Pet Sematary (2019)

Elevator Pitch: A doctor, Louis, relocates to rural environment, going to live with his family, wife, daughter and younger son in a house in the country. Within sight is the property owned by an old man, Jud, and outside the gate is a country road, traversed by road tankers going fast. When their cat is kiled by a tanker Jud takes Louis to a part of the pet’s burial ground which seems to have the ability to bring the dead back to life, and the cat returns, but it is not quite the same. Then the daughter is killed in another tanker accident; with some trepidation Louis digs up her body and reburies her in the burial ground. She returns, but she is different. How it it all end?

Content: The doctor attempts unsuccessfully to revive a young black man horrifically injured, and thereafter is haunted in dreams. The cat eats a live bird. There is a another spectacular accident, killing the daughter and after the funeral, Louis digs her up. There is a lot of quiet, quiet, bang, once the undead daughter is about again. The wife has visions of an event involving her sort of disabled sister when she was very young. This does not seem to be explained.  Jed, although very wise and knowing, comes to grief.

A View: This was one of those films to make its estimated production cost back on its first weekend, and it has made quite a bit of money. It got mixed reviews and apparently the author did not like it much. I though that it made some rules early on  which is always possible, even with the supernatural, but then they seem to have become bored with them towards the end and discarded them. It is not unique in this and the process turns something quite clever into something a bit boring. So, despite its success at the box office I would not recommend it.

Additional Info: Five cats were used. Four of them got on together but one did not, and had to be isolated. They were all afterwards given homes with people who had worked on the movie.