After a genuinely effective first 45 minutes, the Stephen King adaptation ultimately comes across as more grisly than scary.

Jason Clarke, Amy Seimetz and John Lithgow anchor a swift but mechanical new adaptation of Stephen King's wrenching 1983 novel.

R • 1 hour 41 min • 2019

How does the 2019 remake of Pet Sematary stack up against the 1983 novel and 1989 movie adaptation? It retains the same appeal and flaws.

Previously filmed in 1989, this creepy tale of a family who discover that buried pets in their backyard won’t stay dead is an impressively nasty scare story

‘Pet Sematary’ is exactly the kind of horror movie that is ripe for remaking. The 1989 version of Stephen King’s creepy novel is fairly well remembered, but it’

'Pet Sematary' changes a Stephen King's novel a bit, says Peter Travers, but the terrifying new version nails its dark spirit. Our review.

The new version of Stephen King's 'Pet Sematary'—misspelled again just to make sure you don't confuse it with dozens of other clones about people attacked by rabid animals—is not exactly a remake of an old horror-film favorite, just another slant.

The story has enough pathos to fulfill the expectations of a great tragedy, but the film feels like a commercial for something else entirely.

All the elements are there for a genuinely horrifying (as opposed to simply startling) movie: heck, two or three horrifying movies. You’ve got your woman traumatized by her youth spent caring for a hideously crippled sister who hated her. You’ve got your little girl struggling to understand why the cat she loved more than anything in the world has suddenly turned nasty — evil, even. You’ve got your old codger carrying a dark secret from his past. And you’ve got your bereaved parent, so twisted by his pain that he can no longer distinguish right from terribly, terribly wrong. But directors Kevin Kölsch and Dennis Widmyer spend waaaay too much time going for tension-building walks through creepy places and not nearly enough developing the stories that would have made this Stephen King adaption put the screws to the soul. Hint: when you have to have a character announce the central theme — “That place gets in your mind and feeds on your grief!” — instead of making the audience actually feel those things, you’re doing it wrong. Happily, there aren’t nearly so many jump scares as there might have been, and the opening shot is pretty great, and there’s some good work in the sound and visuals department. But it’s still a miss.

Amy Seimetz and Jason Clarke star in Kevin Kolsch and Dennis Widmyer's adaptation of Stephen King's 1983 novel 'Pet Sematary.'

In Jordan Peele’s new movie and the latest Stephen King adaptation, the real bump in the night might be decades of suppressed trauma. Spoilers ahead!

This remake of the spattery 1989 horror hit is marred by pallid performances and slow pacing. Rating: 1.5 stars out of 4.

An unforgettable work of horror literature has once again been reduced to an eminently forgettable movie.

Pet Sematary is creepy for a time, before it becomes stupid. Then it’s creepy again: The final image will make you want your mommy.

2019’s Pet Sematary is one of the more dull and needless movie adaptations to exist, yet I have a sneaking suspicion that it’s also going to make millions of dollars

Jason Clarke stars in a new movie version of Stephen King's "Pet Sematary," and his performance makes things more real — and terrifying.

Co-directors Kevin Kolsch and Dennis Widmyer improve on the 1989 adaptation in some regards, but still come up short in the end.

Paramount exhumes another Stephen King chiller.

Kevin Kolsch and Dennis Widmyer have directed the second adaptation of Stephen King’s 1983 bestseller.

Haven't people read enough Stephen King novels to know not to move to small-town…

With so many bad Stephen King adaptations out there, why'd Kevin Kölsch and Dennis Widmyer decide to remake one of the genuinely scary ones?

There was no good reason to resurrect this property. To quote Jud, “Sometimes, dead is better.”

This second attempt at a big-screen adaptation of Stephen King’s dark tale of a family pet rising from the dead mixes things up to chilling effect

Review: A family move in beside a graveyard that brings animals back to life

A new adaptation of the gripping horror novel fails to access its source material’s dark power.

Jason Clarke, Amy Seimetz, and John Lithgow star in the new adaptation of King's horror classic.

SXSW 2019: Whether you're familiar with the Mary Lambert-directed original or coming in cold, this creepy tale will get under your skin

“Look, he’s right there,” Ellie says, and she points towards the closet. Her parents have come to tell her that her cat ran away — softening the real story, that her cat was hit by a truck and killed — but we know, because we’ve come to see Pet…

It’s pretty ironic for a remake of an ’80s horror classic to choose the tagline “sometimes dead is better,” especially when “Pet Sematary” itself is a cautionary tale about the dangers of reviving the things you love. The story, and the tagline, practically beg one to apply the meta logic to the film itself. And […]

Led by some fine performances, this is an impressive and intense example of how to adapt Stephen King.

If there had been an Internet and fangirls and fanboys back in Stephen King's film and TV adaptation heyday -- the 80s to early 90s -- he never would have had the chance to fall out of favor. Over-exposed, with every month, it seemed, hosting a new King "Lawnmower Man," Maximum Overdrive," "The Stand" or…

Stephen King's grief-horror gets a remake starring Jason Clarke. Read the Empire review.

In 1983 Stephen King released the novel Pet Sematary. He wrote it years prior but thinking it was too dark, put it off for a while. When the book, which King claims as the one that frightens him the most, finally saw the light it proved a huge success. Six years later, the Mary Lambert

There's something somewhat hypocritical in remaking a horror yarn about the perils of not leaving something well enough alone. Much like Jason Clarke's Louis Creed, Kevin Kölsch and Dennis Widmyer’s Pet Sematary disregards any red flags or warning signs to bring the long-gestating Stephen King (re)adaptation back from the dead. The result of this abandon

How do you scare an audience when they already know the story?

Jason Clarke, John Lithgow lead well-handled remake of 1989 horror flick