Back from that awful last movie, I give to you a movie that most kid’s my age considered absolutely terrifying back in the day. Pet Semetary is dated, but it offers so much. In no way will this blog do this movie justice.
Let’s go with the plot, and spoilers are abundant here, so skip to the next paragraph if need be. The Creed family movies to a new house in Maine. The father is Louis, he’s a doctor. Then you have the wife Rachel, and the 2 kids Ellie and Gage. They also have a cat named Church, and a neighbor named Jud. Louis has an incident early on while trying to save a dude’s life named Pascow, and Pascow will be visiting Louis later from the dead and giving him sage advice. Jud shows the family where a trail leads to, which is shockingly a Pet Cemetary. Also, keep in mind that a lot of big rigs travel on their road, often time going way too damn fast. You’d be shocked at how that plays a role in this.
While Rachel and the kids go visit her parents for something, maybe Thanksgiving, Louis stays home. Jud finds Church dead. Jud has an idea, so he grabs a shovel and a pick and off Jud and Louis go. They get to the Pet Sematary and Louis figures they’re just gonna bury the cat and be done with it. Nope. Jud tells Louis they have just a bit further to go, which he says a few times. The truth is that it seems like it takes them a few hours to get wherever Jud is taking them, which turns out to be something to do with Indians and possibly burial ground. Long story short, burying bodies here will cause the bodies to resurrect, and Jud makes Louis do all the bitch work since you have to bury your own or some shit. Louis works his nuts off, gets Church buried, they go back home, have a beer and Louis can’t tell anybody what he just did.
The next day, there’s Church, only he’s an asshole of a cat now, which is absolutely hilarious at what he does to Louis. the family return, Ellie is concerned about Church while away, but he seems fine to her when they get back. Shit then gets real as the family and Jud are dicking around outside and Gage is flying a kite, everybody is laughing, but he drops the kite, so he starts chasing it, and it is head to the road, and there’s a truck coming. Ohhhhh noooo. Jud being the only non-family member is the one who pays attention and sees this. Louis starts sprinting to Gage, but Gage ends up in the road, and splat, Gage gets got. Rachel’s parents are assholes to Louis but not their dumbass daughter, the father and Louis have a fight at the funeral which has always been an awkward scene, and they try to cope.
Naturally, Louis wants to bury Gage to bring him back to life. Jud goes on with some stories about how when people come back, they aren’t quite the same, but Louis doesn’t give a fuck. I should point out, there was a housekeeper who hung herself, not sure why. Also, there is a back story about Rachel’s sister which is one of the creepiest scenes in 80’s horror. Anyway, Gage makes a comeback but is a murderous mother fucker. Jud tries to stop it, and utters “Is that you Gage” amongst other classic Jud lines like: “Yup…a lot of history down that road”. Jud fucking gets got. Louis has to put a stop to this. Instead, Rachel gets killed. Louis puts down Gage. Now Louis goes to bury Rachel because he just doesn’t fucking get it. And yeah. Ellie lives.
All in all, this movie feels dated and doesn’t have the same scare charm it used to have when I was a kid, but I get just as much enjoyment out of it in different ways. There are so many great scenes and wonderful lines. Jud and Pascow are epic. I can understand how somebody nowadays seeing it for the first time may not be scared, but much like Jaws or the Exorcist, for its time, it had the IT factor. For all the reasons mentioned above, used to be scary, nostalgia, an actual decent movie, great characters, good to great acting, and memorable lines and scenes, I have to give this a 7.9 and I feel no shame in that.
All the pictures used in this blog are for review purposes. They are the property of:
- Paramount Pictures (presents)
- Laurel Productions (uncredited)
Please go find a copy and support the creators.