Pet Sematary (1989) Review

Dr. Louis Creed (Dale Midkiff) his wife Rachel (Denise Crosby) and their two children move to a small town in Ludlow, Maine. For the first several months all seems well. They have a kind-hearted but mysterious neighbor named Jud Crandall (Fred Gwynne) and Louis has a good job as a university doctor. However, as is often with the novels of Stephen King, nothing is quite as it seems. Louis is haunted by nightmares of a patient he couldn't save (Brad Greenquist) and Rachel is terrified of the memories of her sister Zelda (Andrew Hubatsek) who died as a child from spinal meningitis. All of their problems boil down to one thing. The house in which they are now living is next to a pet cemetery. This cemetery leads to an ancient Indian burial ground that holds a dark secret. Bury the recently deceased and they will return. Despite the warning from Crandall a family tragedy (spoiler) causes Louis to do the unthinkable and has to learn the hard way that sometimes dead is better.

This film is easily one of the scariest, for me personally, films that I have ever seen. It never fails to evoke a feeling of dread and terror deep within the pit of my stomach. There's a subtlety and slow build to the horror that works excellent for, not just the film itself, but the characters. Everything from the music to the production design to the direction by Mary Lambert helps to create atmosphere. The film works much like a stone-lined path. You follow the warm, defined and inviting path into the woods and eventually go off the path until you are lost and terrified. The scariest thing about leaving the path is that we don't know what's in the woods.

I want to focus for a moment on the performance by Gwynne. Not a single line is wasted and Gwynne plays Jud as the type of man who knows everything about what's gone on in this town over the last seven or more decades and acts as the film's Greek chorus, warning the audience of the dangers and the potential for horrific events. The emotional involvement by Gwynne and the gut-wrenching scene in which Jud is, in a sense, confessing his sins to Louis is nothing short of extraordinary and I truly believe that Gwynne shed off any naysaying about his ability to play a multi-faceted, deep character. He was more than just a Herman Munster.

It's a didactic tale that deals with the nature of death. The grieving process is treated as a complex, human emotion and not as an entertainment aspect. This film deals with things we don't like. We don't want to read about it and we don't want to think about it. This film refuses to allow you to escape the harsh reality of life.

★★★★