133 – The one about Pet Sematary

Posted on by

Welcome to episode 133. Today, we talk about Pet Sematary!

Behind a young family’s home in Maine is a terrible secret that holds the power of life after death. When tragedy strikes, the threat of that power soon becomes undeniable.

Join Scott, Randy, Brian and Peter Gabriel as they can’t get the dead cat smell to go away.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

- Direct MP3 Download
- iTunes Link
- RSS Feed

Special thanks to Audible.com this week for sponsoring the show. As usual, a HUGE thanks to Scott Fletcher, the official announcer of Film Sack Central. Hey! Why not leave us a nice review on iTunes if you like the show?

Up next? Follow us on twitter to find out!

29 thoughts on “133 – The one about Pet Sematary”

  2. I still remember seeing this in the theater with my gf/ now wife of 20 years and recalling how whatshername’s sister Rachel freaked me out. Looking forward to your take on it.

  3. The book is one of King’s best, with a final page that still amazes. Saw this at a drive in with several friends while in high school. The extra time highlight of the night was having to push start the car at the end of proceedings!

  6. I love how Randy teases Scott about buying Driving Miss Daisy on DVD despite the fact that Randy was likely recording the podcast while soaking in a lavender scented bubble bath surrounded by candles.

  7. The Orphanage is a great horror movie where there aren’t moronic decisions made. Fantastic! Eve mentions 28 Days Later, and I think survival horrors often have smarter characters than slasher horror, or whatever the usual genre would be called.

  10. Return of the Curse of the ‘Sack!

    I was half way through this around 1AM on October 1st and when I came back it was no longer streaming!

  11. Randy! TOTALLY agree with you on every single thing you said about WIZARD AND GLASS.

    I think it has the strongest character work of the entire series, except maybe for WOLVES OF THE CALLA.

  12. If you guys think killing or harming children on purpose is bad, you guys should probably avoid *SPOILERS*
    .
    .
    .
    .
    .
    .
    .
    .
    .
    … the new movie Looper. Let’s just say you won’t think of Bruce Willis the same way again, even if he has a reason for HUNTING AND KILLING CHILDREN. Great movie though.

  13. An interesting question to discuss about King and movie adaptations of his books is why, for a very long time, the movie versions were generally appalling? Given his strengths as a storyteller, you would think any half decent director/screenwriter would be able to adapt his works to a high standard.

    Instead, for a long, long time, during the 80s and 90s, any number of movies based on his novels/short stories were largely stinkers. True, movies like Carrie, or The Shining, or The Dead Zone, or Misery are great adaptatiions, but there’s some much crap around them.

    Was the problem the choice of stories, or the people adapting them?

    You can’t argue that King became a better storyteller later in his career and that this helped the adaptations. The novellettes which make up The Green Mile are great, but they aren’t better than Salem’s Lot or The Shining.

    So, thoughts?

  14. Hey,
    I’m commenting specifically on the comments Randy was making towards the end of the show. I agree that for most horror films to work, characters have to make stupid decisions, but this is a concept that is directly addressed in the recent movie Cabin in the Woods. It’s a movie I highly recommend, co-created by Joss Whedon and Drew Goddard.
    Basically that movie is a deconstruction of nearly every horror film trope. Definitely one I recommend watching.

    Also, I enjoyed your discussion of King books. I think my favorite is the Gunslinger because it was the first I read by him, and I really love that western style. I was younger when I started reading the series though, so I will have to go back through them again to really be able to decide. I just recently read Salem’s Lot though, and thought it was great. It was incredibly suspenseful, and even the parts that had been recreated over and over felt like they were done better in the book than in the more recent things.

  15. You can’t have a horror film without someone making stupid decisions because then nothing bad would happen. The point of horror movies is how human beings react in such situations and a lot of that is people not fully understanding the situation. Also, there is absolutely no telling how we’d react in, say, a zombie apocalypse. I can’t say for certain what I’d do in any situation unless I’m in it and even then there’s no guarantee. And the Scream movies have smart horror-movie savvy characters but their arrogance and denial of the situation they are in is often their downfall.

    Anyway, the kid in this movie is Miko Hughes who was the ‘boys have a penis, girls have a vagina’ kid in Kindergarten Cop and the son in Wes Craven’s New Nightmare where he gave another excellent performance. He still acts here and there to this day. :)

  17. As a huge fan of the Dark Tower series and SK in general I am arguing against Randy’s opinion about how the Roland/Susan tale in the middle of Wizard and Glass is the best part of the series. I agree the atmosphere depicted of the Mejis and rising tension leading to Roland and co.’s final duel with the bad guys made for interesting lore for the reader and Roland’s ka-tet to enjoy. However the love story is stilted and dry for my tastes and I hear that from other fans of the series. SK himself said in an author’s note that writing horror is easy but writing about love is hard. I think the reason for Roland’s pursuit of the Tower after the events in the Mejis wasn’t enough for me to accept and Wind Through the Keyhole which came out this year serves as a worthier tale for me to read during this break in the middle of the series. Its almost during the same period in the series’ timeline anyhow so I point others to that over the fourth book which rates lower for me overall. 6 is my favorite novel although the series as a whole is just fantastic :D

    Big ups for Pet Cemetery though, a jewel in a bunch of crap movie adaptations of the books. Love the show, you guys rock, long live Filmsack

  18. I know I’m severely late to this party, but I wanted to throw in that I once lived in a place with a house/street setup that was eerily similar to the one in this movie — and the lone road was frequented by semi trucks. My first child was born there and I was constantly haunted by the idea of her wandering out into that road and ending up like Gage.

    Pet Sematary made me paranoid.

Comments are closed.