{"id":162658488,"date":"2026-06-01T18:45:31","date_gmt":"2026-06-01T23:45:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lazyandentitled.org\/?p=162658488"},"modified":"2026-06-01T18:45:31","modified_gmt":"2026-06-01T23:45:31","slug":"18-filmrec-pet-sematary-1989-2019","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lazyandentitled.org\/?p=162658488","title":{"rendered":"#18 FILMREC: PET SEMATARY (1989 & 2019)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Yeah, they’re in the wrong order and the 89 poster appears to be Italian? But I’m not gonna change it.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Pet Sematary<\/em><\/strong> (1989) & Pet Sematary<\/em><\/strong> (2019)
directed by Mary Lambert; directed by Kevin K\u00f6lsch & Dennis Widmyer
Rated R for violence, child death, blood, cussin

For fans of curses related to burial grounds, tragedy, and fucked up Stephen King side plots. I’ve never read a Stephen King book, but I’ve watched a lot of films and this one film feels like a quintessential kind of Stephen King film. By that, I mean because it takes place in Maine and is both cheesy and horrifying.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

True heads will know what I mean when I’m talking about his side plots. Stuff like the pie eating contest in Stand By Me<\/em>. The story primarily follows the father and his actions in relation to the events, but the wife has this crazy sequence from her childhood with her sister that really adds a whole other layer of creepy.<\/p>\n\n\n

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My rating: Watch Em Both!<\/em> – This is another entry into the reboot kind of rating that I established way back in #4. I think that the 2019 reboot is faithful in all the right ways and divergent in interesting, satisfying ways. First off, Fred Gwynne as Jud is iconic and they nail it by casting John Lithgow for the reboot. Shame about the Harry Potter stuff, John.<\/p>\n\n\n

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“But…money.”<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some thoughts: Gonna spoil some stuff, reader beware. I mean it. If you are remotely interested, stop reading and watch both films.<\/em>
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I talked about it with Lee Cronin’s The Mummy<\/em> and I’ll say it again here-there is something so powerful about a parent’s love\/grief in a horror movie. I think it’s because it is a clear motivation for a character that most viewers can relate to, regardless of being parents themselves. I am always warning my friends who are parents about this film lol.

There’s an argument to be made that the reboot added or altered things that may not have needed changing, but I’m sure that is also true of the original adaptation and the novel. I personally really enjoy the changes the reboot. Maybe the addition of the Wendigo reference was a little much, but the other alterations really worked to embrace the film as a reboot. Having Louis intend to kill Church and then let him go, only for Church to ultimately be the reason Ellie dies is perfect devastation. And changing the dead child from Gage to Ellie? Holy fuck. That’s what I am talking about when I say embracing the film as a reboot. That’s a change specifically meant to shock the audience members who have seen and loved the original. I can tell you that I was absolutely delighted in theaters.

There’s some absolute terror in tragedy and this story delivers on that twice, so double feature these with someone you love!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yeah, they’re in the wrong order and the 89 poster appears to be Italian? But I’m not gonna change it. Pet Sematary (1989) & Pet Sematary (2019)directed by Mary Lambert; […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[251],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-162658488","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-notes-from-the-nothingness"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lazyandentitled.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162658488","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lazyandentitled.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lazyandentitled.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lazyandentitled.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lazyandentitled.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=162658488"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.lazyandentitled.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162658488\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":162658493,"href":"https:\/\/www.lazyandentitled.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162658488\/revisions\/162658493"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lazyandentitled.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=162658488"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lazyandentitled.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=162658488"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lazyandentitled.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=162658488"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}