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2* AlternateAesopInterpretation: Although the message of the story is probably about acceptance of mortality, a lot of audience takeaway has looked more like "install a fence around your garden if you live near a busy road, let alone if you have small children" or "[[FreeRangePets don't have an outdoor cat]]."
3* AlternativeCharacterInterpretation: [[spoiler: At the very end when Louis buries Rachel in the burial ground, is it simply a case of him being driven mad with grief, leading to him repeating his mistakes all over again? Or deep down, does a part of him know that Rachel will simply become a murderous abomination just like Church and Gage did, and is doing it to get her to kill him in some sort of penance for what his actions resulted in, performing a sort of suicide by cop, if you will? Also, is Louis actually in control of his actions, or did he just break and became an empty shell, moved by whatever lives in the burial ground?]]
4* SugarWiki/AwesomeMusic:
5** The score by Elliot Goldenthal is a nicely atmospheric and at times hauntingly beautiful affair that pays homage to such classic horror scores as ''Film/{{Psycho}}'', ''Film/{{The Amityville Horror|1979}}'', and ''Film/TheExorcist'' while still succeeding on its own terms. The [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TaOh_1lmFGk main theme]] is a SuspiciouslySimilarSong to Music/LaloSchifrin's theme to the aforementioned ''Amityville Horror''.
6** Music/TheRamones song too!
7* BigLippedAlligatorMoment: Louis is carrying Gage's body to the Native burial ground and hallucinates that a mound of rocks turns into an angry face that screams at him. It's probably supposed to represent Louis' loss of sanity and the malevolent influence that the ground has on people, but the sequence lasts a couple of seconds, feels weird and adds nothing to the story. And of all the things AdaptedOut from the movie, it still makes it in...
8* CommonKnowledge: It’s not the ''actual'' pet cemetery that will bring you [[CameBackWrong back wrong]], it’s the IndianBurialGround hidden beyond it. Even Music/TheRamones got this one mixed up.
9* FirstInstallmentWins: While the 1989 movie is divisive among fans of the book, it is generally considered superior to both the not-novel-based [[Film/PetSemataryTwo sequel]] or the [[TheyChangedItNowItSucks base-breakingly different]] [[Film/PetSematary2019 remake]].
10* HarsherInHindsight: In the book, it's mentioned that the driver [[spoiler:of the truck that killed Gage]] [[DrivenToSuicide attempted suicide]] out of guilt. In 2000, the driver who hit and nearly killed Stephen King in the famous 1999 accident also died by suicide.
11* JerkassWoobie:
12** Zelda was abusive towards her family, but only because she was a little girl in ''horrendous'' pain and nobody could do anything about it.
13** Irwin Goldman hates Louis, but his anger is partially justified due to [[spoiler:his grandson's death at a very young age. Irwin's reprehensible behaviour originated from grief rather than spite, and he eventually apologizes to his son-in-law once he realizes how awfully he has been treating him all along]].
14* {{Narm}}:
15** When Rachel ascends the stairs to find Gage waiting for her, he's [[CreepyChild dressed in a little top hat and smock, holding an infant-sized cane]] like a tiny UsefulNotes/JackTheRipper. He's dressed like a painting that used to be in her home, but even so, it makes for a hilarious image.
16** "Oz the Gweat and Tewwible" strikes some readers as creepy and some as mood-breakingly goofy. It's a hallmark of King's style to [[{{Bathos}} juxtapose the grim with the absurd]] (see ''Literature/{{It}}'' for many examples); whether it's clever or narmy is up to the reader.
17** When Louis discovers that Church has been killed, there's a few paragraphs explaining how losing someone or something close to ''you'' is different than seeing the same thing happening to someone else. For some reason, King goes on to compare this experience to finding your wife's breasts more attractive than other women's breasts.
18--->''A tit wasn't a tit unless it was your wife's tit.''
