The directors focus their efforts on long drawn out scenes leading to fake out jump scares. They rely on things that are supposed to be scary as opposed to exploring things that might actually be terrifying. Time and again we sit through shots of people walking towards something potentially scary only to have nothing really come of it, again and again. This is a style of horror movie which is popular so it's not like this film stands out. It's just that it is a kind of horror that doesn't do it for me. I get nothing out of it. So I get bored.
And when the film does get to its "pay off" it ends up being rather cheap violence. I liked the film ended without reverting to a comforting resolution where the "good guys win," you know what I mean, when the hero ends up prevailing and begins to return to a sense of clam, usually to have the last moment interrupted by the suggestion that evil may not be quite vanquished yet? Like the original film and novel. This ending is rather dark but that darkness is mostly cheapened by how over the top the climax's confrontations are.
However the thing that disappointed me most in this film is the way it treated the one character's subplot. The mother character is dealing with regret over how she treated, and perhaps caused the death of, her sister who suffered from a debilitating disability. However the film doesn't use to this explore her character in anyway. Instead they use it to up the creepy factor by making her sister a terrifying monstrosity that makes the audience jump. It's pretty pathetic actually and took most of my goodwill for the film away.
So while Stephen King's work might be going through a bit of a renaissance this remake isn't part of it.
Pet Semetary
Starring: Jason Clarke, John Lithgow, Amy Seimetz
Directors: Kevin Kolsch, Denis Wydmyer
Writer: Jeff Buhler
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