The Creed family moves to a small town in Maine where, upon exploring the land around their home, come up a pet cemetery nearby. Their new neighbor Jud (Fred Gwynne) introduces Louis (Dale Midkiff) to an ancient Indian burial ground where the dead are rumored to rise when buried on the land. When tragedy strikes the Creed family, Louis takes advantage of the supernatural land with deadly consequences.
Pet Sematary (misspelled this way in the cemetery on a sign made by a child) is one of the few movies that still manage to creep me out, no matter how many times I see it. It contains the perfect combination of elements to make it horrifying-supernatural burial grounds, the walking dead, evil animals and children and terrifyingly disfigured past.
Rachel’s (Denis Crosby) disfigured sister Zelda (Andrew Hubatsek) was, at first, the scariest thing I had ever seen. Her sunken in face paired with her twisted spine and haunting voice could repeatedly appear in anyone’s nightmares. That is, until little Gage (Miko Hughes) dies.
The evil undead version of Gage will forever be, to me, the scariest child to grace the screen. As a living boy, Gage is sweet and absolutely beyond any description of adorable, but, as a monster, Gage fulfils every definition of the word.
For whatever reason, his little suit and top hat creep me out beyond explanation, but it is his horrible little snarling face that I find so frightening. The change in him between life and death is extreme, something Louis should have expected when he made the decision to bury Gage on that land.
While I do sympathize with Louis and probably would have considered doing the same, he saw what happened to Church, the cat, when he came back and was warned several times by a ghost and by his neighbor Jud to not use that land. Louis let his heart overtake his logic and, in the end, got everything he deserved, unfortunately hurting many innocent people along the way.
I would suggest turning off the lights for this one but make sure you have a watching buddy. You may not want to go through this alone.
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Ann Hale is the horror editor for Pop-Break.com and a senior contributing writer, reviewing horror movies and television shows. She is also the American Correspondent for Lovehorror.co.uk. Ann attended East Carolina University, majoring in English Literature. She is a collector of Halloween (the film) memorabilia and is a self-admitted opinionated horror nerd. You can follow her, her collection and her cat, Edward Kittyhands on Twitter and Instagram @Scarletjupiter
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