Some movies just come out of nowhere and hit you like a semi truck… at least that was my experience when i snuck into a screening back in the spring of ’89. My burgeoning cinematic snobbery had me feeling fairly aloof to some of the then-recent King adaptions – don’t get me wrong, I read whatever I could find at the library, and I had the Maximum Overdrive soundtrack on heavy rotation. I was confident in my kingly duties. The man was a hero, and to quote my favourite red t-shirt, Stephen King did indeed rule.
But this was 1989, and a summer of slasher sequels was barreling down the road and I was salivating at the thought of Jason killing the big apple or baby Freddy joining the spree. To cut a long story, the person that came out of that cinema ain’t the person that went in. I may have looked like that person, but I wasn’t that person.
I witnessed the secret horrors that lurked in my stoney postpubescent heart, and I finally understood what truly scares me.
Loss.
And toddlers with scalpels. -Pop
Pet Sematary was unearthed on home Video this week back in 1989, after an April 21st theatrical release.