My Stephen King reading project progressed to the book I was most looking forward to, Pet Sematary. Maybe I've only read it once, as a teenager? In any case, it had been decades since the last reading. And yet the story is so familiar, it's like watching an accident in slow motion.
Doctor Louis Creed has it all: a cat, a family, a new job. It's a shame that the family's new home is located next to a busy road. And next to a pet cemetery...
After reading the book, I had to watch the movie, the quick version of which has always made me laugh too much. When I was in middle school, I let my younger brother see this movie when he was too young (he is 10 years younger than me). The brother was traumatized especially by Zelda so badly that he didn't dare to walk alone in the stairwell anymore. Obviously I'm a terrible sister.
Differences between the book and the movie: The events of the book begin in August and end in May. Judi's wife Norma is alive. Missy doesn't have any illness, so she doesn't kill herself and she has a family. In the book, the kite is flown a couple of months before Gage's death. Louis remembers it as the last particularly happy day. Gage's death itself is told as a flashback. At one point, Louis imagines a future for the dead Gage in which he becomes an Olympic swimming champion. The ones who came back from the dead are not as bad as in the movie. Church is not EVIL, and neither is Judi's dog. Timmy was also bad only with his mouth, he knew other people's dirty secrets. Timmy's father killed him and himself, and by no means were the villagers lynching them while burning down the house. Louis' co-worker Steve almost follows Louis to bury Rachel (and doesn't remember anything afterwards). Rachel doesn't kill Louis at the end, she just says... "Darling." The end of the movie was made darker.
Ps. Nowadays, whenever it comes to Pet Sematary, I think of "Butters, you smell like bacon."