19* ParanoiaFuel: After readingwatching, it's not hard to be afraid of what cats and children can do (a reviewer [[http://www.ifc.com/2012/10/five-incredibly-creepy-pet-sematary-scenes stated]] Jud's death "kept me checking under just about every bed I stand next to for the past two decades."). Or of trucks.
20* RealismInducedHorror: In a lot of ways, the scariest part of ''Pet Sematary'' isn't the titular corpse-reanimating graveyard. It's the scene where three-year-old Gage Creed gets run over by a truck while playing in the street. It's described in gruesome detail (and it's less the detail of the actual gore, which is not much, but the details of Louis hearing the truck, seeing Gage running, knowing what is going to happen, and ''almost'' grabbing him before he reaches the road), and puts readers in the shoes of a parent watching their child die, unable to do anything about it.
21* RetroactiveRecognition: Yes, children of the 90s, that is [[Series/{{Ghostwriter}} Lenni Frazer]] playing Ellie.
22* {{Squick}}: There's more than enough gore in the book and film, but special note has to go [[spoiler:revived Rachel, who's missing an eye and some unknown fluid is pouring out of the socket. And yet Louis ''kisses'' her.]]
23* ValuesDissonance: As mentioned above, the Creeds let Church roam around outside on his own, and have had him for years without getting him fixed; Rachel did make an appointment for it when they were still living in Chicago, but Louis cancelled it because he felt that it would destroy Church's 'go-to-hell' personality that he rather likes. Nowadays the attitude towards cats has shifted much more in favor of only letting them go outside with supervision, and it's very difficult to adopt a cat who ''hasn't'' already been neutered or spayed (as most people now get cats from shelters, which by and large no longer adopt out intact animals).
24* ValuesResonance: Louis' decision to resurrect Gage is an IdiotBall that is being driven by evil psychic forces. However, Louis and Rachel (who thinks Louis' just thinking about ForWantOfANail scenarios) both agree that they would still love their son and take care of him even if he were mentally and physically disabled instead of the CheerfulChild they know, and raising him themselves instead of placing him in a healthcare facility, even though their use of the word "retarded" [[ValuesDissonance hasn't aged as well]]. This sentiment resonates more in the age of debates about disability rights and what the quality of life should mean.
25* TheWoobie:
26** Ellie Creed. [[OffscreenInertia At the end of the story]] she's sedated in the hospital, perhaps driven half-mad from unheeded psychic warnings, her brother is dead, [[spoiler: as is her neighbour, her mother, her cat and in the movie her father (though it's a given that he'll also die soon in the book)]]. And all this at the age of six...[[note]]WordOfGod is that she spent the rest of her childhood in a loving home and is alive and well, though she still has nightmares about the pet sematary.[[/note]]
27** PosthumousCharacter George Anderson. He lost a leg in UsefulNotes/WorldWarII and lost all of his money in the stock market. Then, he, Jud, and two friends went to confront Timmy Baterman, who CameBackWrong after being buried in the burial grounds and taunted everyone else with information gleaned from his new psychic powers. Timmy said George's his beloved grandchildren were only nice to their grandfather because they expected to inherit his money, as he kept his financial woes secret, and that they derisively called him "Old Wooden Leg" behind his back. This (almost certainly true) claim devastated George, and makes him even more pitiable due to how two of his companions had genuine {{Dark Secret}}s about stuff ''they'' did, and the third committed an act of spousal abuse out of anger after learning his wife cheated on him. George was just a kind, well-meaning man who only wanted to do his duty as postmaster but suffered just as badly as the others, though Jud stresses that all of them had some good qualities. [[note]]This is possibly downplayed when the resurrected Gage tells Jud that his wife cheated on him with a man named George, but given the disparity in their ages, that might have been a different George and it's also unclear if Gage is lying.[[/note]]
28** The truck driver who runs over Gage is an unseen character, but comes across as surprisingly sympathetic when it's mentioned that the aftermath of the accident drove him to try and commit suicide and that his wife and kids have left him. The implications that the accident wasn't his fault and that the EldritchLocation forced him to drive faster than normal make him more pitiable.

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