Pet Sematary showed me what I love about horror

This month’s Pet Sematary remake is deeply flawed. The unselfconscious genre clichés and unnecessary ableist subplot don’t do it any favours, and it pales in comparison to Jordan Peele’s Us.

Yet the things that Pet Sematary does get right really hit the spot. Here’s how the movie illustrated the reasons for my horror nerdery.

Brutal gore

Substandard horror films pile on the gore with more is more abandon. Pet Sematary is all the better for being more sparing with its blood and guts. The violence feels unexpected and some nasty flesh wounds are milked by intelligent camerawork.

The pièce de résistance comes early in the movie when Louis’s sleepy suburban medical practice is turned upside down by the arrival of Victor, a dying young man mowed down by a speeding truck.

The exposed bone and bloodshot eyes make sure these scenes are uncomfortable to watch. They set up the idea that our bodies are fragile and death can arrive at lightning speed.

While our mortality is discussed abstractly by Louis and Rachel in dialogue that neatly lays out the film’s themes, Victor’s death more succinctly drives home Stephen King’s existential musings.

Terrible decisions

Anyone who’s seen the trailer will know that the plot of Pet Sematary hinges on Louis’s regrettable choice to bring his daughter back from the dead. In a terrible way, everything that happens to his family after that is on him.

It reminded me of the opening of Cargo, a low-key zombie flick currently on Netflix. Martin Freeman’s Andy is scavenging for food and supplies in an abandoned boat. He hears something moving and quickly scarpers, but doesn’t tell his wife so as not to scare her.

His wife then gamely ventures back onto the abandoned boat to fetch something Andy left behind and is promptly bitten by a zombie.

Thanks to the quality of Jason Clarke’s performance as Louis, for its second act Pet Sematary borrows the lofty stakes of Greek tragedy

Freeman’s bad decisions don’t end there. Knowing his wife will soon become a flesh-hungry maniac, he keeps her by his side knowing there’s no hope for a cure. He crashes his car and by the time he wakes up in the wreckage, his wife merrily takes a chunk out of his arm and infects him.

All of this could have very easily been avoided, and it’s especially frustrating knowing how careful Andy and his young family had been up to this point.

Horror films give us enough distance to know that the characters are making decisions that will scar them, while also appreciating that they’re made with the best of intentions.

Most of the stupid choices we make don’t involve zombies and resurrected daughters. But we can still empathise with characters making the wrong decisions for the right reasons.

Dramatic irony

In most horror films we know things are about to head south while there’s still plenty of time to turn back.

If Jud hadn’t shown Louis the Pet Sematary, Ellie would have stayed dead. If Louis had kept his grief in check and remembered that he’d almost had to put Church down after the cat came back demonic, he might have wanted to avoid something similar happening to his daughter.

Thanks to the quality of Jason Clarke’s performance as Louis, for its second act Pet Sematary borrows the lofty stakes of Greek tragedy.

We know that the movie’s flawed hero is about to make the one mistake that will tear his family apart. We also know there’s nothing that can stop him.

Even after hearing Jud’s dire warnings, Louis still can’t bear the thought that his time with Ellie is over.  And like Louis, most of our worst mistakes seem inevitable in hindsight, even if we’re given ample warning that things won’t end well.

While Pet Sematary was often a satisfying watch, Jordan Peele's cerebral chiller Us is far superior. Here's five theories on what Us might really mean.

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