The dead don’t stay buried in Pet Sematary (1989 DVD Halloween Review).

Post date: Oct 16, 2017 6:00:49 PM

By: Robby Timmler, Promotional Director

Posted October 16th, 2017

Pet Sematary is a the story of the Creed family moving into a town in Maine. The members of the Creed family are Louis (played by Dale Midkiff) the new town doctor, his wife Rachel (played by Denise Crosby), their daughter Ellie (played by Blaze Berdahl), their young son Gage (played by Miko Hughes), and their cat Winston Churchill or Church for short. While moving in, they meet their new neighbor Jud Crandall (played by Fred Gwynne) who warns the family about the highway where trucks are always speeding past and have killed many pets. One weekend when Rachel and the kids are away visiting Rachel’s parents in Chicago, Church is killed by a truck. After, Jud takes Louis to a secret burial ground where the dead come back alive, so Louis can bring back Church. The next day Louis sees that Church is back, but something is off about Church’s behavior; he starts acting defensive and aggressive towards him. One sunny day, when Rachel and the kids have returned home, they have a picnic and fly a kite. Suddenly Gage loses his kite and gets near the highway. Gage is killed by a semi-truck, which leads Louis to decide that when Rachel and the kids go visit Rachel’s parents for Thanksgiving, he will dig up Gage and bury him in the secret burial ground to bring him back to life. When Gage returns, shockingly, he becomes murderous and starts killing people, so it’s up to Louis to mend his mistake and kill Gage again.

Pet Sematary is a spooky tale on losing a loved one and the question of what would happen if you could bring them back. The acting and characters are great especially Red Gwynne as Jud who is very charming and heartfelt, but also cautious and watchful of others. The effects are excellent especially on Victor Pascow (played by Brad Greenquist) the ghost of a teen who was killed in a car accident and warns Louis to not resurrect Gage; the film makes him look like a phantom with a bloody up head wounded and pale skin. The theme of the story of losing a loved one and dealing with loss is strong especially when Louis has to kill Gage in the end. The weakness of the film is that in the film after Church comes back, Jud talks to Louis about how he brought back his dog Spot, but Spot turned bad and Jud had to kill him. If Jud knows that the secret burial ground turns the dead evil, then why did he help bring back Church? This is a major plot hole but without it, it wouldn’t lead to the ultimate point of the film. Pet Sematary gets 7.5/10 stars.