Art of the Week: Pet Sematary (the book), Holes (the film) and PUP’s new EP
Book of the week: Pet Sematary (1983)
Pet Sematary is Stephen King’s scariest book. This is according to critics and fans, not personal experience. It’s the first Stephen King book I’ve read — I don’t make a habit of reading scary books. Not that scary always means horror; according to Shrek 2, it can mean your spouse’s childhood diary in which they repeatedly profess their love for a person they hadn’t even yet met at the time — a person who, crucially, is not you. Comedians Mitchell and Webb created a sketch series (“D’you do poison?”) whose principal character, intent on killing his wife, considers presenting her with a book containing “truths so terrible you could age a person prematurely with the weight of the knowledge.” Sam and Dean Winchester, the protagonists of TV series Supernatural, scramble to get hold of and decode a book whose contents have the power to turn a person into a “force of nature.” All of these are uniquely terrifying without strictly broaching the horror genre — none of them would exactly make for light reading after a long day of work.
Of course, Pet Sematary is a scary book that does come in the form of a horror novel. I know what Stephen King is famous for, and I certainly wasn’t expecting sunshine, rainbows and the like; though King could probably make a dark subject of even those things, if he ran out of ideas.
The concept for the story came from something that really happened to King, as explained in the novel’s introduction. When staying in rural Maine with his family, his daughter’s cat was run over on a busy road. Near to their home, there was a makeshift graveyard for pets whose entrance sign read “PET SEMATARY.” Here, they buried the cat, with an epitaph written by his daughter reading, “SMUCKY: HE WAS OBEDIANT.” King stresses that, being a cat, he wasn’t at all obedient (this fact isn’t strictly relevant to the story but it is, in my opinion, fairly amusing). Inspired by the W.W. Jacobs short story ‘The Monkey’s Paw’, King mused on what would happen if the cat could possibly return from the grave, resurrected yet “fundamentally wrong.” Your first thought might be: what’s the worst that could happen? The previously high-maintenance cat either stays dead or comes back obedient this time? Champagne problems.
Of course, no one gets off that easy, least of all a Stephen King character. Louis Creed, the novel’s protagonist, is no exception. His family moves to the town of Ludlow in rural Maine. The nearby “pet sematary” is introduced to them by an old man called Jud Crandall, who has conveniently lived in the area his whole life and thus gained intimate knowledge of the local folklore. Later, Louis’s daughter’s cat, Church, short for “Winston Churchill”, dies. Said daughter Ellie is away in Chicago at the time (a place I’d much rather be than almost anywhere, let alone this creepy little town). Jud discovers the cat’s body and convinces Louis to follow him to a special burial spot. They venture into the “pet sematary” and over a deadfall of fallen trees, travelling deep into the woods and ending their journey at a burial ground. This burial ground was initially used by the indigenous Mi ‘ kmaq people, who deemed it to have the potential to bring back the dead. However, a wendigo — an evil, cannibalistic creature in First Nation mythology — ostensibly began to reside in the woods, thus souring the land, and so the burial ground was considered off limits. Since then, a few citizens of Ludlow had buried dead animals there, including Jud himself, but they always came back ‘different’ — unaffectionate, lethargic and accompanied by a persistent, overpowering smell of dirt. Nevertheless, Church is buried there, and sure enough, he comes back a stinking little shit. Although a nuisance, this is basically fine.
I’m sure the question on your mind at this point is as follows: what would happen if a person was buried beyond the “pet sematary”? “Surely nothing good can come of it,” I hear you cry. Well, quite. However, Louis himself entertains this question. Chaos ensues.
The book establishes the family well, and I instantly loved Ellie. Rachel, the woman of the house, fits the stereotypical representation of an upper-middle class Jewish-American woman. I didn’t expect King to make groundbreaking or indeed any tangible changes to minority representation, but delving beyond the “spoiled by her parents, excessively paranoid about the welfare of her own children, doesn’t have any interests outside being a wife and mother” portrayal couldn’t’ve hurt. Despite this, I much preferred her to Louis, who, to me, seemed arrogant and irritating. He also came across as misogynistic; this, again, isn’t surprising, but a book which describes women as “cockteasers” leaves much to be desired in the feminism department. If your response to your wife breaking down over an event that left her traumatised is “ugh, women, am I right?” then you should probably not be married to one. He’s a doctor, fine — he doesn’t care all that much about performing one of the most honorable jobs available to humankind, but then again, “real” doctors sometimes don’t either. In fact, in the mind of King, he was probably intended to be an “everyman” figure: an average person dealing with an astronomical problem. However, if people are, on average, as smug as he is, with a superiority complex to boot, then I should really start hanging out with fewer people (not that I was ever a socialite in the first place). I judge he is also supposed to be a funny character, but his jokes, albeit mainly told to himself in his own mind, often fell flat.
