Cimetière vivant

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!

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.

A doctor (Dale Midkiff) and his family move to a new home, dangerously close to a busy highway. After the death of the family cat, the doctor's neighbor lets him in on a secret: there is a sacred Indian burial ground where buried pets come back to life. The obvious question is: does it work on people?

Not to say this is a bad film (it's not), but the thing about this one is that its reputation and cultural impact have overshadowed the film itself. We all know that burying things in the sacred ground will bring them back to life, and that's without even having to see this film.

There is much good to say about this one: an amazing talent in Gage Creed, the little boy. Some nice violence and gore (including an Achilles tendon slice). One of the most painful things I've seen on film, when the doctor falls out of bed (I admit I winced a bit).

Mike Mayo points out that this is something of a variation on "The Monkey's Paw", and we agree it's a praiseworthy version. He says the film "lasts 30 seconds too long", and I see his point, but cannot comment on that here. Howard Maxford is considerably more critical (as usual -- he is the most negative horror critic I know) and says it is "over-extended" and could have made a good half hour of television.

Stephen King has made some good films and some bad ones (how much this is his fault or the fault of the directors is debatable). This falls firmly in the good category. Not among his very best ("Shawshank Redemption" is number one), but still worth a few watches.

I love this movie, It brings me the creeps. This movie just gave me a lesson "Just Accept the Death of Your Loved Ones or Bad Things will happen" This is one of Stephen King's Good Movies. He truly is the Master of Horror Movies. The Make-Ups of this Movie is Great and Realistic. Honestly, This movie was sadder than scary imo. I would recommend this movie to anyone.

This Movie is about how Parents would feel after the Death of a Child and that's what makes this movie relatable. It is quite Hurtful and Unacceptable to lose a Baby, Babies are too young to die. So this movie showed us that Keep your Eyes on your Loved Ones around threats.

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!