Movie Review: Pet Sematary

I have the worst luck. I got really sick last Sunday with a migraine that lasted for three days. Along with the migraine, I had body aches, throwing up and pink eye. Then I got an ear infection and now I have croup. Yeah, I can't catch a break. While being "bed ridden" I was able to catch a viewing of Pet Sematary on T.V.

Pet Sematary is based off of the novel by Stephen King. The Creed family moves to a new town in the countryside of Maine. They find out there is a Pet Sematary in the woods behind their house. The neighbors are reluctant to talk about the Cemetery, and for good reason too. There is a dark secret about the Cemetery. It holds the power of life after death and when tragedy strikes, it makes that power too hard to resist.

This movie was fantastic, I loved everything about it. I really like how Stephen King wrote the screenplay for the movie. The acting was amazing. Everyone did a great job, even Miko Hughes who was around two at the time did a great job as Gage. He was so cute and creepy at the same time. A couple of scenes with him made me think that he acted a lot like Chucky from Child's Play. I wasn't too fond of that, though. ;) Dale Midkiff who played Louis Creed did a great job as the main character. He wasn't too bad to look at either, I have a thing for older men.

Denise Crosby & Blaze Berdahl were great as the mother and daughter. I really enjoyed Fred Gwynne performance in the movie as the Creed's neighbor, Jud Crandall. I didn't even recognize that he played Herman Munster from the T.V. show The Munsters until my Dad pointed it out. Another thing that I thought was awesome is this movie was directed by a woman, Mary Lambert. She has also directed other horror movies such as Urban Legends: Bloody Mary, Pet Sematary 2 & an episode of Tales from the Crypt.

It's nice to see women directors making horror films since this genre has been dominated more by men. I really enjoyed this movie and watching it made me more excited to read the book. I'm not sure if it's 100% like the book or very close to it. I'm thinking it might be since Stephen King wrote the screenplay for the movie and I know that his favorite movie from his book was 'Stand by Me' since it was the closest adaptation to his book. That is also the reason why he didn't like Stanley Kubrick's version of 'The Shining' since he didn't make it like the book as much as Stephen King would of preferred.

I think they did a great job at making this movie. You can totally feel Stephen King's presence in this movie. The story line is perfection and I think anyone would be tempted to use the Pet Sematary once they know what it does. The script was perfect and had a lot of great one liners. "Sometimes dead is better." If you're a fan of horror movie ( which I know most of you if not all of you are) and if you're a fan of Stephen King, I definitely suggest this movie. You won't be disappointed. I give this movie 5 out of 5 skulls.