Pet Sematary Discussion (Spoilers)

[Spring Bass]

Spoilers! Spoilers! Spoilers! I didn't see a thread for this, and I searched and nothing recent came up. 

I guess talk about other King adaptations as well if you want, but put those in spoilers if there are spoilers (and it's for something new, not a 20-30 year old book). 

 

 

That sucked, although I was mostly annoyed and disappointed. It really felt like they missed the point of the novel, and didn't replace it with anything good. The movie's in too much of a hurry to get to the horror, to get to jump-scares, so they can then do a Third Act that is mostly Ellie on a rampage. Whereas in the novel, Zombie Gage (it's Ellie in this one, which I find understandable given practical limitations in film-making) literally only appears on Page 491, less than 50 pages from the ending. He's not even really that dangerous - he kills Jud because Jud is a tired 84-year-old man who trips over Church, and he kills Rachael because she embraces him and he surprises her. The horror comes from the inevitability of Louis' downfall once he follows his friend up into the Little God Swamp, from the way that the Burial Ground warps his grief and despair to make him do something that he knows won't work, but tries anyways. 

Jud was the weirdest part of this. He's supposed to be this amiable old guy that Louis quickly becomes friends with, and that the family likes. But the movie mostly shows him as this unsettling weirdo with a spooky looking house, and he gets like one scene where they seem genuinely friendly together. When they have the bit in the Third Act where he's like "I'm sorry Louis, I screwed up, I wanted to help you and I screwed up" it just feels so unearned because they don't feel like friends. 

It all feels kind of small and claustrophobic, too. The Pet Sematary is tiny, it feels like they're five minutes away from where they do the cairns in the Burial Ground, and ugh. There's some cool shots in it, and I liked that Ellie initially comes back kind of dead and unsettling rather than immediately evil and sly (although since they had Church act nasty from the get-go even that isn't much set-up). 

 

[Darth Richard II]

Yeah, this one was pretty much shit, although I'm one of like two people on earth who don’t like the book either.

[Spring Bass]

The book admittedly is a rather slow burn of a story, and like most King novels he can get pretty indulgent in his writing. That's a problem with even his good books (I like the original edit of The Stand much more than the unabridged version).

For example, they cut the whole bit about Louis being on bad terms with his in-laws for this film, and it wasn't much of a loss. There's easier ways to have Louis and Jud be the only people to know that Church really died before resurrecting him, and have Louis send his family away so he can hatch the resurrection plan. 

EDIT: Actually, that's a weird bit in the movie. Louis tells Rachel that Church got killed before he comes back. 

 

 

[Centrist Simon Steele]

23 hours ago, Darth Richard II said:

Yeah, this one was pretty much shit, although I'm one of like two people on earth who don;t liek the book either.

Same. I read the book as a kid, and I didn't watch the movie. I kind of forgot why until my son had me take him to this new one. It's depressing and nihilistic. Sometimes going to dark places can really force you into uncomfortable areas, force you to think and face things you'd rather not, but this movie (and its book) seems to want to hold your face in the carcass, so to speak. 

The changes in the movie seemed silly. One of the big ones that might have been interesting was spoiled through all of the trailers, and in the end, Louis not being the one to bring Rachel back took a huge piece of Louis' flaws: he couldn't let it go.