Pet Sematary - A Tragic Failure
Thoughts On: Pet Sematary (2019)
A family is thrashed by tragedy yet provided chance in darkness.
Pet Sematary was, without a doubt, quite a disappointing film. I went in without reading King's book and without seeing the 1989 film. I have no clue about the differences in plot between the three versions, but Pet Sematary contains such a pointless, rather amateurish, story about pretty much nothing. To discuss this I will use a major spoiler. You have been warned.
Everyone dies in Pet Sematary. Yet this is not a tragedy, nor is it ironic, comedic, nor particularly horrifying - it is rather dull. Without certain generic tropes inherent, in particular, to the tragedy, Pet Sematary fails where a film such as Hereditary excels. Hereditary brilliantly fuses horror and tragedy into an expressionist allegory about mental health with inflections of more ambiguous symbolic material. It uses serious, weighted means of exploring character subjectivity and what it means to be at the centre of a crumbling family. As much as we are then repulsed and made uncomfortable by certain fantastical, occult and ghostly dramaturgy, we are drawn into the humanity of the narrative; horror used to offset tragedy, tragedy made more poignant by the uncanniness of characterisation. Pet Sematary features a rather plain family going through difficulties, a mother haunted by Hereditary-esque horror-tragedy, a father haunted by the chance to revive a dead daughter. Alas, whilst flashbacks have some glimmers of affecting tragic horror, they are exploited to some degree; dream sequences and flashbacks spectacle add little of particular relevance to the story; and further exposition on ancient grounds and ghosts pretty much irrelevant to the plot remain entirely unused by the subtext.
The horror elements of Pet Sematary simply do not amount to much beyond a few loud sounds and a little body horror. Alas, some work is done to develop a sense of tragedy - in particular with themes of doom and inevitability as well as a somewhat interesting investigation of an atheistic character confronted with the impossible. However, the work done with the father - a doctor who does not believe in the afterlife - is rather unenlightening. One has to do most of the work to appreciate the intensity of his love, how this drives him insane and transforms his moral existence entirely. This is not a positive outcome of a demand of active spectatorship. This is a failure of substantial impressionistic/expressionistic projection. If one pays close attention to the structuring, shooting and editing of key scenes - such as the father digging up his daughter's corpse - one finds a rather unimaginative and unempathetic employment of story and visual language. The scene is shot objectively and with little done between performer and camera to capture the true psychological horror of the given situation.
Pet Sematary is riddled with moments like this - moments in which the writer--and director in particular--show little understanding of their story, character and theme. The final product of this is a story that means very little, that is rather nihilistic. A father betrays his intellectual impulses for the sake of love, and in turn destroys his family. Not a care is given to ideas of redemption. And very little care of the father's transformation and plight is demonstrated. The tagline sums up the entire story: sometimes dead is better. Ingenious. Because of this, Pet Sematary appears to be little more than a near-pretentious pseudo exploitation film. For this, I cannot recommend the film and furthermore cannot say I care too much for it.
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A family is thrashed by tragedy yet provided chance in darkness.
Pet Sematary was, without a doubt, quite a disappointing film. I went in without reading King's book and without seeing the 1989 film. I have no clue about the differences in plot between the three versions, but Pet Sematary contains such a pointless, rather amateurish, story about pretty much nothing. To discuss this I will use a major spoiler. You have been warned.
Everyone dies in Pet Sematary. Yet this is not a tragedy, nor is it ironic, comedic, nor particularly horrifying - it is rather dull. Without certain generic tropes inherent, in particular, to the tragedy, Pet Sematary fails where a film such as Hereditary excels. Hereditary brilliantly fuses horror and tragedy into an expressionist allegory about mental health with inflections of more ambiguous symbolic material. It uses serious, weighted means of exploring character subjectivity and what it means to be at the centre of a crumbling family. As much as we are then repulsed and made uncomfortable by certain fantastical, occult and ghostly dramaturgy, we are drawn into the humanity of the narrative; horror used to offset tragedy, tragedy made more poignant by the uncanniness of characterisation. Pet Sematary features a rather plain family going through difficulties, a mother haunted by Hereditary-esque horror-tragedy, a father haunted by the chance to revive a dead daughter. Alas, whilst flashbacks have some glimmers of affecting tragic horror, they are exploited to some degree; dream sequences and flashbacks spectacle add little of particular relevance to the story; and further exposition on ancient grounds and ghosts pretty much irrelevant to the plot remain entirely unused by the subtext.
The horror elements of Pet Sematary simply do not amount to much beyond a few loud sounds and a little body horror. Alas, some work is done to develop a sense of tragedy - in particular with themes of doom and inevitability as well as a somewhat interesting investigation of an atheistic character confronted with the impossible. However, the work done with the father - a doctor who does not believe in the afterlife - is rather unenlightening. One has to do most of the work to appreciate the intensity of his love, how this drives him insane and transforms his moral existence entirely. This is not a positive outcome of a demand of active spectatorship. This is a failure of substantial impressionistic/expressionistic projection. If one pays close attention to the structuring, shooting and editing of key scenes - such as the father digging up his daughter's corpse - one finds a rather unimaginative and unempathetic employment of story and visual language. The scene is shot objectively and with little done between performer and camera to capture the true psychological horror of the given situation.
Pet Sematary is riddled with moments like this - moments in which the writer--and director in particular--show little understanding of their story, character and theme. The final product of this is a story that means very little, that is rather nihilistic. A father betrays his intellectual impulses for the sake of love, and in turn destroys his family. Not a care is given to ideas of redemption. And very little care of the father's transformation and plight is demonstrated. The tagline sums up the entire story: sometimes dead is better. Ingenious. Because of this, Pet Sematary appears to be little more than a near-pretentious pseudo exploitation film. For this, I cannot recommend the film and furthermore cannot say I care too much for it.
Previous post:
Photogénie - A Definition
Next post:
Why Do We Like Marvel Movies?
More from me:
aamazon.com/author/danielslack
