In the book it was implied that the whole scenario of the truck driver flooring his rig and the kid running in front of it was orchestrated because the power has high.
Damn it, now I’m going to have to pick the book up again.
That’s Lou’s theory, at the end, when he’s trying to get his wife back, but he doesn’t have any real evidence for it other than deranged hope. In fact, it seems the opposite to be the case: fresher bodies seem to come back worse. The first human we hear about being brought back was killed in Europe in WWI, and was resurrected after his body was shipped home. Despite what had to be a few months, he’s the most normal of the returned humans we read about. He’s “off” somehow, and seems to know things he shouldn’t know, but there’s no stories about him murdering people. Gage was brought back a few days after he died, and almost immediately sets about trying to murder his parents. His wife was resurrected within hours. We don’t get to see how she turned out, but I suspect it’s really, really bad.
Okay, now I have to read the book again, because this is driving me nuts.
We looked at a house here in RI that started out really creepy. It was just like the start of the movie, a truck coming down the long otherwise deserted country road, a cemetary across the street with a some hand made sign stuck to a tree. We couldn’t tell what the sign said, but the whole thing resembled the opening scene of the movie way too much. Still, we were going to buy the house because it was a good deal, but it all fell through in the end. My wife still calls that the Pet Sematary house.
Even before I was a parent, the book could only be read a few pages at a time.
As for the movie, Fred Gwynne was already brilliant casting…but I was unimpressed at the time with the rest. But I just rewatched a few clips. It was better than I thought.
Remarkably though the filmmakers were making a horror film…they tone it down for the film.
Wrong.
That’s it. Wrong. No more to it then that.
I’ve seen the movie and read the book. I don’t remember the movie at all, but I swear in the book the Micmac burial ground was contaminated with toxic waste. It doesn’t sound like anyone else remembers that, so maybe I made that up.
This is especially true for me as this fate almost happened to my now 12, then 2 year old son.
I’m not going to let this go. It’s really bugging me. I hope someone can confirm or deny this because I do not have time to re-read that book.
And I might be conflating the book and the movie, but I also think there was an irony in that Gage is run over by a tanker truck, transporting the type of thing (petroleum product?) that contaminated the Micmac burial grounds.
I don’t remember the toxic waste thing being in the book but I’m not 100% sure
I don’t even think it’s in the movie
I don’t remember anything about toxic waste, either.