The Marketing Department: Pet Semetary Trailer

Well, it’s Spook Central over here this week, and what better way to expand on that than with a look at the Pet Semetary trailer? Now, I’m a huge fan of the Stephen King novel this movie is based on: a bold, vastly internal meditation of the madness of grief, it’s one of his finest and most thematically strident works (also featuring what is arguably his worst sex scene, but I digress). So let’s take a peek at what’s to come for the movie adaptation, due out in April 2019:

0:12: Interesting to note (judging by the car, at least) that this adaptation seems to be modern – I think there’s an eternal feeling to Pet Semetary and the way it deals with grief and loss, but it’ll sure be intriguing to see how the modern setting shifts the nuts and bolts of the story.

0:24: Oof, that brief shot of the enormous truck – for those who’ve read the book – is a giant kick in the face and I love it.

0:36: Man, I’m here for a good urban horror and all that, but having grown up in the middle of nowhere surrounded by woods, there’s something distinctly and familiarly creepy to me about a big, dense forest, hiding all sorts of badness.

0:49: Are creepy children a must-have for horror these days? Has Hereditary defined 2018’s spooky mood that utterly? I’m not totally averse to it, but it’s a little rote, especially given that this seems to be an addition to and not an adaptation of details from the book.

0:58: Hurrah, John Lithgow! He’s always a welcome addition to anything I’m watching, and I think he’s particularly well-cast here as Jud Crandall. Jud is far more than just a harbinger character, and I have no doubt Lithgow will bring the depth and warmth that makes him such an impactful part of the story.

1:07: WHAT A LOVELY CAT I DO HOPE NOTHING UNTOWARD HAPPENS TO IT NO NOTES

1:12: I do dig the retro-styled text in this trailer. It’s Stephen King, by way of Stranger Things ripping off Stephen King.

1:23: In fact, there’s an entirely retro style to this entire teaser: the misty woods, the spooky cat, the creepy kids, the family unpicked at the seams. After the brilliance of IT last year, this is, by all evidence, the right way to go.

1:36: I love this shot of a woman hunched in her seat while an iron sends out a mist of steam around her. Domestic, but unsettling. Good stuff.

1:40: WHAT A LOVELY JOHN LITHGOW I DO HOPE NOTHING UNTOWARD HAPPENS TO IT NO NOTES

1:45: “Sometimes dead is better” is a cracking tagline for this movie – a perfect but decently oblique description of the themes and story. Overall: I give this trailer an “I love the book to within an inch of my life so I was going to see this no matter how bad this teaser looked, but luckily it looks awesome so that’s a bonus” out of ten.

By Louise MacGregor

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(header image courtesy of ComingSoon.Net)