Where I Watched It: Paramount Plus

English Audio Description?: Yes

It’s not that 80’s horror is bad, but more like some directors actually learn from what came before. Case in point would be the Pet Sematary remake, which avoids a lot of the mistakes Mary lambert made when she directed the original film. It’s clear that even though this movie makes a few very different changes, it still is tied down to the same tired King bullshit that still never belonged in this franchise.

Yes, we have a doctor moving to town (Jason Clarke), and he lives too close to a busy road and a pet cemetery. He also has a family, though the youngest boy is now even younger, and they still have a cat. Judd is still the neighbor, though he feels more like a neighbor than the adopted grandfather Judd becomes in the first film.

They abandon the subplot with the character and her stomach pains, but sadly still kept the random young man who has to explain shit to a man he’s never met post-Morten simply because the film assumes everyone is stupid. Having seen two versions of this, and knowing that Judd basically serves the same purpose, I don’t know what was so damn important about a character we’ve never met giving a warning before they never appear again. There’s no mystery around this kid. No side cult or anything. he just has a bad day, dies, and passes on knowledge before heading to the great beyond.

And while it’s shot differently, and used to haunt Rachel throughout the film, Rachel’s asinine backstory still exists. It still has no bearing on the film, and since Rachel is neither in her childhood home, nor is she in her hometown, it makes absolutely no fucking sense Mr Stephen Richard Bachman King. I’ve always been told the cocaine you did was epic, but you literally wrote a book into another book, and forgot to life it out. Rachel’s story should be its own film. It does not, and never has, belonged in this film.

Aside from keeping two of King’s worst choices, the directors of the remake do a much better job of holding tension, and directing scenes. No weird echoes, or tiny kids using phones. The things that come back are more functional, like in the sequel, which makes the tension greater. And, instead of having a million trucks driving down the road in front of the house, these guys wait for the right moment. There’s a mention of the danger, and that’s all. They assume we are smart enough to not need a constant reminder about the road.

The audio description here is really good, as the gore and violence ramps up like most remakes of the day do. If we are being honest, David Gordon Green really went hard on leveling up that gore in Halloween. The same is true here, with this film being more unsettling, and the final moment of the film being a perfect way to just leave things. not everything needs a finite resolution.

Probably what’s best about both audio descriptions is the mention of the actual gravestones in the cemetery, and because of that, we can see the homages paid and also the changes made. Watching these two so close together made it that much easier to appreciate the choices.

This is the best in the series, as it is the best directed and adapted. Far from perfect, it just remains effective.

Final Grade: B