Louis Creed - a doctor from Chicago - moves to a small Maine town with his wife Rachel and their children Ellie and Gage. They have a handsome cat called Church. Their elderly neighbour Jud warns them that the road is infamous for its high speed traffic and consequent passing animal deaths. Jud and Louis become close friends and he introduces the family to the local Pet Sematary (sic) where the local kids bury their deceased pets - mainly killed on that treacherous road. Louis later treats a fatally injured student, who on his death bed talks to Louis directly as if Louis knows him. Pascow - the dead student appears to Louis, takes him to the pet sematary and tells him never to go beyond the trees and bushes at the back. When Louis wakes up, he initially dismisses this episode as nonsense but finds he is covered in pine needles... At Hallowe'en Jud's wife Norma has a near fatal heart attack, Louis saves her, but then Church is mown over on the busy road. To pay Louis back for saving his wife's life, Jud takes Louis, along with Louis' dead cat to an Indian burial ground. Lo and behold the cat reanimates and acts all creepy and weird. In a tragic accident Louis' son Gage is killed on the busy road. Torn apart with grief, and despite the protestations of Jud, Louis digs up Gage's body and buries it in the Indian burial site. Of course, Gage gets resurrected with predictably scary and gruesome results. He can talk like an adult and kill like one as well. With great sadness Louis re-kills him with morphine, but in an act of supreme stupidity, he carries his dead wife (Gage killed her) to the Indian burial ground. Gosh, I wonder how that is going to pan out... On its thirtieth anniversary, Pet Sematary has lost none of its ability to chill you to the marrow. Zombie cats, zombie toddlers, zombie women - it is all going on in this book. I think Gage's reanimation is the saddest and scariest thing about Pet Sematary. It is frightening to watch a cute toddler turn into a scalpel wielding, cannibalistic mad creature who kills his own mother. The pet cemetery is a very eerie place if one thinks about all of the squashed moggies and doggies buried below. It is a story about death, acceptance of death, grieving and trying to bypass death - which gives it its chilling hue. You will never look at roadkill in quite the same way again...
My first film watched was Carrie aged 2 on my dad's knee. Educated at The University of St Andrews and Trinity College Dublin. Fan of Arthouse, Exploitation, Horror, Euro Trash, Giallo, New French Extremism. Weaned at the bosom of a Russ Meyer starlet. The bleaker, artier or sleazier the better!
Louis Creed - a doctor from Chicago - moves to a small Maine town with his wife Rachel and their children Ellie and Gage. They have a handsome cat called Church. Their elderly neighbour Jud warns them that the road is infamous for its high speed traffic and consequent passing animal deaths. Jud and Louis become close friends and he introduces the family to the local Pet Sematary (sic) where the local kids bury their deceased pets - mainly killed on that treacherous road. Louis later treats a fatally injured student, who on his death bed talks to Louis directly as if Louis knows him. Pascow - the dead student appears to Louis, takes him to the pet sematary and tells him never to go beyond the trees and bushes at the back. When Louis wakes up, he initially dismisses this episode as nonsense but finds he is covered in pine needles... At Hallowe'en Jud's wife Norma has a near fatal heart attack, Louis saves her, but then Church is mown over on the busy road. To pay Louis back for saving his wife's life, Jud takes Louis, along with Louis' dead cat to an Indian burial ground. Lo and behold the cat reanimates and acts all creepy and weird. In a tragic accident Louis' son Gage is killed on the busy road. Torn apart with grief, and despite the protestations of Jud, Louis digs up Gage's body and buries it in the Indian burial site. Of course, Gage gets resurrected with predictably scary and gruesome results. He can talk like an adult and kill like one as well. With great sadness Louis re-kills him with morphine, but in an act of supreme stupidity, he carries his dead wife (Gage killed her) to the Indian burial ground. Gosh, I wonder how that is going to pan out... On its thirtieth anniversary, Pet Sematary has lost none of its ability to chill you to the marrow. Zombie cats, zombie toddlers, zombie women - it is all going on in this book. I think Gage's reanimation is the saddest and scariest thing about Pet Sematary. It is frightening to watch a cute toddler turn into a scalpel wielding, cannibalistic mad creature who kills his own mother. The pet cemetery is a very eerie place if one thinks about all of the squashed moggies and doggies buried below. It is a story about death, acceptance of death, grieving and trying to bypass death - which gives it its chilling hue. You will never look at roadkill in quite the same way again...