Thought there was a recent poster posted. This’ll do, a bit of necromancy.

Saw the 2019 remake last night. More ho-hum than horror. Pet Sematary is one of King’s darkest, most unrelenting books. This film took the events of the book, executed a twist, which I don’t have an issue with in theory, and made a movie about that. The tormented whys – all the avoidance and running forced into stark relief in a bad place that fed on it and turned it to nightmare, those whys for Louis and Rachel were sketched but never fleshed out properly. The two of them were lightweight, playing house in a new looking (!) place, saying their lines but with no bite, no sense of real motivation. The performances were adequate, but lacked the depth of people who were drawing on anything close to what is needed to do the source material justice. Making the monsters – particularly the sister – all external even banging on the walls only made this stand out more. Some poor choices in the timing, which was choppy especially in the second half, and average cinematography: smoke machines pumped into a bland clearing do not maketh atmosphere.

Church was cute; covering him with vaseline and coffee grounds just made him look like he needed a bath. He had a good part though, despite the iconic moments of Louis pulling his frozen body off the ground like velcro being absent.

Judd was a waste of John Lithgow. He was more Neighborhood Watch than a deeply ambivalent character, as he should have been. Ellie was great, working with what she had, displayed an amazing range.

In practice, the twist just led to a beyond stupid ending.

Not even the Ramones, during the end credits, but a cover by Starcrawlers, that sounds like Blue Oyster Cult Don’t Fear the Reaper, before Bruce got his hands on it.

More cowbell!

Thumbs down.

Why here? ha, well, why not for now. Just for today.

Tomorrow I sail, just waiting on a few more barrels of rum to be delivered.