Pet Sematary (sometimes referred to as Stephen King's Pet Sematary) is a 1989 American supernatural horror film and the first adaptation of Stephen King's 1983 novel of the same name. Directed by Mary Lambert and written by King, it stars Dale Midkiff, Denise Crosby, Blaze Berdahl, Fred Gwynne, and Miko Hughes as Gage Creed. The title is a sensational spelling of "pet cemetery".
The film was released on April 21, 1989, and grossed $89.5 million at the box office on a budget of $11.5 million. A sequel, Pet Sematary Two, was released in 1992 and a second film adaptation was released in 2019.
Plot[]
The Creed family—Louis, Rachel, their children Ellie and Gage, and their pet cat Church—move from Chicago to rural Ludlow, Maine, after Louis accepts a job as a physician with the University of Maine. They befriend their neighbor Jud Crandall, who takes them to an isolated pet cemetery (misspelled "sematary") in the forest behind the Creeds' new home.
Louis encounters Victor Pascow, a jogger who is mortally injured after being hit by a truck. He warns Louis about the pet sematary before dying, calling Louis by name though they have never met. That night, Pascow appears to Louis as a ghost and leads him to the sematary, warning him not to cross the barrier because the ground beyond is "sour". Louis awakens, assuming it was a dream, but notices his feet are covered in dirt.
During Thanksgiving while the family is gone, Church is run down on the highway. Realizing Ellie will be devastated, Jud takes Louis beyond the pet sematary and deep into the woods, where they reach an ancient Miꞌkmaq burial ground. Jud instructs Louis to bury the cat and warns him not to tell anyone about what they have done. The next day a reanimated Church returns to the house. He now stinks, moves sluggishly, and is vicious toward Louis. Jud explains that as a boy he revived his pet dog, and that although the cat might be different, it will save Ellie the grief of losing her pet.
Sometime later, Gage is killed by a truck along the same highway. Jud anticipates that Louis is considering burying his son in the Miꞌkmaq ground, although Louis denies it. Jud believes that introducing Louis to the ritual ground aroused the malevolent forces present there, which caused Gage's death. He tells him the story of a local named Bill Baterman who buried his son Timmy in the Miꞌkmaq ground after he was killed in World War II. Timmy returned as a malevolent zombie, terrifying the townsfolk. A group of men including Jud tried destroying Timmy by lighting the Baterman house on fire, only for Bill to perish with his son. Jud insists that the burial ground is evil and Louis must not bury his son there.
After the funeral, Rachel and Ellie leave for Chicago while Louis remains home, ostensibly to take care of loose ends. Despite Pascow and Jud's warnings, Louis exhumes his son's body and buries him at the ritual site. In Chicago, Pascow appears to Ellie in a dream and warns her that Louis is about to do something terrible. Rachel is unnerved by her daughter's dream but can only reach Jud when she calls, who tells her Louis is not home. She decides to return to Maine, much to Jud's alarm.
That night, a reanimated Gage returns home and steals a scalpel from his father's bag. He taunts Jud before slashing his Achilles tendon and his mouth, before biting his throat, killing him. Rachel returns home and is lured into Jud's house by the voice and specter of her dead sister Zelda, only to discover that she is actually seeing Gage, holding a scalpel. In shock and disbelief, Rachel reaches down to hug her son and he kills her.
Waking up from his sleep, Louis notices Gage's muddy footprints in the house and discovers his scalpel is missing. Receiving a phone call from Gage that he has "played" with Jud and Mommy, he fills three syringes with morphine and heads to Jud's house. Encountering Church, he kills the cat with an injection before entering the house. Gage taunts him further and Louis is startled by Rachel's body hanged from the attic before Gage attacks him.
After a brief battle, Louis overpowers Gage and injects him with the morphine syringe. He then lights Jud's house on fire, leaving it to burn as he carries Rachel's body from the fire. Pascow appears and warns Louis not to "make it worse", but dispite his warnings, Louis, grief-stricken to the point of insanity, believes that he waited too long when he buried Gage, but burying Rachel "will work this time" because she had died just hours ago.
That night, Rachel returns to Louis and the couple embrace. Rachel takes a large knife from the counter, before Louis screams.