Kevin Kolsch, like they do these days, told the story with camera work, editing, and modern horror tropes - the unnecessary masks and the juxtaposition of "cute innocence" (ballet dancing) with "evil," for example. Jason Clarke and John Lithgow didn't get to flex. Dale Midkiff was a BABE and we had enough time with him to see the progression of his character. Fred Gwynne is unbeatable. And Denise Crosby, who bravely chose an often unflattering portrayal of Rachel, is hard to forget. The Zelda stuff, although less developed than the new, overdeveloped stuff in the new film, is just scarier. Her hardness early on really works against her crumbling development later - it's a hard choice for an actress' popularity but better storytelling. (Denise Crosby is an interesting actress - I think only one season in Next Generation? And still unforgettable. She makes an impact in whatever she's in, but again I digress.)

As an English teacher, I'd say read the book! Then watch the movies and choose your favorite version, and let us know what you think! Happy watching!

The irony was, when I first watched 'Pet Sematery' I actually couldn't spell 'cemetery' therefore I didn't pick up the deliberate typo in the title! Anyway, it's another eighties Stephen King book-to-film adaptation and, as any horror fan knows, these can be hit and miss. Mainly miss. However, what we have here is a creepy little film which actually stands the test of time.

As with most 'King' films, it's set in (or around) Maine where an unusually-happy family moves into a new house... by a road! Yes, the road is a major player in 'Pet Sematery' as it's not long before a truck claims the life of the family's pet cat, Church. Luckily, their well-meaning neighbour, Judd, takes pity on the family and comes up with a novel way of sparing the children the grief of losing a treasured pet - it involves resurrecting it beyond the 'Pet Sematery.'

Now, 'Pet Sematery' is a great film. There's lots to enjoy here - it's creepy, well-acted and has plenty of memorable scenes - it's definitely worth a watch. However, it's also not without faults. I haven't read the book, so I can only assume it goes into far greater details as to all the characters' backstories. Here, everyone seems to have a deep backstory which could probably have its own film made about it. Yet all of these tales are only partially touched upon and it's like this story should have been almost a mini-series to really do them all justice.

I say the film is 'well-acted,' but whether you consider Fred Gwynne's portrayal of neighbour, 'Judd,' to be good, or just weird is entirely up to you. Personally, I love his performance and the way he seems to speak will certainly stay with you long after the credits have rolled. In fact, if you're a fan of 'South Park' then you'll start to get a lot of references in the cartoon as his character does tend to pop up here and there to explain various supernatural happenings.

So, if you can ignore the slightly 'unused' elements of the story which don't really go anywhere, you'll actually get quite a fun and novel (at the time - I still haven't bothered with the remake) horror film. There's quite a lot in it that actually borders on 'disturbing imagery' rather than horror, but when practical effects/make-up are used, they're nicely nasty - if you know what I mean.

If you can really watch this film and not enjoy Fred Gwynne's performance then I'll be surprised (and also try not to laugh at a - slightly out-of-place - 'pratfall' that comes about three quarters of the way through the film when someone seems to bang his head on some furniture out of nowhere - Frank Drebin would be proud of that one!

Pet Sematary is a late-eighties adaptation of Stephen King's horror novel, and King himself wrote the screenplay for the film. The film follows the Creed family, recently moved from Chicago to a small town called Ludlow, Maine. The main plot concerns an ancient Micmac Indian burial ground close by, which has the power to make the dead living again, albeit as horrible zombies.

In my opinion, Stephen King movies usually works very well as mini-series because the characters are more fleshed out and their inner lives are explored more thoroughly. There's no time for this here though, so the characters feels a bit hollow and we don't get to know them all that well.

Relative unknown Dale Midkiff and Denise Crosby lead the pretty anonymous cast, the best acting performance of the movie is Fred Gwynne as old-timer Jud Crandall.

Overall, this plays pretty much like a standard horror flick, more or less, with average acting but with a better-than-average script and it builds tension well. Top marks to the makeup department though, for making the zombies look pretty good.