Our main characters, the Creed family has just moved to Ludlow, Maine from Boston. Lewis, is a burned out ER doctor who needs to get away from the stress of the “graveyard” shift in a busy Boston hospital. He is joined by stay at home wife, Rachel, and eight-year-old daughter Ellie and three-ish year old Gage. Of course there is a family pet, a cat, named Church.
When witnessing masked children marching in the woods, Mom explains the concept of a funeral procession to Ellie. The children are preparing to bury a recently deceased family pet. Ellie, of course intrigued, goes into the woods to explore and possibly see the other children. What she finds, is a massive burial ground, with a badly weathered sign “Pet Semetary” It’s here that she meets neighbor, Jud Crandall, who warns her of the dangers of wandering in the woods. She responds by telling him the sign is misspelled, cemetery is C not S. Jud admires Ellie’s spunk, and a friendship is formed.
Jud, a widower, who has lived his whole life in Ludlow, becomes fast friends with the entire Creed family. He educates them on the history and folklore of Ludlow and the surrounding woods.
Mom, Dad and Ellie talk about death A LOT. Ellie, asks Dad why the lifespan of animals is so much shorter than people. Dad starts to talk about metabolism, and everyone is going to die and when you are dead, that’s it, there is no afterlife. Mom tries to turn it around talking about Heaven, and she’s young and not to worry about dying. Ellie then brings up the premature death of Rachel’s sister, Zelda. Mom kind of shuts down, and we know there is a story there.
Seems Zelda had some kind of genetic disease, that caused her bones to grow grotesquely, and that Rachel’s actions may have contributed to Zelda’s early death. This happened when Rachel was very young herself, but she is still dreaming of it, and at times hallucinates hearing her sister.
Dad has his own demons, dead patients, which keep him sleep walking in the woods and
hearing whispering voices in the house. This is exacerbated when a student is hit by a car on
campus, Lewis turns into ER doctor again, but student, Victor, dies a bloody, horrible death in
the campus clinic.
Let’s add to the morbid theme, Church, the cat, is found dead on the edge of the road, the possible victim of the tractor trailers speeding down the road in front of their home. Dad and Jud prepare to bury Church in the Pet Semetary, but Jud who has grown attached to young Ellie asks, ”Ellie loved Church didn’t she?” Lewis answered, “Yes, she will miss him” Jud instructs Lewis to stop digging and starts walking deeper into the woods. They travel to a spot on top of a hill, and Jud tells Lewis to bury Church here, which he does. The next morning
Lewis and Rachel are arguing on how to let Ellie know Church is dead (again another how to handle death conversation). They decide to tell Ellie Church ran away and they can’t find him. But, Church isn’t missing or dead anymore, he’s looking bad and quite cranky but he’s in Ellie’s room hiding in the closet.
Lewis immediately goes to Jud and asks him how could Church be alive? Jud tells him he
didn’t want Ellie to be sad and upset, and the burial site they used has mystical powers that
can’t be explained.
It only gets worse from there. The phrase “Sometimes it’s better to be dead” couldn’t be more
truthful for the family and Jud.
This is a dark, dark movie that centers on the characters, not the Pet Semetary itself.
If you were thinking this was just a rehash of the 1989 original, think again. I don’t think
anyone in 1989 dared to write, what these writers did in 2019.
The ending is truly disturbing.
Pet Semetary is rated B minus. The first forty minutes are a bit slow, I started checking the
time, which is never a good sign. I was also a bit confused about Victor’s connection to Gage,
still thinking that one through.
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