***Spoiler Alert***
Starts off like so many horror movies, the Creed family moves to the country to start over. There's Louis the dad, Rachel the mom, Ellie the daughter and Gage the son. Within the first few minutes the whole movie is set up. We meet Jud the neighbor from across the road, who cautions them about the heavy semi truck traffic and that they should fix their cat so it doesn't wander into the road and get hit. The cat is named Winston Churchill or "Church" for short. He's beautiful and gray. (Side note: It IS true that if your cat is neutered it's less likely to wander off familiar territory.)
Jud
shows them that the path by their house leads to the Pet Sematary. It was created and cared for by the nearby kids as a place to remember
their pets and "a place where the dead speak and rest".
Louis
is an emergency room doctor and the first day at work he can't save a man
that got hit by a truck. The dead man comes to him in a dream and warns
him about the place beyond the Pet Sematary where the soil is "sour".
Louis
gets left home alone for Thanksgiving while the rest of him family goes
to Chicago. Ellie has a dream that Church dies. She's also getting
warnings from the dead guy. He's really an angel guiding them but Louis doesn't
seem to listen...AT ALL. Church does get hit by a truck and ends up frozen to
the ground on Jud's lawn. They show the dead cat and them peeling him off
the ground and putting him in a garbage bag. Gah! No wonder I never saw
this movie!!!
Jud suggests
burying Church beyond the Pet Sematary and Louis does! Even after the
warning and seeing the ceremonial stones on the Indian burial ground. Well needless to say, Church comes back but he's not the same and reeks of death.
We
find out that Rachel had to care for her dying sister who had spinal
meningitis. Rachel was only 8 and resented her
sister and was happy when she died. Some people say her sister is the scariest part of the movie. I wasn't impressed. She was creepy, but sickly. Sickly people don't scare me.
Next
up Gage gets hit by a truck and dies. Jud now warns Louis that a man
came back from the Indian burial ground an abomination and they ended up
burning him and his family down aka don't bury your son up there.
But of course, Louis
buries Gage in the Indian burial ground. You'd think he would have
learned! Gage comes back evil and kills Jud in a gruesome way ~ slices
his ankle and face and bites his neck. Props to the director for actually showing it! Gage kills
his mother and then tries to kill his dad, but Louis gives both him and Church a lethal injection. Louis leaves with Rachel and burns the house
down, only to bury Rachel in the sacred ground...AGAIN! He's convinced she's
more fresh and will come back the right way. Well she comes back and kills
his dumb ass.
Sometimes dead is better. Sometimes never seeing a "classic" horror movie is better. So now there's no one that we know of that knows about the burial ground and Rachel ~ the monster ~ is on the loose. It's
a parable about life. Getting what you wish for isn't always the best option.
I watched the extras and it was based on Stephen King's life.
The house in the country, the path, the cemetery, the dead cat were all things he experienced! I think that's the coolest part of it. I also like that they used real cats and the child actor to act evil not some dummy or stunt double. I say it's an average horror movie, 2.5 fluffy gray cats out of 5. (Although I would take care of 5.)
Another side note: What's up with the Ramones song Pet Cemetery? You can read about it here.
Trailer.
p.s. Why did all the horror movie trailers from the 1980s have the same guy doing the voice over? hahaha.
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