If you want to hear how the mythological monster The Wendigo from the Pet Sematary novel was
hidden throughout this movie, then stick around to the end of this video.
The opening of Mary Lambert’s 1989 adaptation of Pet Sematary contains a montage of kids
over the years laying their pets down to rest in the Pet Sematary, and this scene contains
a lot of easter eggs referencing some of the pets memorialized in the Sematary in Stephen
King’s novel.
For example, we hear a young Jud saying goodbye to his dog spot…
"Spot.
A good fellow.
We love you."
And see the grave, which was carved by a Mr. Judson Crandle.
There are also grave markers for Hannah, who is regarded as as “the best dog to that
ever lived.”
The book mentions that Hannah died in 1939, making this one of the oldest readable grave
markers.
One of the more recent ones was Biffer, which you can see right here.
Smucky the Cat is another Pet that was mentioned in the book, but Smucky was actually the real
world cat that belonged to Stephen King’s daughter Naomi, and the cat was struck down
by a truck in Orrington, Maine.
A short time after, King’s son Owen had a close call with another truck on that road,
and the incident served as the inspiration for the novel.
We’re introduced to the road in the movie with a shot of a truck barreling over the
camera, the low angle foreshadows the view Gage might have had during his final moments.
Another foreshadowing can be seen in the bumper stick on Louis’s car, which reads, “Have
you hugged your MD today?” which could be a reference to the ending embrace between
Louis and Zombie Rachel.
So the Creed family moves into their new home and their daughter Ellie finds the tire swing.
As she swings she hears a creepy sound coming from the forest path that leads to the Pet
Sematary.
If you haven’t read the book, this is easy enough to chalk up to a moose or something
else in the woods, but those familiar with the novel may be reminded of the Wendigo,
the Mic Mac legend said to be responsible for souring the earth upon which Indian burial
ground is located.
In the book, the Wendigo’s power over the town of Ludlow is talked about several times,
and Louis comes face to face with the creature when he takes Gage up to the burial ground.
However, in this movie, the Wendigo is not mentioned or seen, but it is teased at several
more times throughout the film.
Ellie’s tire swing falls, and as Louis and Rachel tend to her, their son Gage wanders
towards the road.
Their new neighbor, Jud Crandall, scoops him up and gets him to safety.
The next day the family gets to unpacking, and you can spot the toy Gage is playing with
is actually a red truck, and he crashes it into a box.
You may also spot that Gage has a whole box of toy trucks, which may explain why he’s
always wandering towards the road, maybe he just has a fascination with trucks.
But that’s not the only thing that causes the disaster to strike.
The influence of the Wendigo also plays a part, but we’ll get back to that in a little
bit.
As Rachel comes in with the groceries, we meet the caretaker Missy Dandridge, who tells
Rachel she was lucky to marry to doctor, and that she wishes she had a doctor to help with
her stomach pains.
She also mentions she’s not married.
In the book, Missy is married to man named Roger, or possibly David -- the name erroneously
changes halfway through the book.
Later that day Jud shows them the way to the Pet Sematary.
Louis carries Gage in the baby backpack, and this would not be the first time that he carries
his son up that path.
Rachel is uncomfortable bringing the kids to the sematary because of her aversion to
death.
In the background you can see the grave marker for Marta the rabbit.
These graves just goes to show the level of detail put into the production design, and
I thought I’d point them out because you might not have picked them up while watching
the movie.
Before they leave, the call of the Wendigo can be heard again in the woods.
Cut to the real monster of this story...
See Gage, this is why nobody saved you when you went out in the road.
Oh man, I’m going to hell.
So Louis is leaving for his first day of work at the University and his wife comes to say
goodbye to him.
I think there’s something up with the color yellow foreshadowing death in this movie.
Not only are Rachel and Gage wearing yellow, but the flowers are yellow -- the house is
yellow and Church’s carrying case is yellow.
So in this scene, everyone who dies in the movie has yellow on them.
Missy Dandridge’s sweater isn’t yellow but she does have yellow flowers on her skirt,
and the flowers later seen at her memorial are in fact yellow.
Another interesting note about this scene is that Rachel repeatedly called Louis “Doc”,
which makes sense because he’s a doctor, but also a partial reference to Danny’s
nickname in the The Shining.
“How’d you like some ice cream Doc?”
Another Stephen King reference can be spotted in the next scene, where this University student,
Victor Pascow, is brought into Louis’s care after being hit by a truck.
On the bulletin board, there is a poster warning about rabies, in which a photo of Cujo, another
Stephen King adaptation made in the 1980s can be seen.
This is more than just a fun reference though, Jud actually explains in the book that rabies
is an issue in Maine and even cites the events of Cujo taking place a few years prior.
