Yes, I did actually see this movie.
I was by myself at the local AMC.   I caught the 2:30 showing and was in the right seat in the middle.   I couldn’t get the awesome middle seats because I got there a little late.

The theater was about half full with a couple of fanboys behind me.  They just had to comment about all of the trailers and asked each other “what did I miss” between popcorn runs and bathroom breaks.

But, at least it wasn’t the old ladies from Mother.    Those bittys where pretty bad.

So, yes, spoilers are below.  But, Petn Sematary is over 30 years old.  If you don’t have some general idea of what happened, you should really read the book.  Total shame on you for not enjoying one of the best authors our generation has to offer.

Impressions:

The whole movie strongly reminded me of a Shakespeare tragedy.   The elements are definitely there.

The dad, Louis, is a good dad.  In Boston, he was a third shift ER doctor who didn’t get to spend a lot of time with his family.    It was also hinted that the position was mentally exhausting and psychologically draining.

Why shouldn’t it be?   We’ve watched enough ‘true to life’ shows that shows a hospital’s emergency room is not without challenges which usually include quick decisions that mean life or death.

We can sympathize.  Dad Louis wants to spend more time with the kids and wife.   They move away from Boston and he takes residence in a smaller hospital that was close by or on a college campus.

Well-meaning figure – just like McBeth was before Lady McBeth got a hold of him.

Dad Louis wants to be forward with his kids about death, especially his daughter who is nine.  However, Wife Rachel feels that death is too much for her children to handle.

And here we have a paradox.    Dad Louis doesn’t believe in Heaven but wants to tell the kids about death.  Wife Rachel does believe in Heaven but doesn’t want her kids to know about death.

Which is kind of funny because both are right.  Stuff happens.  The cat and daughter dies-ish.  Each comes back covered in dirt and they probably smell bad.

So, they’re dead – walking dead.  I can’t think of anything said about Heaven, but a lot was said about Hell – especially to the well-meaning local Jud.  Dad Louis was right.   There is no Heaven.   However, since the daughter and cat are still moving, there isn’t a complete death.   Wife Rachel was right.

Daughter kills Wife Rachel.   Wife Rachel kills Dad Louis.  It’s suggested that they all gang up on Little Brother Gage, the only undead member of the family.  In the original telling, Gage was the one who died second – after the cat – and came back as a ghoul.

So, two well-meaning parents screwed up, but I don’t think neither one of them was wholly wrong in their views.  It was evident that they loved each other and the kids.  They just didn’t agree about two things – religion and the cycle of nature.

Despite good intentions and love, everything spiraled down until they became one big happy ghoulish family.

Shakesphere-ish.

Other thoughts:

I was particularly interested in the Jud character.
The scene in the 1989 film where his Achille’s heel was sliced into stayed in my mind for years.  Out of all the places to cut someone….   I kept thinking that a wound like that would have been a slow bleeder and very painful.   Not exactly the way to go – or start to go.

That old scene was totally sold by Fred Gwynne – AKA Herman Munster.  Fred did awesome, although I thought that Lilly would show up in the back of my head.

John Lithgow, who is also a type of comedian, was Jud.   I think he did a good job too.  He pulled off a great living and good-natured Jud who happily lead Dad Louis to the cursed ground.

To balance out Jud, there was a gruesome looking ghost of a student that Dad Louis failed to save.  The ghost served as a warning not to cross the boundary of life and death, which was ignored.

Jud was a living white guy.   The ghost was a dead black man.  Jud had survived to his old age, maybe by accident since he had personal encounters with previous ghouls.   The ghost was killed by an accident.

There’s a type of symmetry there.
Actually, there’s a lot of symmetry to the story.

Anyways, I’m glad I saw it.
Still curious about Us, but at least I treated myself to something I said I was going to do – Watch Pet Semetary.

Hopefully, there will be a decent sequel – or prequel – this time around.

So…  It’s good.
Inching forward….  actually doing something for myself.
—  Maybe next time, I’ll buy myself an overpriced drink if I can convince myself to go again… which is always a possibility.     It the next chapter is somewhere out there and the evil Superman movie Brightburn is next month.

We’ll see.