Pet Sematary (1989)

Directed by Mary Lambert. Starring Dale Midkiff, Fred Gwynne, Denise Crosby, Brad Greenquist, Miko Hughes, Blaze Berdahl, Susan Blommaert, Michael Lombard. [R]

Stephen King bestseller becomes hackneyed horror schlock on the big screen, showing how Creed family patriarch, Louis (Midkiff), gets in over his head when the family cat dies and seemingly avuncular neighbor, Jud (Gwynne), takes him beyond the nearby pet “sematary” to an Indian burial ground to lay the animal to rest…but then the cat comes back, not quite the same, and if it worked once, maybe it’ll work again when a person he loves meets his or her maker. Confused picture wastes a ready-made setup full of ghoulish potential, suffering from too many unnecessary and mishandled plot elaborations, ham-fisted direction, and poor acting. Full of clichés-of-portent in the first couple acts, it gives in to disdainful shocker tactics for the last several scenes, and no one behaves or reacts the way normal human beings would to these increasingly gruesome and unbelievable scenarios. It can’t even get past the contrived foolishness of its own premise: if Jud knew that “the place…is evil” and “sometimes dead is better,” then why did he ever show Louis the Indian burial ground in the first place? Because then there wouldn’t be a movie, of course, and we aren’t so lucky. Nevertheless, it was a box office hit, inspiring a sequel and a 2019 remake.

32/100