Pet Sematary -- Not too scary for Stephen King

Just finished watching Pet Sematary -- again. This time the collectors edition. Which has wonderful documetnaries attached. And, a revealing comment from Douglas Winter. He reveals that though Pet Semetar was billed as a story too scar for Stephen King, the truth is a little more complicated. (As I suspected!) Winters claimed that King wanted to get a new publisher, so Pet Sematary was a means of finalizing the deal.

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The book, and movie, are in my opinion King at his very best. My wife said, "I thought The Stand was your favorite King book." I said, "No! The Stand isn't a King book. The Stand is beyond King -- beyond any writer." (She gave me a: Get real, look.) "Really! The Stand is among those great books that transcend genre or character or anything else. It is one of thosebooks that retells human history and where we might be going. It doesn't count as a King Novel."

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But Pet Sematary is classic King! Straight, unashamed, dark horror. The story is simply crafted and perfectly executed. The movie gives more clarity to the ending, but well represents the book in plot, characters and mood.

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The book is not "uneven" like some of his work (IT, Dreamcatcher, Lisey's Story) but moves forward with singular purpose. The movie is, however, uneven. Scenes the director really thought "worked" I thought stumbled. For instance, Zelda's death scene feels more like melodrama than anything scary. I've seen lots of people die. . . and they don't die like that! None of them do, ever. It's not scary because it's so detached from life. The movie too quickly runs to horror cliches instead of looking for what is truly scary. The good in the movie does overcome the melodrama, but make no mistake, there is a little bit of overacting and hamming it up here.

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Of course the book wasn't really too scary for King to publish! He has often said that he doesn't really write for publication -- he writes for himself. He writes what makes him happy. However, the tag line "a book too scary for Stephen King" was good.

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Like the Shining, what makes this a strong novel is it's look inside the inner workings of a family. Louis' struggles with his father in-law and his wife's phobia of death. And, of course, the death of a child. When my grandmosthers sister died, she said: I just wanted to go dig her up! King plays on that well known emotion of the grieving: Can't we just go dig them up? Can't we pull them back to life?