Pet Sematary
It had been a long time since I had seen this filmic adaptation of Stephen King's novel. I watched it in high school, so well over twenty years ago. I remembered it as being creepy and a little heartbreaking. I had been a little reluctant to re-watch it since I knew it revolved around the death of a child, and being a parent sometimes those things hit me harder now.
I needn't have worried. I didn't care about or believe in any of the characters enough to be emotionally affected. I'm not sure if it was bad directing, bad dialogue, bad acting, or an unholy combination of all three, but unfortunately my emotional state could mostly be described as "bored." The plot is so ridiculous and so lacking in motivation from the characters at certain points as to be nonsensical. Nothing that is supposed to be creepy ever quite gets there. The depiction of Zelda (the deceased sister of Rachel Creed) perpetuates illness/disability as something frightening, and is pretty damn dehumanizing. (I remember being thoroughly creeped out by the depiction as a teenager. As a hopefully more knowledgeable and compassionate adult, it just strikes me as gross.) It's kind of fun to see Fred Gwynne in a performance as the folksy next door neighbor, and Brad Greenquist is somewhat entertaining as the ghost character (who fails to have any actual impact on the plot) but other than that? meh.
I needn't have worried. I didn't care about or believe in any of the characters enough to be emotionally affected. I'm not sure if it was bad directing, bad dialogue, bad acting, or an unholy combination of all three, but unfortunately my emotional state could mostly be described as "bored." The plot is so ridiculous and so lacking in motivation from the characters at certain points as to be nonsensical. Nothing that is supposed to be creepy ever quite gets there. The depiction of Zelda (the deceased sister of Rachel Creed) perpetuates illness/disability as something frightening, and is pretty damn dehumanizing. (I remember being thoroughly creeped out by the depiction as a teenager. As a hopefully more knowledgeable and compassionate adult, it just strikes me as gross.) It's kind of fun to see Fred Gwynne in a performance as the folksy next door neighbor, and Brad Greenquist is somewhat entertaining as the ghost character (who fails to have any actual impact on the plot) but other than that? meh.