Toddler Trauma - PET SEMATARY

Happy Friday the 13^th, everyone.  And in October, no less.  Now, obviously, this would be the appropriate time to cover one of the FRIDAY THE 13^th films, but let´s not be that predictable.  Plus, as usual, I didn’t look at a calendar and only realized it was Friday the 13th today.

I missed the boat on that one, but this week's movie ties in to another current event; the surprise success of IT and the wave of other recent Stephen King adaptations.  And yes, this also was entirely unintentional.  It was basically a random selection, forethought is not one of my strengths.  Everything worked out well, though, because I had forgotten how fantastic Mary Lambert's 1989 nihilistic gut punch, PET SEMATARY, really was.

The Capsule:

The Creed family, handsome doctor Louis (Dale Midkiff, star of NIGHTMARE WEEKEND!), wife Rachel (Denise Crosby), daughter Ellie (Blaze Berdahl), and toddler son Gage (Miko Hughes), trade the hassle of Chicago for the easy living of rural Maine.  Helpful neighbor Jud Crandell (Fred Gwynne) warns Louis not to let Ellie’s cat Churchill wander, since the road by the house, with its barreling trucks screaming by at all hours, is a notorious pet killer.  So many were lost over the years, the local kids made their own adorably misspelled pet cemetery.  When the beloved family pet inevitably buys it, a sympathetic Jud takes Louis beyond the kid-built graveyard to an ancient Indian burial ground, where anything laid to rest don't rest very long.  When the cat comes back the very next day, with a nasty smell and nastier disposition, Louis wonders if the lovable kitty he planted is the same beast that dug its way out.  But when a similar fate befalls baby Gage, better judgment does not outweigh the temptation to see his little boy alive again.  

Memory is a funny thing.  Between HBO and VHS, I’ve seen this movie at least a dozen times.  I've always held it in high regard.  Certain lines of dialogue consistently pop into my brain at random times.  So it came as quite a shock when I watched it again for this piece and realized that aside from the basic storyline, I’d forgotten almost everything else.  In a way, this rewatch felt like the first time.

Advanced warning: Since most of the really juicy stuff happens in the last act, I'm going to be more spoilery than usual.   


I was especially surprised by the tone.  I knew it was a supernatural story, the dead rising and all that, but I didn’t recall how pervasive it was.  Almost the entire cast experiences ghostly visitations, premonitions, or some type of otherworldly influence.  More significantly, the movie is much darker than I remembered.  I knew it was no picnic, but goddamn, these people are really put through the ringer.  

What makes it worse is that the doomed Creed family are genuinely decent people.  Rachel is compassionate, determined, and thoughtful, if a little uptight.  Considering her traumatic backstory, she turned out remarkably well.  Louis is a loving dad who's worst flaw is not putting up a fence (seriously, that would have solved everything).  The kids are cute and kind to each other, even if Elly gets a little whiny when she starts having dreams about her parent's violent deaths.  Director Mary Lambert does a expert job of twisting the knife, emotionally speaking, because no one deserves what is in store for them.  It is a travesty that Lambert didn't have more success as a director (she mainly does television now), because she handles the pathos of the characters so well.  She grounds every bad decision the characters make in relatable human weakness.

Take Jud Crandell.  With his warm smile and Pepperidge Farm Remembers accent, lovable Fred Gwynne plays Jud as the guy you wish was your grandfather.  As charming as he is, Jud is absolutely the worst neighbor ever.  His desire to be helpful and to save Ellie the pain of losing a pet (and to share a lifelong secret) might be the initial reason he shows Louis the Micmac burial ground, but he doesn't think it through.  It’s only after Churchill returns uncharacteristically vicious that Jud mentions how his own dog came back a foul-smelling hell hound when he tried that trick as a kid.  That seems like an important detail to leave out.  Jud continues to fill Louis’ head with bad ideas and does absolutely nothing to stop him from acting on them.  After Gage gets plowed over by a semi, Jud breaks down to Louis, claiming responsibility for the tragedy because he introduced the doc to the evil in those woods.  I used to think he was just being overly dramatic, but seeing the malicious force actually influencing the environment, FINAL DESTINATION style, in the third act, I realized, oh shit, it really was Jud’s fault!  He roused the evil and the Creeds paid the price.  Way to go, Herman Munster.

