Pet Semetary movie review: Many tense moments, impeccable craft in this adaptation of Stephen King's bestseller

If you’re in for decently designed scares, a nice, comfy atmosphere for a horror movie, and the willingness to invest in a reboot that doesn’t suck, the new Pet Semetary film is the fix you need. It’s not as groundbreaking as the original film from 30 years ago, and it may probably not satisfy fans of that movie, but it’s serviceable escapist horror that has just enough meat to sink your horror addict teeth into. The filmmakers took a metaphorical approach in that film, bridging the horror with psychological conflicts and they carry the tactic forward in the Pet Semetary remake, furthering the meditation on death, what it means to cut off spiritually with someone you love, and how you would deal with said loved one returning to you. The treatment isn’t as abstract as David Lowery’s A Ghost Story, but sort of sits between that arthouse film and the more bump-in-the-dark ‘commercial’ movies that you see nowadays set in haunted houses, with the ‘strangeness’ DNA of Netflix’s recent Stephen King adaptations.