On the other hand, the book is compelling, with many twists and turns. One strength of the novel that stood out to me was its use of motifs in Louis’s thought process. His repeated references to the Ramones lyric “hey, ho, let’s go” arrive in sharp moments of adversity, moments in which Louis has no choice but to push through with a sense of tongue-in-cheek resignation to his indubitably dark fate. His memory also clings onto a description Rachel gave of the way her late sister described her favourite book character, “Oz the gweat and tewwible.” Its subsequent use by Louis in moments facing Ludlow’s forces of evil takes some of the wind out of the story’s most horrifying moments, which is much-needed for horror newbies like me. Simultaneously, it introduces a uniquely sinister air to the novel’s atmosphere, impactfully manipulating the trope that “creepifies” all things associated with childhood. Moreover, the logic work required in Pet Sematary has the reader frequently experiencing those ‘clicking’ moments in the nick of time. These moments can make an otherwise problematic story gripping. Even if I had despised every one of the Creed family, I would still have been so entranced by the “pet sematary” and the burial ground that lies beyond it that I would have hurried to read on anyway. The characters themselves actually have an inexplicable fascination with the “pet sematary”, and to a degree, I understand why; I may not feel the irresistible pull it performs on those physically near it, but the concept itself darkly yet seductively explores a question we all ask ourselves: is death really the end?
In answer to this question, the book’s resident wise old man Jud Crandall proclaims, “sometimes dead is better.” After reading Pet Sematary, I have to say… I agree with him.
Film of the week: Holes (2003)
In primary school, we were given Louis Sachar’s 1998 young adult novel Holes to read. My sister and I both loved the book, so we watched the film, which quickly became a classic in our household. After a recent rewatch, I can verify that sure, the film is a great watch for kids, but it’s an even better watch for adults. It has almost everything you could ask for in a film: deadly lizards, meaningful commentary on race and class, flashbacks to the Old West more heart-rending than every one of John Ford’s flicks, Sigourney Weaver, and most importantly, onions (all the best films involve onions as a crucial element).
The plot begins when a teenage boy, Stanley Yelnats IV, is sent to a juvenile detention camp, Camp Green Lake, for possession of a stolen pair of shoes he didn’t actually steal. For four generations, his family has been cursed with bad luck by a fortune teller, Madame Zeroni, whom Stanley’s (no good, dirty, rotten, pig stealing) great-great-grandfather encountered in his home country of Latvia. This is how Stanley explains his misfortune to the people he bunks with at Green Lake. One of these people is a boy called Zero, who is picked on by the other kids for his near-constant silence, his alleged lack of intelligence, and his insane talent for digging holes. For most people (barring those who work in a graveyard) the speed at which you dig holes is meaningless, but at Camp Green Lake, it is paramount: their punishment for whichever crime they have or have not committed is to dig a hole six foot wide and six foot deep each day in the blistering hot sun of the Texas desert. Digging holes builds character; at least, that’s the mantra of the camp’s employees, Mr. Sir and Dr. Pendanski, and their boss, the Warden. Of course, it doesn’t build character at all, but how else are you going to convince the government to allow dozens of children to perform free labour for you?
While performing said free labour, Stanley befriends Zero. Stanley learns that Zero, having grown up homeless, never learned to read, so Stanley offers to teach him. In exchange, Zero helps Stanley dig his holes. This arrangement goes swimmingly (an unfortunately adverb given the years-long drought in the area) until one sunny morning, in which Zero hits the verbally abusive Dr. Pendanski over the head with his shovel and runs off into the desert.
Interwoven between sequences of this ‘present day storyline’ is the story of how local legend Kissin’ Kate Barlow became an outlaw in the Wild West. At the start of her tragic tale, Katherine is a schoolteacher with a crush on Sam, a local salesman who regularly rows across the lake to acquire his wares: onions. Sam is charming, handsome, and most of all, kind; he responds to every creaky window and leak in the roof of Katherine’s schoolhouse with the promise, “I can fix that.” Sam always delivers, and one night, when he stumbles upon Katherine crying into a good book (my classic Saturday evening), he promises to fix it in a new way this time. Sam kisses her. However, neither of them realise they’re not alone — they are watched by the local land baron’s son, Charles “Trout” Walker, who has been pursuing Katherine. Katherine has rejected his advances for someone else, and now he knows who it is, this rejection cannot go unpunished. One subsequent night, Katherine’s schoolhouse is burned down by Trout and his cronies, and Sam is shot dead in his boat while rowing across the lake. Katherine runs to the sheriff, who refuses to help; Katherine is white, and Sam is black, so in the sheriff’s eyes, Sam got what he deserved. Katherine goes ballistic.
Katherine becomes Kissin’ Kate Barlow, an outlaw dedicated to hunting down Trout’s men, shooting and looting all that stands in her way. She crosses paths with Stanley Yelnats, our Stanley’s great-grandfather, and steals a chest containing his entire fortune. As it happens, she also buries it in the desert, where the lake has since dried up… Important to remember, though, that Kissin’ Kate Barlow didn’t kiss Stanley Yelnats, because she only kissed the men she killed. As Stanley’s mother says, “if she’d’ve kissed him, she’d’ve killed him, and you would’ve never been born.”
