Horror Classics – Pet Sematary by Stephen King

Steph P. Bianchini February 10, 2015 4 Comments

Written in 1983 and adapted into a movie in 1989, Pet Sematary is by any standard one of the more frightening books I ever put my hands on.  I recently had a go at it again, and albeit I knew the story by heart for having watched the movie a few times, it still managed to scare me silly. I am in a good company: apparently, the author too found he had gone too far, at the point that it was reluctant to publish it.

As a good review I read on the Guardian pointed it out “it’s a good story: the master of horror finding something too scary to exist. Doesn’t matter if it’s true or not; what matters is, it’s part of the mythos. If you read that proviso before you read the book itself, you’re in the state he wants you to be: ready, willing, but apprehensive, slightly on edge about what exactly this book contains – the perfect state to read some horror.” Impossible to deny it. But it’s also the case to say, you’re not disappointed by what you find in those pages.

 I believe almost any horror fan knows about the plot, which is a simple one. A family moves from Chicago to Ludlow, Maine, and Louis Creed, the happy father of two kids, starts working as the university’s doctor. Soon after, two things happen to him: first, he is introduced by a neighbour to the existence of a strange place near his house, called Pet Sematary (i.e. cemetery misspelled), where local children bury their pets. Second, he tries to save a fatally injured student, who later appears to him as a ghost warning him against that very same place. As you start sensing since then, the two things are going to affect deeply, and for the worst, Louis’ life, at least since he discovers that place has the disquieting power of taking back to life animals that are put there to rest. And possibly, not only them.

There have been a few discussions about possible interpretations of the land curse, that works at a more sociological and cultural level, as mentioned by Grady Hendrix in Tor.com “King makes it explicit that the evil is the result of the settlers, not the indigenous people. The settlers were the ones who made the land go sour in the first place.” As Jud, Louis’ friend and the one responsible to introduce him to the burial ground,  repeated more than once  “What you bought, you owned, and what you owned eventually came home to you. We bought America, and the parts of it we spoiled are the parts we own, and eventually we’ll have to pay for them.”

Mary Lambert made a faithful adaptation of Pet Sematary, where you can spot Stephen King as funeral minister. The author has been fully involved in the making: there are only slight differences between the two versions, and it was filmed in Maine, on his explicit request. It was also his first novel to become a (hugely successful) movie. By the way, Guillermo del Toro had announced a remake, and yes, I do look forward to that one.