So anyways, Louis is unable to save Pascow because he’s basically DOA. Louis gets a
big surprise when Pascow unexpectedly jumps back to life and tells him, “the soil of
a man’s heart is stonier.”
This is a recurring line in the book, but what does it actually mean?
The full quote in the book is “The soil of a man’s heart is stonier, Louis…
A man grows what he can and he tends it.”
Stony soil is known to be harder to grow anything in than fertile soil.
He’s telling Louis that the love he has for his family cannot be easily replaced -- that
bringing their bodies back to life in the burial ground does not mean they’d be the
same people that Louis has grown to love.
Pascow’s ghost comes back that night to try to warn Louis to stay away from the Mic
Mac burial ground, who are apparently having a rave of some sort.
Pascow tells Louis the reason that he wants to help him.
“I want to help you, cause, Louis, you tried to help me.”
OK, I can understand that line in the book, but in the movie, he just takes one look at
him and gives up.
I mean he puts about as much effort into saving Pascow as he does that one time he tried to
rake the leaves.
Speaking of the leaves, Thanksgiving gets here, and the family goes to visit Rachel’s
parents in Chicago, while Louis stays back to work, when he gets a call from Jud.
It’s about Ellie’s cat, Church, and he’s fallen victim to the road.
Jud takes him up to bury the cat, but instead of stopping at the Pet Sematary, Louis ignore
Pascow’s warnings and follows Jud to the Mic Mac burial ground.
A strange noise is heard nearby.
“Jud!
What’s that?”
“Shh…”
“Just a loon.”
This is perhaps the closest we get to a direct acknowledgement of The Wendigo, but there
are a couple more references later on.
When we get to the burial ground, an overhead shot shows that it uses the same concentric
circles layout as the Pet Sematary, but not quite the same as the spiral layout described
in the book.
Louis buries Church, and to his dismay, Church returns from the dead, only now with a much
nastier attitude.
Louis doesn’t care though, as long as he doesn’t have to explain Church’s death
to Ellie.
He goes to meet them at the airpor-- wait a minute, did he pick these from his wife’s
garden?
Oh and also these are yellow flowers, meaning someone’s about to die.
And the winner is… it’s Missy Dandridge.
Why?
Why couldn’t she have married a doctor?
Rachel stays home from the funeral with Gage, still not able to overcome her fear of death
because of what happened to her sister Zelda when she was young.
She totally misses out though, because Stephen King makes a cameo appearance as the minister!
Rachel finally opens up to Louis about how her sister suffered from spinal meningitis,
and the whole experience was extremely scarring for her, right down the creepy painting in
her parents’ house.
If you thought your sister dying was hard Rachel, ohhh just wait, because this truck
driver can’t control his speed when he’s blasting Sheena Is A Punk Rocker by The Ramones.
The song choice is a little nod to the use of Blitzkrieg Bop, the Ramones song that seems
to be stuck in Louis’s head all throughout the novel.
He’s constantly thinking about the lyrics, “Hey, ho, let’s go”, I think it’s
a sign of the town manipulating him, because the lyrics always seem to pop into his head
when he’s thinking of digging up Gage to move him to the Mic Mac grounds.
This is because the Wendigo has the power to put those thoughts into Louis’s head,
because as long as he’s in Ludlow, as long as he’s close enough to the cursed ground,
he remains under its control.
Remember how I said that Gage’s fascination with trucks wasn’t the only thing that caused
him to wander into the street?
Well, during what I have come to call “the scene”, as soon as Gage lets go of the kite
a huge gust of wind blows it into the street, and you can actually see items flying off
the picnic table.
This is no coincidence.
It’s similar to how in the book the truck driver says he wasn’t speeding, but gets
the sudden urge to drive recklessly as soon as he crosses over into Ludlow.
Keeping up with the yellow motif, Gage Creed’s final outfit is a pair of yellow overalls.
Despite what I said I earlier, I actually do feel bad for him now that I see that he’s
a Cubs fan.
Everyone type [F] in the comments to pay your respects to Gage.
Gage’s casket is decorated with yellow flowers, and things go from worse to even more worse
when Rachel’s father starts a fight with Louis at the viewing ceremony.
After the funeral, Jud realizes that Louis may be getting the idea to put Gage up in
the Mic Mac burial ground, so he tells him a story that he withheld the first time they
went up there, the story of Timmy Baterman, a man who came back as a monster after being
buried there.
In the flashback, Timmy Baterman shouts the phrase “love dead dislike living”, a reference
to the horror classic, Bride of Frankenstein.
“I love dead dislike living.”
Louis sends his family ahead to Chicago once again, claiming he needs to close some things
up at work, but really plotting to dig up Gage and attempt to revive him at the Mic
Mac grounds.
