Pet Sematary

"Sometimes dead is better...."

When the Creeds move into a beautiful old house in rural Maine, it all seems too good to be true: physician father, beautiful wife, charming little daughter, adorable infant son -- and now an idyllic home. As a family, they've got it all...right down to the friendly cat.

But the nearby woods hide a blood-chilling truth -- more terrifying than death itself...and hideously more powerful.

The plot revolves around young doctor Louis Creed, who moves to a remote little town in Maine with his beautiful family -- but they all get the feeling that the cute little town has a dark, evil secret. Wierd things start to happen when a college student comes into Creed's campus infirmary -- hit by a truck and as good as dead -- and sputters warnings out to him, and later appears in a dream, advising him not to pass the barrier at the end of the "Pet Sematary."

Louis's life starts to fall apart, and he senses a strange power. The "Pet Sematary" and the darkness which lies beyond it begin to control and destroy his life.

Doesn't sound scary -- that's only because I didn't want to give anything away. But, it is EXTREMELY creepy, even though I've already seen the movie about a million times.

I honestly have to say that "PET SEMATARY" gave me the creepiest four days of my life. Many scenes in this grim masterpiece will absolutely freeze your blood. I don't think I have ever been that "freaked out." In fact, I finished the book today, and last night the book scared me so bad that I was litteraly afraid to go to sleep -- therefore, I did not. I stayed up all night, afraid to turn off the lights and go to sleep, with nothing to do but read the book. This book is like the MicMac burial ground itself....it seems to control you, and forces you to unlock its frightening secrets.

If you are in for a good scare that no horror movie could ever give you (this coming from a hard-boiled horror fan, who does NOT scare easy, and I am being truthful), then order this book immediately. You will be scared....but you will not be sorry.

I think this book also has a moral -- don't try to fix it if it aint really broke. Also, as the tagline for the movie states..."Sometimes dead is better." Absolutely right.

Well, I am off now, to drink a pot of black coffee to make up for all the sleep I lost reading Pet Sematary last night.


For me - this is the scariest book ever written   July 15, 2004
Mark J. Fowler (Okinawa, Japan)
13 out of 14 found this review helpful

Different people have different ideas about what is "funny" - same with "scary". If snakes or spiders or great-white sharks scare the peedoodle out of you, then your reaction to a story about them might be different than it might be for, say The Crocodile Hunter.

Stephen King is prolific beyond belief. He is sometimes redundant. In Pet Sematary he wrote a story so compelling that I literally could not put it down, yet at the same time so horrifying that I practically screamed at myself NOT TO TURN THE NEXT PAGE!!!!

King knows a thing or two about humans and human relationships, and in Pet Sematary he creates a realistic family that you care about.... then he does absolutely TERRIFYING things to them. Without giving anything away - I have to say that one of the reasons that this book affected me so deeply is that I had recently become a Dad back when this book first was released, and this book hones in on a new parent's worst nightmares, then just gets worse and worse and worse.

If you like being scared by a book, and you can't think of anything worse than seeing your child killed - this book might hit you like it hit me. I repeat: This is the scariest novel I have ever read.

As an aside: The "scariest book ever" was turned into a fairly cheesy movie. I give the book a solid 5 stars, but wouldn't rate the film any higher than 2 or 3. Another aside: My personal choice for "scariest movie" is "The Exorcist", while I found the novel of "The Exorcist" fairly bland and not paced well enough to scare me.


King's darkest   November 24, 2001
F. G. Hamer (Isle of Man)
6 out of 6 found this review helpful

Early publicity for Pet Sematary stated that the novel, which King had written but not allowed to be released, was his scariest novel ever. King and his wife, Tabitha, agreed that this was no mere hyperbole. In a Fangoria interview conducted around the time of Pet Sematary's release, King said that he showed the manuscript to his wife, and she couldn't finish it. "It was too... effective." Eventually, in 1983, the novel did see print. Was it as horrifying, as gruesome, as dark as all the hype purported it to be?

Thankfully, yes. This book is a runner-up for King's scariest novel (losing only marginally to The Shining), and it really is his darkest. It is a book about loss, and greif, and, simply put, death. Death, the great unknown; death, the all-encroaching. But, as the characters of Pet Sematary discover, there are things worse than death.

King himself has said that Pet Semetary is in his opinion his most frightening novel. While I may not agree with that entirely, it certainly is a story that's as creepy as they come. First the cat dies, and then the story of the old Indian cemetery comes out, and next thing you know, the dead cat is alive - if not a bit odd. Voila - the big can of worms is open. It's a can of worms that ultimately plummets this likeable family into the depths of Hell. The cemetery, against all laws of nature (but in keeping with the laws of Stephen King) appears to be able to resurrect dead animals. Could it also work on humans? Dr Louis Creed tries to postpone death by prolonging life. This is the story of a man who forgets that he can't play God. It is a disturbing novel, the kind of subversive, realistic scary story that exemplifies great horror fiction.

Despite a slow start, Pet Semetary picks up speed and pulls the reader into a terrifying conclusion. It is a dark, unforgiving novel dealing with the very nature of death and greif. It never gives up, just hacks away at sanity and rationality until nothing is left. In the world of Pet Sematary, death begets death, lunacy begets lunacy, and the examination of terror is an exercise in darkness, in which no light can be seen.