Stephen King's Pet Sematary: Special Collector's Edition DVD Review

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Title: Stephen King's Pet Sematary: Special Collector's Edition

Region: One

Genre: Horror

Stars: Dale Midkiff, Fred Gwynne, Denise Crosby, Brad Greenquist, Blaze Berdahl, and Miko Hughes

Writer: Stephen King Based Upon His Novel

Director: Mary Lambert

Feature length: 102 minutes

Extras: Commentary By Director Mary Lambert, Stephen King’s Pet Sematary: Stephen King Territory, Stephen King’s Pet Sematary: The Characters, Stephen King’s Pet Sematary: Filming The Horror

Languages: English Dolby Digital 5.1 and English and French Dolby Surround 2.0

Subtitles: English Closed Captions and Subtitles

Packaging: Keep Case

Chapter Stops: 19

Sound: Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound and Stereo Surround Sound

Year of Theatrical Release: 1989/DVD Release: 2006

Theatrical Distributor: Paramount Pictures

Home Video Distributor: Paramount Home Entertainment

MPAA Rating: R

Reviewer: Mark A. Rivera

Mary Lambert was primarily known for directing music videos for artists like Madonna and Sting, but she made her jump into mainstream feature films with the big screen adaptation of Stephen King’s Pet Sematary, which featured a screenplay by King himself and was produced by the collaborative team of Richard P. Rubinstein and Mitchell Galin, who later went on to produce the miniseries adaptation of Stephen King's The Stand.

"Pet Sematary" is a real creepy story with loved ones returning from the dead, ghosts and deformed apparitions, and some disturbing violence. It is a good film though some readers of the book have not felt the same. This film is positively carnivorous with a road where the trucks roar by like wild predators and a family so doomed that tragic would seem too kind to describe the fate of most of the characters.

Paramount's DVD Edition delivers a clear anamorphic widescreen version of "Pet Sematary" with a (1.85:1) aspect ratio. The transfer has a little grain, but is still quite clear. A great ambient English Dolby Digital 5.1 Soundtrack really delivers the chills too. English and French Dolby Surround 2.0 Soundtracks are also included along with English Captions for the Hearing Impaired and English Subtitles. Director Mary Lambert provides a feature length audio commentary with some of the topics of discussion repeated in the featurettes included on the DVD. She discusses her first meeting with Stephen King and Producer Richard P. Rubinstein, working with the kids and even gives interesting philosophical detail regarding the nature of Jud Crandall (Fred Gwynne) as really a dark angel and to some extent even expresses her belief in the possibility of spirits, entities, or angels appearing to us in forms we might not recognize. An angel could be a homeless man on the street while a malevolent spirit or demon could appear in a pleasing form. It’s scary, but I can believe it and I have no doubt that it is hard to tell the difference if only because even though we can sense things, we often have to deal with self denial and there is a societal imprint within us that basically makes us rationalize anything we sense, but have no concrete understanding either way because of inhibition and or fear.

Like the Stephen King’s The Dead Zone: Special Collector’s Edition DVD, the featurettes are actually pieces or a larger documentary. Stephen King’s Pet Sematary: Stephen King Territory (13:07) features videotaped interviews with Stephen King from the set of the film as well as Producer Richard P. Rubinstein. Author, Critic, and Biographer Douglas E. Winter discusses the background behind the book, which was in part inspired by King’s own experience while teaching for a year as a Writer in Residence at a University and once again King got into a kind of depression while writing the book, which actually sat in a desk drawer for five years until it was finally published and of course it became a huge success. The movie was shot in Maine too. Stephen King’s Pet Sematary: The Characters (12:50) goes into the nature of the characters and Actors impressions of working with each other with new video interviews with Actors Dale Midkiff and Brad Greenquist as well as Director Mary Lambert. . Stephen King’s Pet Sematary: Filming The Horror (10:25) discusses the makeup effects for Brad Greenquist’s character, the horrific scenes between Fred Gwynne and Miko Hughes as well as the film’s dark humor and so forth.

The menus on this DVD are standard interactive still frames that are easy to navigate. Stephen King’s Pet Sematary: Special Collector’s Edition is available on DVD-Video now courtesy of Paramount Home Entertainment.

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