Is Pet Sematary scary?

Not particularly — Pet Sematary's appeal is atmospheric or thematic rather than overtly scary. As a supernatural film, it scored 3.0/10 for fear, 6.0/10 for atmosphere, and 7.2/10 overall on Watch Darkly's curator scale across 1 rating.

How many jump scares are in Pet Sematary?

Pet Sematary has 13 jump scares, based on Watch Darkly's per-film jump-scare count.

What are some films like Pet Sematary?

Films similar to Pet Sematary on Watch Darkly include Se7en (1995), It (2017), The Shining (1980) — selected by cosine similarity on the curator scoring across fear, gore, atmosphere, and overall quality.

Metadata and artwork from TMDB. Not endorsed or certified by TMDB.

supernatural

Pet Sematary

Name: Pet Sematary
Genre: horror
Released: 1989-04-21
Duration: 1 h 43 min
Rating: 7.2

1989 · R · 1h 43m

Sometimes, dead is better.

After the Creed family's cat is accidentally killed, a friendly neighbor advises its burial in a mysterious nearby cemetery.

Plot summary via TMDB

Curator Score

7.2

Overall

Based on 1 curator rating

Strongest on intensity.

Jump scares

Pet Sematary has 13 jump scares. Compare counts

Add your rating

7.2Overall

Fear3.0

Gore6.0

Atmosphere6.0

Intensity7.0

Genres

horror

Rate this film

Details

Budget$11.5M

Box office$57.5M

Directed by

Written by

Cinematography

Music

Starring

Dale Midkiff as Louis Creed · Fred Gwynne as Jud Crandall · Denise Crosby as Rachel Creed · Brad Greenquist as Victor Pascow · Michael Lombard as Irwin Goldman · Miko Hughes as Gage Creed · Blaze Berdahl as Ellie Creed · Susan Blommaert as Missy Dandridge

Production

Paramount Pictures

Metadata and artwork from TMDB. Not endorsed or certified by TMDB.

supernatural

Pet Sematary

1989 · R · 1h 43m

Sometimes, dead is better.

After the Creed family's cat is accidentally killed, a friendly neighbor advises its burial in a mysterious nearby cemetery.

Plot summary via TMDB

Curator Score

7.2

Overall

Based on 1 curator rating

Strongest on intensity.

Jump scares

Pet Sematary has 13 jump scares. Compare counts

Add your rating

7.2Overall

Fear3.0

Gore6.0

Atmosphere6.0

Intensity7.0

Genres

horror

Rate this film

Details

Budget$11.5M

Box office$57.5M

Directed by

Written by

Cinematography

Music

Starring

Production

Paramount Pictures

Reviews

blessedmakerCurator

Jun 16, 2026

Overall7.2Fear3Atmos.6Gore6

In an otherwise serious and dark movie I think there were some unintentionally funny moments; The "Nooooo" from Louis Creed reminded me of the Darth Vader's "Nooo" when he found out what happened to Padme. If you don't know what i'm talking about it's over the top dramatic and hard to take seriously. These funny moments were immersion breaking for me. Practical effects were good, and some good creepy moments! As far as Stephen King adaptions go this is not the worst, nor the best.

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