Screen to Scream: Pet Sematary

Stephen King is enjoying something of a resurgence lately now that Hollywood has seemed to finally understand how to adapt his stories to the screen (Just ignore Dark Tower because, to paraphrase Jake (name), there are other adaptations than these). There are a few adaptations of King’s material floating around, including some very fine examples from Netflix and Hulu, but they don’t compare to the pop culture phenomenon that is It: Chapter 1, and Chapter 2 will soon be on its way to theaters. While not reaching the meme-worthy levels of Pennywise, Hollywood has another winner on its hands with the recent remake of Pet Sematary. Easily one of the darkest stories in King’s collection, it stands to reason that Stephen King himself has called Pet Sematary the story that disturbs him the most, and one that almost didn’t make its way onto bookshelves. The recent remake isn’t just a rehash of Stephen King ideas; it not only does the book justice, but it actually stands on its own as a terrifying horror story.

Just a quick warning, though. Feel free to recommend this movie/book combo to patrons or partake yourself, but be warned that there should be some time with family and/or kitten videos afterward. For a deeper analysis, and there will be . . . .

Spoilers!

Okay, let’s continue.

Many people are familiar with the basic premise of King’s book about the Creed family discovering that the house they just bought has not only a pet cemetery in back kept up by the local children, but it also has a path leading to a burial ground where things buried there don’t stay buried. One of the core themes of the novel is grief and what we can do in the face of it. Despite how unnatural the idea of resurrecting the dead might seem, and even when told by revenant Victor Pascow that the ground beyond the Pet Sematary is “sour,” Louis uses it to resurrect his daughter’s cat Church and then, in the book, his youngest son after a tragic accident. The death and subsequent resurrection of Church was the gateway with wise, old neighbor Judd as the tour guide to the hellish ground, but it’s the death of Gage, the son, that makes this story a knife in the gut, both the boy’s death and resurrection. By not accepting death, Louis has not only doomed himself but his family as well.

Looking at the remake of Pet Sematary, I think back to people who said that they left a lot of information out of the Harry Potter movies and I would typically reply that to put everything in the movie that the book has would be too long of a movie. The remake cuts a great deal of fat (backstory about Rachel’s parents, about the ground itself, etc.) and is a very lean, mean scream machine. It hits the high points of the book (the death of Pascow, meeting Judd, the death of Church, etc.) but the movie doesn’t spend time elaborating on these moments. Critics have said that this takes away what made the book and even the original movie so great, but there are plenty of scenes that will make theater-goers shriek, relying a lot on characters’ experiencing things that may or may not be real (Rachel’s encounters with sister Zelda are the best of these).

One of the biggest changes in the story is that it’s not Gage who is buried in the sour ground but daughter Ellie. The book could get away with having a toddler do what Gage does in the book. Miko Hughes notwithstanding, getting a child to do that would be difficult if not traumatizing. Having an older child be the resurrected one allows for a talking, self-aware child to discuss what awaits after death. After Ellie comes back, Louis gets her ready for bed like he would any other night, ignoring things that show her to be off. Ellie’s also able to say very cruel things to the parents who just happened to let her die after their daughter was cruelly ripped away from them. Due to the movie’s leanness, the themes of death and loss so deeply explored in the book aren’t truly explored, but actress Jeté Laurence gives a great portrayal of both a child and something that isn’t even human trying to be a child.

This current incarnation of Pet Sematary is one worth viewing, however, simply to see the risks the directors take with the story, and for librarians, it will make them familiar with a movie that could easily be a gateway for patrons to get into Stephen King, who has an overflowing bibliography of terrifying fiction. Patrons who read the original and then King’s other works might be relieved to see that King is capable of writing a happier ending.

Have You Read This? Mongrels by Stephen Graham Jones

Tropes and horror often go together like Easter and Cadburry Eggs, and like the titular candy, people either find them either comfortably familiar or exhaustingly frustrating. For every Howling or Last Werewolf, there are many paranormal romances where being a werecreature is an excuse for love scenes featuring torn clothes and animalistic abandon. But there are some books that take the genre that’s been done (And done. And done. Ad nauseum) and produces something unique and engaging. The coming-of-age novel Mongrels by Stephen Graham Jones is one of these.

The nameless main protagonist in Mongrels is not a werewolf, but he is part of a family of werewolves. They are constantly on the run, either leaving the scene of one of their kills or scraping by on the fringes of society. Through the eyes of its young protagonist, Mongrels not only introduces some intriguing ideas to the werewolf mythos that go against what has become anathema, it also showcases some very engaging characters. Other than the protagonist, there are the maternal and paternal figures of his aunt Libby and his uncle Darren, both offering lessons through their stories (which Jones uses to great effect) and through their colorful exploits/examples of what to do and what not to do.

The novel can be seen as a discussion of class, with these low-income werewolves’ adventures beneath the poverty line and the subsequent invisibility it provides, but this novel also has a great coming-of-age narrative where the protagonist discovers the prerequisite first love and loss as well as what it means to be an individual while maintaining ties to family. In this werewolf novel, the beasts are the heroes and the real antagonist is, along with Darren’s questionable decision-making skills, the society that shuns them and their lifestyle.

New Arrival: Break the Bodies, Haunt the Bones by Michael Dean Hicks

Horror is a pretty diverse category. Today there exists books that are exactly what Becky Spratford refers to in her definition of horror from her amazing Powerpoint on the subject, but there are still others that are in the horror category simply because they use a convention or trope that is typically associated with horror. The Sookie Stackhouse novels have vampires, werewolves, and even fey, but they don’t typically evoke a series of terror, not in the way ‘Salem’s Lot or The Wolfen will, hence the category of paranormal romance. There are also books that are considered horror that achieve that feeling of unease and do more, like Micah Dean Hicks’s Breakthe Bodies, Haunt the Bones, which veers heavily into the fantastic but doesn’t shy away from the violence and emotional anguish associated with horror.

To understand this novel, it’s important to know the background of Swine Hill, its setting. The Southern town of Swine Hill is known for the pork processing plant, but it’s also known for ghosts. These ghosts are not from the typical ghost trope. They have practically infested the town and its citizens, granting them X-men like abilities. Jane’s ghost can help her read minds, and when Henry’s ghost overtakes his body, the both of them create biological and technological marvels.

But these ghosts aren’t all about superpowers, and what they do to their hosts is where the horror lies. Jane is often forced to know the private thoughts and dirty secrets of others. Jane’s boyfriend Trigger is haunted by his younger brother’s ghost, an angry spirit that wraps its brother in a barrier of icy cold. Henry and his ghost create something that ends up jeopardizing the fragile stability of Swine Hill. The fact that ghosts exist in this world is treated as mundane but the damage they inflict is very human and horrific. Swine Hill is awash with tragic characters and their respective ghosts add their own baggage to their hosts’. Swine Hill, loaded with not only ghosts but racial and socioeconomic tensions, becomes a powderkeg of a town that eventually explodes. The use of the supernatural, the violence inflicted on these characters, and the traumatic circumstances they endure makes this tale, one that blends ghosts and mutated pigs with the real-life horrors, a clearly modern example of Spratford’s definition. The sheer originality of this novel and its brave look at issues that are sadly relevant to today shows ultimately what horror can be and is a great addition for a library/bookshelf who likes their horror outside of the typical trope.