Dr. Louis Creed (Dale Midkiff) has just moved his family — wife, Rachel (Denise Crosby), daughter, Ellie (Blaze Berdahl), and young son, Gage (Mikos Hughes) — into an old home in the country. The neighbor across the road, Jud Crandall (Fred Gwynne,) warns them about the trucks that speed by the house at all hours of the day and night. Ellie discovers a well-worn path that leads to a makeshift pet cemetery. “It’s that damn road! It uses up lots of animals. Cats and dogs mostly,” Jud explains.
On Louis’ first day at his medical practice, he tries to help a young man named Victor (Brad Greenquist) who has been hit by a car. Before he dies, Victor gives Louis a warning about the pet cemetery. That night, Victor’s ghost visits Louis and tells him not to cross the barrier beyond the cemetery because the ground is “sour.”
When Rachel, Ellie, and Gage are away on a trip to Chicago to visit Rachel’s parents, their cat, Church, is struck and killed by one of the speeding trucks. Worried that Ellie’s heart will be broken by the loss of her beloved pet, Jud takes Louis to a spot behind the pet cemetery where he tells him to bury Church. Much to Louis’s dismay (and in total contradiction to his medical training), Church reappears at the family doorstep the next morning; smelling rank and with unusual aggression towards Louis. Curiously, Louis asks Jud if anyone had tried to bury a human behind the cemetery.
Based on the novel of the same name by Stephen King, Pet Sematary‘s success depends on your willingness to buy into the sense of loss and dread that the characters should feel over the course of the movie. Mary Lambert’s direction of Stephen King’s screen adaptation doesn’t emphasize these emotions as much as she could and, as a result, the characters’ motivations often seem nonsensical as do their actions.
Fred Gwynne’s performance as Jud is the film’s highlight as he brings equal amounts of charm and subtle creepiness to the character. Blaze Berdahl is good as young Ellie, but her sincerity is underutilized. Otherwise, the rest of the cast is mostly flat. Denise Crosby looks like she belongs in another picture. Dale Midkiff’s facial expressions belie his character’s emotions from scene to scene. Mikos Hughes, as the wide-eyed Gage, is adorable but he’s also replaced by a doll in a few key scenes. You’d be hard-pressed to notice much difference.
The practical make-up effects, done by David LeRoy Anderson, are top-notch. I’m not sure why his name isn’t bandied about in the same terms as Tom Savini and Rick Baker. Any thrills that this movie generates are solely the result of his work.
Overall, Pet Sematary is a scary idea that doesn’t translate into a scary movie thanks to uneven performances and lackluster direction. A strong disappointment.
2.5 out of 5.0 stars
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