s.penkevich's Reviews > Pet Sematary

‘Sometimes dead is better.’

One of King’s greatest strengths is that his best scares are less the monsters and more the way he subtly seeds horror in the mundanities of everyday life. Pet Sematary, a novel dripping with dread, spooks the reader by making death an antagonist we think we could overcome but unleash hell in the process. Yet it is through transforming grief and parental anxieties into tales of terror that truly frightens. I remember reading this for the first time at 14, bundled in bed against the autumn chills tapping at my window when the final scene rises up to deliver a scare that occurs on a sunny midday while outdoors and suddenly even terror could loom even in idyllic landscapes. That haunted me for years, and is a large reason why King is such a gem that frightens through he ages: he hits you where you feel safe and he hits you riding emotions that we all inevitably feel. Pet Sematary is a now-classic horror novel that examines grief and male fragility and will have you shrieking in both fright and fun.

‘I don’t think children ever forget the lies their parents tell them.’

Everyone has likely said anything there is to be said about this book, but here I go anyway. This is a book that really sticks with you and I suspect it is because it dives into the depths of emotions we all have but don’t display openly, especially men in American culture that are couched into seeing overt displays of emotion as a flaw, especially one’s like fear, grief and sadness that King probes here. ‘The soil of a man’s heart is stonier,’ Jud tells our protagonist, Louis Creed, and this sort of myth making about masculinity has caused many to suffer in silence. The men, sure, but more so those closest to them that are harmed and haunted by their inability to productively process emotion which often turns rather toxic. Much of the trauma in this novel comes from Louis attempting to cover up and push death aside, first with the cat and later with the child, as an attempt to avoid dealing with death. When Winston Churchill, or Church as he is called, is killed, Louis and Jud go beyond the local cemetery to a place rumored to bring back the dead…but ‘the barrier was not meant to be crossed,’ and dark things are ahead.


But let's pause on the death of Church for a moment (names like Church and the last name Creed definitely imply some religious aspects) because as children our first brush with death usually comes from our pets. I mean, basically the whole reason you get a fish so your parents can explain death to you. The intentional misspelling of the title ‘Sematary,’ comes from the misspelling of the little animal cemetery in the woods near the Creed house, which is riddled with adorable misspellings in children’s handwriting on the numerous tombstones. It is a great example of combining death with the coziness of childhood, reminding us all that it is a fact of life—a sad one—and something we inevitably have to confront. Instead of dealing with his daughter’s grief and stepping up as a parent, Louis opts to push death and grief aside for a quick fix, but as we soon learn, trauma forestalled ferments into something far more sinister…

When Louis asks his neighbor if anyone has ever attempted this with a human, Jud retorts ‘NO! Whoever would!? King being King, we know we will soon learn the truth and that it is more terrifying than we can imagine. Which is another aspect I love about him, he will drop into backstory that paints horror with a palette of nostalgia and small town dynamics, making even the quaintest little village a breeding ground of fear. King is, of course, playing on parent’s greatest fears with this novel, one he nearly confronted himself when a semi almost ran over his own child and inspired this novel. Louis’ inability to properly grieve, and thinking he can have a magical fix becomes his own undoing.

‘Rachel, is that you? I’ve been waiting for you, Rachel. And now I’m going to twist your back like mine, so you’ll never get out of bed again…’

The side-story of Zelda, Rachel Creed’s sister whom she had to care for as a child despite being horrified by her condition suffering from spinal meningitis, is another example of the paternal figure pushing aside problems. Here the trauma is dumped into the lap of his youngest daughter (as Nocturnalux pointed out, this is one of King's many nods to The Haunting of Hill House), an issue that doesn’t do anything to help the bad relationship between Louis and his father-in-law. It wound’s his masculinity all the more when a man he doesn’t respect calls his own abilities as a “man” into question at the funeral.

Without a strong male figure in his life that he respects—or respects him—Louis finds Jud to be a surrogate father, ‘the man who should have been his father.’ I can’t think of Jud without picturing Fred Gwynne in the role of the 1989 film and hearing his voice saying “it’s that damn road there.” I just want that guy’s voice to be my voicemail message, it’s so good. In Jud he sees the representation of the American Dream, older married couple still in love, retired and passing down his kindness and knowledge. Except Jud knows dark things. And Jud will later be haunted by his dead wife and her claiming to have slept with many man in their marital bed is a well-executed horror moment for the novel’s themes because it is something that threatens his sense of masculinity the most. I mean, I don’t really know if King was going out to critique toxic masculinity (doubtful actually, as the wife isn't a very well-done character and mostly serves the characters ego and...services him in a scene that certainly opened my eyes at 14 and includes a line about things she learned as a girl scout...uhhhh) but it is so much a part of American culture that this critique becomes natural when looking for a way to discomfort men.

This is a wildly uncomfortable novel in many ways, and that is what makes it truly stick. King strikes hard and turning the grief of a lost child into a horror story of demonic resurrection is pretty damn effective. Pet Sematary lives on as a classic—it has even had multiple film adaptations—and is a delightfully good frightfest.

3.5/5

‘The most terrifying question of all may be just how much horror the human mind can stand and still maintain a wakeful, staring, unrelenting sanity.’