He goes to the cemetery where Gage rests in broad daylight for some reason and Pascow
appears to him, standing in front of a tomb with the name Thomas C Farr.
I almost wonder if the “see far” is a reference to Ellie’s psychic abilities,
like how she has the dream about Church dying, and the dream about Louis dying even though
she is across the country when these events take place.
Also, these flowers around Gage’s grave completely change from shot to shot, leaving
only… the yellow flowers.
Ellie sees Pascow in her dream, and when Rachel puts 2 and 2 together, she senses something
is wrong and rushes for the first flight home to get to Louis, but not before having another
vision of her sister Zelda.
“Gage and I will get you…
For letting us die.”
Meanwhile, Louis takes Gage’s body to the area beyond the Pet Sematary.
Listen to this laughter heard echoing through the woods.
Maybe that’s actually one of the loons that Jud had mentioned, or it could also be a ghost
of one of the Mic Mac tribesman.
This is the point at which Louis comes face to face with the Wendigo in the book.
As I mentioned, the creature doesn’t appear in the film, but not showing it is actually
very unsettling, because if you are familiar with the story, you kind of know that’s
it’s just off screen during this scene, and I find that kind of haunting.
Rachel rents a car to transport her the final stretch back home, but suddenly blows a tire
when she gets close.
Like the wind that blew the kite into the road, I feel like this tire popping is no
coincidence.
She ironically hitches a ride with an Orinco truck driver, however, she doesn’t realize
that she’s on the road to her death, which is reflected in the number 666 on the right
side of the truck.
The last Wendigo reference shows up in Jud Crandall’s room.
The Wendigo is described as being an extremely tall bipedal creature with a stag’s head
and antlers.
The candleholder on Jud’s mantle takes this form, and could represent the fact that the
evil spirit is in this room right now, looking at Jud, which it is, in the form of Gage,
who has come back as a zombie, and also in the form of Church, who distracts Jud before
Gage finishes him off with his father’s scalpel.
Have you hugged your MD today?
Rachel finally makes it home, but the sound of Zelda’s voices sends her into Jud’s
house instead of her own.
“Rachel!”
She goes up into Jud’s room, where she hallucinates her son’s image to be that of Zelda.
Then when she finally sees Gage for what he is, she’s wearing the outfit from the creepy
painting in her parents house, the place where she watched her sister die.
The outfit on Gage and the painting also matches what Zelda wore on her deathbed.
This is in line with the actions of the stories of those who came back from the burial ground,
like Timmy Baterman and Hanratty the Bull from the book.
The spirit that has taken over Gage’s body knows the secrets of Rachel’s past and is
using this costume to bring up the repressed tournament of her childhood.
She is unable to see past her son’s form however, and she becomes his next victim.
Louis wakes up the sound of Rachel’s screams.
He comes down and sees the footprints, filling him in on what has happened.
Rachel’s father calls to make sure she made it, and just like the lied to Ellie after
Church’s death and told her that her cat was fine, he lies and tells Mr. Goldman that
Rachel is still asleep.
Then he gets a call from Gage at Jud Crandall’s house and realizes that he too has been possessed
by the evil spirit.
He knows what he must do.
“Forgive me master.
But I must go all out.
Just this once.”
“Today is Thanksgiving Day for cats.”
"Play dead.
BE DEAD!"
So with everyone dead, that leaves us with only two more Things You Missed remaining.
Louis burns down Jud’s house, just as Jud burned down the Baterman house to cleanse
the evil all those years ago.
But Louis is deranged at this point, and he believes that if he takes his late wife to
the burial ground right away she can still come back normal.
To pass the time waiting for her to get back, he plays solitaire on the kitchen floor.
When Rachel arrives, he has a Jack, and Queen and a 2 flipped up, to represent those who
died, Jud, Rachel and the two year old Gage.
Unfortunately for the Doc, Rachel comes back as a zombie, and the movie ends just before
she stabs him in the back.
Cue the end credits with an original song by the Ramones as one final callback to the
constant Ramones references in Stephen King’s novel.
This song is actually a certifiable bop -- maybe one of the last great Ramones songs actually.
OK I was listening to that Ramones song, and look what YouTube decided to autoplay.
That is savagery.
That is pure savagery YouTube.
So that’s it for the Things You Missed in the 1989 adaptation of Pet Sematary -- however,
for some reason, there’s a sequel (even though the book does not have a sequel, like
at all).
And for some other reason, there’s a remake coming out.
I’ll be covering both of those movies here on Things You Missed in the next couple weeks,
so remember to subscribe to CZsWorld for new horrors every week, ring that deathbell for
notifications and I’ll see you in the next one.
Assuming we both survive.