Reviews

Wow, I am extremely disappointed. I'm not here to praise the 1989 version, that one had some serious lacks too, but sometimes more is less, and sometimes adaptation should just stick to the novel, especially if it does not have anything, and I mean ANYthing meaningful to add. This movie seems like a commercial version of the - sometimes extremely - serious issues touched by the novel: like the unfounded guilt felt by Rachel for her sister's death (replaced here by actually pretty founded guilt), the psychosis of a terminal illness (touched, avoided), the inevitability of death and also, people's irrational, senseless fear of death as seen in Rachel (nothing but a flicker of thought, a 15-second dialogue in this movie). Sometimes, slowly-built creep leads to a great scare, but here, the quick-changing scenery, the cuts of plot lines basically just open stories and leave it there (why did they have to make the children's pet funeral such a creep? it is explicitly stated in the novel that the pet 'sematary' is founded on the love and grief felt by children upon possibly their first real loss... it is nowhere near the satanist ritual seen here). Also, I considered the choice of actors poor. All my respect to John Lithgow, but this role just wasn't for him. The only great casting choice was the cat. *SPOILER* I don't see the point of changing the subject of the major death in the movie. The original implicates so much more: the character development of the daughter (the one to learn eventually about the nature of death), the mercilessness of death which clearly has no respect for anything about whom it takes away... A bonus eyesore: making the only black actor the dead guy (and also, taking away like 80% of the character's role) is so clearly aimed at being politically correct that it actually makes it even more politically incorrect. This movie actually made me angry. Both stars go for the cat.