Pet Sematary is an adaptation of the best selling horror novel written by Stephen King. A story about a loving family who relocate from the busy city to a cozy country town with hopes of settling down with the perfect life. Dale Midkiff plays Louis Creed, a local doctor who spends much of his time with his new neighbor Jud played by Fred Gwynne -Herman Munster-.
The family’s new home is nearly perfect, with the exception of the semi’s rushing by the road they live on, and the mysterious cemetery which is deep in the woods behind them. After the death of the family cat Winston Churchill (Church), Jud decides that Louis’s daughter may not be ready to deal with the death of her favorite pet. Jud takes Louis and the dead cat behind the pet cemetery and to an ancient Indian burial ground, where he instucts Louis to place the cat into the ground and wait until morning.
“Nope; ya have to bury your own. I’m gonna go over yander and have a smoke.” ~Fred Gwynne
Soon after Louis learns the powers of the pet cemetery, he is compelled to repeat mistakes of those in the past and place more in the ground to be brought back to life. Little does he know that the earth is sour and all that returns from it is pure evil.
Pet Sematary is not a great movie by any means. I would have to rank it as more of a fan/cult film rather than horror movie greatness. In old Stephen King glory, the story is a good one, but there where many things omitted from the original novel which would have made perfect scares on the big screen.
All in all, Pet Sematary is an alright horror thriller to watch late night. It has a few good frights, a couple of disturbing moments, a kick ass theme by the Ramones, and Fred Gwynne is in it.
“Sometimes, dead is better!”
Hey, nice to see a discussion of “Pet Semetary.” I actually worked on the crew of the film back in ’88 and had a great time. I remember thinking that the film might actually be pretty good but then, midway through, they decided to change the ending, winding up with the one that is in the movie now which is nowhere near as good as the original ending — which I can’t remember now.
Interesting tid-bit of trivia: for the scene where Fred Gwynne is killed, the producers did not want to traumatize Miko Hughes, the three-year-old who played Gage, so they invested buckets of money on these incredibly realistic puppets and dummies of Hughes and Gwynne. In the end, however, the two actors –a toddler and an a aging man—had such a rapport with each other that they decided to do the scene themselves and not use the very expensive f/x.
I love the Ramones, Pet Sematary is one of my favorite songs!
I’m with lizardfreak. That damn cat and the scalpel scene in the bedroom get me every time. The film is flawed for sure, the mother and father can’t handle the emotional range needed but Fred Gwynne rocks and nailed his character. The big flaw is the ghost who brings Denise Crosby’s character back to the house. In the book this was setup much better. In the movie it comes off as a plot contrivance.
Finally, the scene at the funeral home/church? when the casket falls -woah!
i think cats eye is much better than pet cemetary.
granted the kid is creepy as hell, but cmon.
jesus built that hot rod and satan ran it into that bar.
This movie creeps the f*** outa me! The depressing scenes of the fathers 2 year old son, damn……..makes my back twitch, I know it’s just a movie but damn! My friends hate this movie just because it creeps the hell out of them as wel, they just can’t handle it.
Pet Sematary and Maximum Overdrive are my two favorite Stephen King films.