Pet Sematary (2019 film)

Louis Creed, an emergency physician from Boston, Massachusetts, moves to the small town of Ludlow, Maine with his wife, Rachel, their two young children, Ellie and Gage, and Ellie's cat, Church. Exploring the woods, Rachel and Ellie stumble across a funeral procession of children taking a dead dog to a cemetery called "Pet Sematary." At the university hospital, Louis is left shaken after failing to save the life of Victor Pascow, a student who was fatally injured after being struck and dragged by a vehicle. He later experiences a vivid dream in which Victor leads him to the deadfall at the back of the cemetery and warns him not to "venture beyond." Louis awakens to find his feet and sheets caked in mud, suggesting that the events were more than just a nightmare.

On Halloween, Church is killed by a truck. Jud Crandall, their neighbor who has a soft spot for Ellie, takes Louis past the pet cemetery to an ancient burial ground to bury Church. The next day, Louis is stunned when Church returns home alive, though he is different: aggressive and violent, tearing apart a bird and eating it alive. Jud reveals to Louis that the burial ground brings things back from the dead and is believed to be inhabited by a spirit known as the Wendigo. He apologizes, having thought Church would return the same. After Church attacks Gage, Louis unsuccessfully attempts to euthanize him and instead decides to set him free in the wild.

During her birthday party, Ellie spots Church on the road and excitedly rushes to him, but is hit and killed by a derailed tanker truck. The family is devastated, and Rachel and Gage leave to spend a few days with Rachel's parents. Sensing that Louis is planning on resurrecting Ellie, Jud warns the grieving father that "sometimes dead is better." Though Victor's spirit similarly warns him, Louis's grief spurs him to carry out his plan. He drugs Jud, exhumes Ellie's corpse, and reburies her in the animal graveyard as the Wendigo looks on. Ellie rises from the dead but manifests a disturbing demeanor.

Meanwhile, Rachel is frightened by visions of her dead sister Zelda, who suffered from spinal meningitis and died after falling down a dumbwaiter shaft. Gage is also frightened by the ghost of Victor who tries to warn him about going home. Jud wakes up and spots Ellie in the house. He flees home in horror to retrieve his revolver, but Jud, distracted by a growling Church, allows Ellie to surprise him on the stairwell—slicing through Jud's Achilles tendon with a scalpel and taunting him with the voice of his dead wife before viciously stabbing him to death.

Rachel and Gage return home and encounter the undead Ellie. Rachel is horrified and flees with Gage to an upstairs bedroom. Ellie, enraged at being rejected by her mother, attacks Rachel as Louis finds Jud's blood-soaked body. Rushing home, Louis manages to save Gage just as Ellie fatally stabs Rachel. He locks Gage in the car, and Rachel begs her husband not to bury her in the pet cemetery. Ellie knocks Louis unconscious and drags her mother's body to the burial ground. At the pet cemetery, Ellie tries to kill Louis. As Louis prepares to decapitate his daughter, he is impaled by a weather vane by a reanimated Rachel and is subsequently buried as she was. Along with Church, the undead trio set fire to Jud's house before approaching the car. The resurrected Louis peers into the car at Gage before a beeping sound of unlocking is heard and the screen cuts to black.

In an alternate ending released on home media, Louis spares Ellie instead of killing her, and they both bury Rachel behind the pet cemetery, promising that they will be a family together forever. After burning Jud's house, Louis and Ellie approach the family car, where Gage is still locked in. In the house, Ellie, Church, and a newly resurrected Rachel approach and reunite with an unhappy Louis holding Gage, who is crying.

Christopher Young composed the film score. The end credits include a cover version of the Ramones song "Pet Sematary" by American punk rock band Starcrawler. Waxwork Records released the soundtrack on a double LP in 2019 following the release of the movie.[17]

The film had its world premiere at South by Southwest on March 16, 2019, and was theatrically released in the United States on April 5, 2019, by Paramount Pictures.[18]

The film was originally going to be released on April 19, 2019,[19] but was moved two weeks from its original release date of April 19, 2019, to April 5, 2019.[20]

In March 2019, producer Di Bonaventura stated that a prequel to the film is possible if the film is a success financially, saying,

"I generally don't start thinking about [sequels] until they're a success. I think if there's anything here, there's a prequel. I think if you look at the book, we didn't cover all that stuff that happens before the Creed family moves in. So, I think there's a movie there, and I think I'd be particularly interested in doing that, because, again, it's the source material and you are going toward something that also has a lot of crazy, creepy feelings about it."[29]

In April 2019, directors Kölsch and Widmyer ruled themselves out of returning, saying,

"If you were going to do more, you'd probably do backstory stuff. [...] I'd be really interested to see how somebody would do a sequel to this movie. It probably won't be us."[30]

In May 2019, screenwriter Buhler stated that there had been preliminary discussions on a continuation, saying,

"So a lot of the ideas that we've been batting around currently, recently, have all been about, more about digging into the mythology of the town, these rituals that children present, the mythology of the Micmac, the Wendigo, the cemetery, the origins, Jud's life. So it looks like, I don't want to promise anything, because we don't know, we're not even down the road on an idea yet."[31]

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