In fact, all the characters in the story could be seen as pawns in a larger struggle of good versus evil. In this case, the force of good is totally worthless and the force of evil is a real asshole.  This malevolence is solely concerned with bringing maximum anguish to any poor dope who encounters it.  Not only is Louis forced to see his son die in front of him, what returns from the unhallowed ground is only a shell for the vengeful spirit of Rachel’s long dead, demented sister, Zelda (Andrew Hubatsek).  It serves the Creeds a double shit sandwich.

You have to admire King’s audacity at putting the ultimate villain in the form a 3-year-old boy.  On the surface, a knee-high person you can lift with one arm doesn’t seem that threatening, but the unholy munchkin has a great deal more coordination and strength than your average rug rat.  The last act takes cues from CHILD’S PLAY, only showing quick glimpses of Evil Gage has he dashes by, building the tension that he could be hiding anywhere.  The comparison is even more apt during the action scenes, where Louis is clearly wrestling with a dummy.  I suppose there are guidelines against sparring with a real toddler in a fight sequence.  The most chilling moments are from the real pint sized actor, though.  Something about an adorable tyke waddling towards you with a scalpel and an evil grin is damned unsettling.  His line delivery is also creepy as fuck.  

As if that wasn't strange enough, I cannot fail to mention the most ludicrously bizarre image of all, Evil Gage appearing before his mom sporting a top hat and cane.  The kid’s body isn’t just a vessel for Zelda’s murderous rage, a ‘70s era pimp apparently snuck in there as well.

Another thing I had forgotten was just how gory the movie is.  Things only get bloody in a few spots, but those scenes shoot for the moon.  The Creed family’s spirit guide, Victor Pascow (Brad Greenquist), is introduced being carried into Louis’ office, post car accident, with a horrific head wound.  The camera practically dives into his exposed brain.  When Pascow’s ghost shows up periodically throughout the film to give unheeded advice, his bleeding, gaping skull is always prominently displayed.

The most punishing sequence is saved for poor Jud.  While he is hunting around his house for the freshly risen Evil Gage, the little dickens slices through his Achilles tendon with a scalpel and drops him like an old oak.  Now, the Achilles tendon is one of those super vulnerable spots on the human body (along with the eyeball, wrist, and tender bits) that is guaranteed to cause the average viewer to involuntarily squirm, so this alone would be enough.  It isn’t. Once he gets Jud on his level, the demon seed slices his cheeks open Heath Ledger’s Joker style.  As the coup de grace, Gage nuzzles up close to the geezer and BITES his fucking throat out!  Yes, a toddler tears a bloody chunk out of a senior’s neck, on camera. Lil’ Miko must have had one laid back set mom.  

The scene that most shook me up on this viewing is Gage’s death.  Not his first death, by semi; that was artistically implied with a stray rolling kiddy shoe, just like in MAD MAX.  I’m talking about when Louis has to put an end to the adorable abomination by injecting him with a hypodermic.  Compared to all the carnage that came minutes before, Evil Gage’s death is as gentle as a tickle.  It never bothered me the dozen times I had watched it before, but that was before I had kids.  Watching that needle go into a tiny little boy’s neck (no dummy for this one) was like a kick in the stomach.  So thanks, parenthood, for making it difficult to enjoy a decent child murder anymore.  Sheesh.

Being a father also made the theme of the desperation of grief stand out more clearly.  Now I get why the Creeds made many of their terrible decisions.  After Gage’s (first) death, when Jud tells Louis the cautionary tale of a young man buried at the Micmac site who returned basically a Frankenstein’s monster, all the despondent father takes away is that it is possible to have his son back.  Reason, caution, and good sense mean nothing to someone so overcome by loss.  Even after all the trouble Rachel goes through to get back to their house—and being psychically aware that Zelda is somehow coming for her—the first thing she does when confronted by her once dead, scalpel wielding baby is to hug him.  We parents be stupid about that shit.

I even understand why Louis, after putting an end to his evil, fake son, immediately hauls the mutilated body of his wife down the trail to the pet sematary, mumbling how this time will be different.  In a way, the moment when Louis is reunited with Picasso Rachel almost counts as a happy ending, because he is so blinded by love that all he can see is the beautiful girl he married and not the horrifying ghoul dripping pus on the kitchen floor.  It is simultaneously the most romantic and grossest kiss ever. 

So, to paraphrase the popular meme, go and find yourself someone who looks at you the way Louis looks at his oozing, eyeless, half faced wife.

C Chaka