One Of The Scariest Scenes In Pet Sematary Warns You Not To Play In The Road

(Welcome to Scariest Scene Ever, a column dedicated to the most pulse-pounding moments in horror with your tour guides, horror experts Chris Evangelista and Matt Donato. In this edition, Chris advises you not to play in the road with "Pet Sematary" 1989.)

We here at Scariest Scene Ever Industries often try to tie our spooky little column to a big new release hitting theaters the same week. And this week, the biggest movie arriving on the big screen is "Fast X," in which cars go vroom. With that in mind, I wanted to do something car-or-vehicle-related. And while there are many options for that — John Carpenter's "Christine," the big pileup from "Final Destination 2," and so on — I landed on one of the most memorable horror movie moments of all time: the untimely death of Gage Creed from "Pet Sematary." So grab your kite and let's go! 

Adapted from the Stephen King novel (by Stephen King himself!), Mary Lambert's 1989 "Pet Sematary" is a creepy piece of work. I saw the film when I was about 7 or 8, and let me tell you, that is probably way too young to see "Pet Sematary." Being a child, I had never really thought about death much at the time. But King's tale of terror about a burial ground that raises the dead forced me to confront mortality head-on, and my tiny child brain was not ready for that. I was traumatized and developed an extreme phobia of death that lasted until I was a teenager. Still, despite — or perhaps because of this, to this day I love "Pet Sematary" in all its forms with all my heart. It's my favorite King novel, I love Lambert's film, and I even dig the 2019 remake, which changes things up a bit, which I thought was a neat idea. But Lambert's '89 movie is the better of the two. 

In "Pet Sematary," Louis Creed, his wife, his two kids, and the family cat Church, move to the town of Ludlow, Maine. There they meet kindly old neighbor Jud Crandal (Fred Gwynne, who is great here, New England accent and all), who tells them about a "pet sematary" located deep in the woods behind the house. The Creeds and Jud live on opposite sides of a major road that's constantly full of roaring trucks — and those trucks are the reason a lot of pets end up in the "sematary" (the sign was made by kids, thus the misspelling). 

When poor cat Church gets hit by a truck, Jud takes Louis beyond the pet graveyard to a place deeper in the woods — an indigenous burial ground that once belonged to the Miꞌkmaqs. As it so happens, that burial ground has the power to raise the dead! Jud insists that only animals have been buried there and come back, not humans. But c'mon Jud, we all know you're lying. 

There's an unspoken rule in horror movies: you don't kill kids. Sure, it happens from time to time, but more often than not, filmmakers stick to that rule. You especially don't kill cute little toddlers. Which is part of what makes "Pet Sematary" so damn disturbing. Not only does a child die in the film, but the child — little Gage — dies in a violent way, run down in the road by one of those damn trucks. 

Lambert begins the scene on an extremely light note, with the entire Creed family having a picnic with Jud, complete with a kite they're all taking turns flying. At one point, Gage loses the kite string — which ends up drafting into the road. The unknowing Gage chases after the string, and it takes a beat before Jud and the Creeds notice what the hell is happening. By then, it's clear it's too late — Louis is too far away to catch his son. 

Still, if you were seeing the movie in 1989 and had no knowledge of the book, you might think, "No way they're gonna kill that kid!" But they do, and Lambert frames it beautifully. In fact, I'm not even entirely sure how she set up the shot, which really looks like a giant truck is about to smash into child actor Miko Hughes. We don't see the actual impact of the truck, but the moment still hits us in the gut thanks to clever editing, which combines the sound of a crashing truck with an image of Gage's bloody shoe rolling in the road. But don't worry! Gage will be back with the help of that burial ground! Although when he comes back he'll be a tiny killing machine, so maybe you should worry. 

I SEE WHAT YOU DID HERE, CHRIS. How better to honor "Fast X" than vehicular terror at ramming speed? I love the idyllic picnic vibes — pastel overalls, flying kites, sunshine like a Hallmark romantic comedy — before an unspeakable smash-cut to devastation. There's no gore either, just a children's sized sneaker dashed with blood tumbling into screen. It's the kind of horror that takes a common parental fear of turning your back for seconds and having the worst happen in broad daylight. Horror thrives because it's real and relatable. There's no greater loss in life than parents having to bury their sons or daughters, and "Pet Sematary" makes damn sure even the single folks in the audience understand such trauma.