The Creed family moves to a house in the small town of Ludlow and everything seems fine, except for that there are big trucks roaming the road just outside their house. When the young son of the family is out playing one day in their yard, he goes out by the road and is accidentaly killed by a trailer. Struck with grief, the father finds out about an old Indian cemetary not too far from where they live, where you can bury your loved ones and they will come back to life. He buries his son there who's soon brought back to life but the problem is that once brought back, the dead are nothing like they once were...they're pure evil.
There are two movies that has scared me absoutely senseless and that made me lay awake night after night with my eyes open for a long time before I could finally get some sleep. One of them being Ringu, and the second one being Pet Sematary. Now, if you would watch Pet Sematary nowadays it could might be a very good horror flick and even if it would have some scary stuff in it, it still wouldn't be that bad. What made it so scary is that I watched this movie at the young age of 11, and at that time it couldn't have been more scary. I believe I was constantly afraid and thinking about Pet Sematary for almost a year after first seeing it, and that was a lot to cope with. When watching it now it's of course nothing special, but I still have respect for it since it succeeded to scare the crap out of me 16 years ago, and that I still remember it like it was yesterday.
Even though if it's not really that scary nowadays, I still think it's a very good horror flick from the late 80's with some freaky stuff in it. The freaky stuff being the mothers sick sister named Zelda, played by Andrew Hubatsek, a guy(!), something that makes it feel even more freaky. I still don't like to see him/her on screen today, that character totally creeps me out. On the other hand, I have to give the movie a lot of credit for managing to do that and deliver that nasty feeling.
I'm not a big Stephen King fan, although I've read some of his books and watched almost all of his films, or that is the films based on his books. And if I would have to pick a favourite one, I think Pet Sematary would be it, but still there are some other cool ones too (not to mention a lot of bad ones). I'm a big fan of the story here though, it's somewhat simple but still pretty cool and it actually has horror to the bone. Like with all Stephen King flicks, the movie is set in a small town which always brings a certain type of atmosphere which is pretty good and suits the whole thing.
So this family moves to the town of Ludlow and everything begins with that their daughter's cat dies when only the father is at home. The neighbour, an old man named Jud, shows the father to an old Indian cemetary that is just behind a pet cemetery, spelled pet sematary, close to their house. The father buries the cat and soon it comes back to life but acts strange and looks terrible. Right then and there the father should of course let things be but when their young son is killed on the road just outside their house, he buries him too since he can't stand the thought of losing him.
The father works as a doctor and when first moving to Ludlow, a young man named Victor Pascow is brought to him due to a traffic accident. The father tries to rescue the man but he dies in the process. Soon Pascow returns to the father as a ghost to warn him about the cemetery and that it's not wise to bury people there, but of course the father won't listen and has to find out what happens the hard way.
A good word to describe this movie is eerie, because it truly is eerie, even when watching it today. The story makes you get involved, is a little gripping at times and it's easy to care about the characters. The mother named Rachel is haunted by the memories of her sister Zelda who had spinal meningitis and that looks so freaky it's amazing. The make-up effects are so well made and everything looks truly good and horrifying. The woman who plays Rachel also recently appeared in Tobe Hooper's terrible flick Mortuary, again in the role of a mother.
Pet Sematary has an interesting story and according to yours truly, it's probably the best Stephen King flick out there. It has a creepy atmosphere, is eerie and is definitely a great horror movie from the late 80's. The actors all do a good job and the movie has an overall good but creepy feel to it. Recommended.
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ALTERNATIVE TITLE: Pet Cemetery
MOVIE YEAR: 1989
DIRECTOR: Mary Lambert
WRITING CREDITS: Stephen King
GENRE: Horror
CAST: Brad Greenquist, Dale Midkiff, Andrew Hubatsek
COUNTRY: USA
RUNTIME: 103 min
RATING: 8/10
Pet Sematary Website/IMDB Click here
Pet Sematary Trailer Click here
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