by Michael J. Foy

Hailed as “The most frightening book Stephen King has ever written,” Pet Sematary remains to this day the one novel that still scares the author himself. It’s also the book King never wanted to publish. In 1989 it was adapted into a feature film that stuck very close to the story arch but lacked the intensity of the source material. I grew up watching the original movie and it’s subpar sequel from 1992, but always wanted to read the book for myself to get the full experience.

Louis Creed moves his family from Chicago to Ludlow, Maine to start a new a new job at the local university, with his wife Rachel, their daughter Ellie, her cat Church, and their son Gage. Shortly after arriving the family is warned about the dangers of the major roadway in front of their home by their new neighbor Judd Crandall and his wife Norma, a couple who have lived in Ludlow all their lives. One afternoon, Judd takes the family up an old trail into the thick woods behind the Creed home that leads to the Pet Sematary. Created by children over the last hundred years, it’s a place built out of love and loss with an undercurrent of something other worldly beyond it’s makeshift gates.

Broken into three sections, the novel takes its time establishing the Creed family, their new life and the sins of the past. Nothing is quite what it seems and soon strange events begin to unfold. After the death of a student at the university, Louis finds himself slipping over the edge of sanity in a very real and frightening way. Is something out to get the Creed’s? Or is it a case of the Creed’s bringing about their own misery? As each chapter progresses we learn about how each character deals with, connects to, or simply denies death.

Unlike the film, which held true to the novel’s tone but lost many of the finer details that hinted at the true nature of the mysterious Micmac Indian burial ground, the book creeps under your skin and hooks deep. As the story progresses there is a palpable sense of dread that grows to a feverish pitch. Something is lurking in the darkness, a power at work and secrets to be revealed that I will leave to you as a reader to discover.

You may already be familiar with the story thanks to the film, but I promise you there are many new things to be uncovered by reading the novel. Some aspects were altered slightly, but many were changed out right and were not nearly as effective. The film plays these elements out for simple scares and visual gags, while the book delves deep into the characters to horrifying effect. Rachel’s family history is far more disturbing, and provides a more satisfying explanation for how she carries herself and why she still has nightmares. Judd’s history with the Pet Sematary and the Micmac burial ground are also more interesting on the page, culminating in a very different exchange that I did not see coming.

King wrote a new forward for a reprint in the early 2000's, stating that this was book that hit closest to home, part of the reason he didn’t want to publish it. (Another reason being he thought it was simply too dark, without hope.) As he began work on the project, he had rented a home while teaching with his wife and young children, living on a busy road with an actual Pet Sematary just off the beaten path. His daughter’s cat was killed on the road and his son had a close call running out toward the road as a truck came speeding by.

In the end, Pet Sematary makes for a better book than a film. With a pending remake of the movie on the horizon, hopefully more elements from the original story will make there way onto the screen. This has turned out to be one of my all time favorite books despite how dark and twisted it is, and the events and images described in the final fifty pages will forever stay with me. There are many important lessons to learn from this story about honesty, loss, love, strength, desire, and temptation, but despite your best intentions,

“Sometimes dead is better….”