But that doesn’t mean the movie is bad at all. In fact, it’s a pretty good horror flick that follows the major beats of the source material fairly well. I can forgive where it diverges… though I do think one of the changes does damage to the themes of the story. But whatever… most of the story is here.

In case you don’t know, Pet Sematary is about a family who moves to a house in the middle of the Maine wilderness. They discover an old pet cemetery in the woods and a friendly next door neighbor who reveals hidden, horrible truths about the land. When the family cat is hit by a truck, the neighbor takes the father beyond the pet sematary… and when the cat returns the next day, it isn’t right. More and more bad things happen, but that’s enough spoilers.

This new film version is much better acted and has a better overall look and feel than the earlier film version. I have a hard time judging it on its own merits… if the events of the story were a surprise to me, I think I’d like the film more. So take this with a gran of salt. I generally enjoyed the film. I found it moody, eerie, and sometimes genuinely suspenseful. The big, traumatic event is very well done and is uniquely horrific. The results of which, altered as shown in that vile trailer, changes the feel of the story in a unique way (being vague here). The film isn’t just about scares either; it’s about the mortality of our loved ones and how death can weigh down our psyche.

There are some problems though. The film doesn’t spend nearly enough time with the family and the neighbor. It needed another ten minutes or so to really set the characters up so it feels more tragic in the long run. There’s also some roughly edited moments and a confusing point where, for example, I’m sure they say the daughter is nine and then, later in the film, she attends her own 9th birthday.

One fun, but slightly weird thing, is that the film thinks you’ve seen the 1989 film already (and read the book). There are a handful of shots and moments that are clearly a nod – and often subversion – of events as told in that previous film. And I smiled wide when the end credits launched into a cover of The Ramones song from the first flick (“I don’t want to be buried / In a Pet Semetary!”). Why I find all this weird is that I think that 1989 film has largely been forgotten by pop culture.

So, yeah, this is a solid, well-acted, and pretty good looking film version of the original novel. It’s not perfect but most of the flaws don’t really get in the way of the scares. It would have helped suspense if they’d spent more time on building characters but the acting is solid enough to help lift that weight. I recommend this one, especially for King fans and horror movie fans in general.