PET SEMATARY (1989)
😿Cat Dies
“Sometimes, dead is better.”
This version (as opposed to the 2019 remake) follows extremely closely to the book, using the source material as bible instead of mere suggestion. I think this also makes the movie better, the story is written the way it is written for a reason, but I digress. The child actors do a great job, the adult actors follow suit, and the cat, well, the cat was superb. A great horror and a great Stephen King flick.
⭐⭐⭐⭐
Trigger Warning Suicide, Child Death
Our story begins with a family moving to a town in Maine (did you guys know Stephen King likes Maine?). They find out almost instantly that their new house is next to a very dangerous road where truckers speed by in their enormous trucks. In fact, on their first day at the new house, the youngest child, Gage, almost runs out into the street, but he is collected by their friendly neighbor, Jud. Jud introduces himself and then his new neighbors to the Pet Sematary that is just beyond their new property. It belongs to the many pets that had fallen victim to the road (or other fates). The father, Louis, is a doctor at a local school, and on what is basically his first day, a guy who was hit by a bus is rushed in and Louis is unable to save him. This deeply upsets and the man even haunts Louis. Around now is when we find out that the wife and mother, Rachel, had a sister with a horrible illness. Rachel’s parents had her sister locked away in a room and sometimes they would have Rachel, at only eight years old, feed her sister. One day while Rachel was tending to her sickly sister her sister began to choke. Rachel was unable to help but also felt relieved when her sister had passed. Louis tells Rachel he does not blame her for this.
Around the holidays the family separates because Louis needs to work so he stays home while the rest of the family goes to visit the grandparents. While the children are away their daughter, Ellie's, cat Church (short for Churchill) was hit by a truck and killed. Louis feels very sorry for his daughter but such is life. Jud, however, tells Louis to follow him. They go towards the Pet Sematary but then they go beyond, past the deadfall, through forest with strange sounding animals to the Micmac burial grounds. Jud instructs Louis to dig, which Louis does… He buries the cat and goes home… Nothing too terribly strange, Louis supposes, that is until the next morning and he is jump scared by Church in his garage. The cat hisses at him. The cat, Church, is alive again. Huh? How did that happen? Louis goes to talk with Jud who admits that he used the Micmac burial ground to bring his beloved dog back but that the dog came back wrong and bad but he had Louis do this for his daughter because it wasn’t time for her to let go of Church yet(?). Around now is when there is a funeral for a minor character and our main man Stephen King himself plays the pastor. It is very funny to see him just playing a guy (sort of like M Night), he has such a distinct face. Here comes this story's tragedy though, little Gage is going to run out in front of one of those very fast trucks and neither will a parent get to him in time nor will the driver break on time. The result is as you can guess. The next scene is them just showing all these pictures of him as a baby, which is all he would ever be, a baby. It was absolutely gut wrenching, a life destroyed so young, and with so many adults around to prevent his death.
Jud doesn’t have to be a mind reader to know that Louis is thinking of taking poor, dead little Gage to the Micmac cemetery but he warns strongly against it. Jud admits to Louis that there was, in fact, a time where someone did, in fact, bury a human being in that cemetery. When that person came back, they weren’t right in the head, something was very, very wrong. After scaring a bunch of people in town it took a bunch of menfolk to “scare” him off. The family is splitting up, again, I don’t even think Louis gives an excuse this time. Ellie is terrified because she has been having prophetic dreams about the boy who was hit and killed by the bus (she just doesn’t know they are prophetic). As soon as the plane takes off Louis is gunning it for the cemetery where he waits ‘til dark and he can begin his nefarious deed. The coffin might be tiny but it is still six feet underground. After a while Louis is able to get to the tiny body of his dead son, he holds Gage tightly and fiercely.
Somehow, Rachel finally gets the message that she needs to return home and save her husband from whatever nonsense he has gotten himself into but of course returning home will take time and there are a lot of barriers between her and there. It is almost like there is an unseen force trying to keep her from getting to where she wants to be… It is also as though the same force is putting Jud to sleep as he sits vigil on his side of the street waiting to see if Louis comes back with a certain special someone. By the time Louis arrives home with Gage, Jud is fast asleep and does nothing to stop the possessed man from soldiering on. The rest of the night is a blur and WHAM, Louis slams his face into his bed. Tiny footsteps and laughter can be heard at Jud’s home. You’d think a grown man would be able to overpower a child but then again kids are very quick. Gage takes down Jud with ease. Rachel, who finally arrived, checked in on Jud first and instead found Gage who took the opportunity to kill her as well. When Louis awoke he knew something was wrong when he looked at the little muddy footprints leading to his medical bag that now held an empty scalpel case.
Louis gathered himself and his medical supplies, he was going to put down what should have already been down. First he injects Church. “Go on, lie down. Play dead. Be dead!” Next he goes after Gage. It is a hard fought battle and Gage nearly gets the best of him, slicing him multiple times. In the end, Louis is able to inject Gage, which elicits a sadness response one would think impossible from the killing machine just seen moments ago. It was heartbreaking to see the “real Gage” shine through again, even if just for a moment. Finally, Louis can be seen carrying Rachel’s limp body out of Jud’s (now burning, he set it on fire) house. The ghost of the boy he couldn’t save from the bus accident tries to warn him not to do it but Louis just says that Rachel had only just died so it would work on her. This time it would work. We end on the returned Rachel picking up a threatening object and brandishing it at Louis with malicious intent.
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