Holes, like Pet Sematary, has an expertly-crafted plot. It involves a higher amount of logic work than the majority of kids’ films — most kids’ films don’t involve a single “eureka” moment, which they usually don’t need to, but the multiple moments of realisation one experiences when watching the film are partly what elevates it above other children’s films of its kind. It also represents issues of poverty in a way that isn’t sensationalised or contrived — while some of the characters, like Zero, grew up in more extreme poverty than Stanley, they’re all from working class families. As the film progresses, one begins to understand that Zero has gone through a lot, but he doesn’t purely exist as a character for shock value or to garner pity — he is his own person with fears, desires, and a sense of humour… In a similar vein, Stanley’s parents are clearly not well-off by any means — Stanley shares a bedroom with his grandfather and, by the looks of it, always has — but they’re still a harmonious family unit who laugh together and clearly love each other. It’s simplistic to imply that being in relative poverty wouldn’t put some degree of strain on a person’s familial relationships, but there’s only so much a kids’ film can do in two hours. Too often, the world of mainstream American film and TV represents people in poverty as relentlessly miserable, one-note characters. American films about poor people are always about the hardships of being poor, and rarely venture beyond this. There is a place for these narratives, but they shouldn’t make up every single film about the working class. So, all in all, the film’s characterisation of poor families is a bounding step in the right direction.
The friendship between Stanley and Zero is wonderful — it starts off a little awkward, sure, and Stanley doesn’t initially agree to help Zero learn to read, claiming to be too tired after days of digging holes. I’ve never been able to figure out why this is; perhaps Stanley’s change of heart signals emotional development, and a loss of the sense of self-righteousness he seems to carry in the first part of the story, thinking he’s above everything and everyone at camp. Regardless, once they’re over this initial hurdle, they bond very quickly, and as the trials and tribulations they suffer become more and more extreme, they become closer and closer. Further, the film is funny in many ways, but the jokes Stanley and Zero make between themselves are possibly the most charming of all, in their playful innocence.
So, if you’re still up for watching films starring Shia Labeouf (I understand why you might not be), and you fancy visiting or revisiting one of the best American films of the 00s, give this film a try this week. Even if digging holes doesn’t build character, then watching Holes certainly does.
Record of the week: This Place Sucks Ass — PUP (2020)
Canadian pop punks PUP released their latest EP, This Place Sucks Ass, in October 2020. Most of the songs were recorded during the studio sessions for their 2019 LP Morbid Stuff (one of my most-played albums of 2020). The LP combines near-childish bitterness (epitomised on ‘Sibling Rivalry’, my favourite track) with almost unrelentingly high energy. This seems to be the essence of pop punk music as we now understand it, but Morbid Stuff carries a darker aura somewhat similar to that of their punk rock predecessors Black Flag and Minor Threat. Based on my thoughts regarding this 2019 album, I described PUP in a tweet as “Mom Jeans. if they had the will to live.” In light of hearing TPSA, I think I have to retract this statement.
The EP feels almost relentlessly pessimistic and moderately morbid (something they’ve evidently never shied away from). It’s funny that the majority of the lyrical content embodies a sense of restlessness and stagnancy, because it was largely (or entirely, I couldn’t say for sure) recorded before March 2020, the month in which our lives took on an entirely different meaning with the commencement of worldwide Covid-19 national lockdowns. The first single from the EP, ‘Anaphylaxis’, is even described by lead vocalist Stefan Babcock as “a goofy song about being a hypochondriac”; it is thus a song that, if indirectly, addresses an affliction greatly exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic. ‘Anaphylaxis’ is nothing more than advertised — goofy — but its subject matter is still oddly topical for a song that was written before the pandemic kicked off (similar to lyrics like “I am the virus, here and now” that appear on 2020 Front Bottoms album In Sickness and in Flames).
The only break from TPSA’s persistent gloom comes slap bang in the middle, with their cover of Grandaddy classic ‘A.M. 180’. I far prefer this cover to the original — it’s a little smoother and a lot more chaotic. Its practically frantic pace, interrupted only by brief pauses between verses and choruses, brings a brighter, more positive feel to the song than Grandaddy’s original rendition. I would be interested to hear PUP’s spin on the likes of Elliott Smith and other artists on the indie scene with Grandaddy in the late 90s.
Kerrang! complained in their online review that This Place Sucks Ass lacks the “vitality and vim” of Morbid Stuff. While I see their point, my response to this is that just about everybody is lacking the vitality and vim they had in 2019, making the EP a timely and tone-appropriate offering for the restless and agitated lockdowner of 2021. TPSA ends with minute-long lament ‘Edmonton’, whose last lines are as follows: “Thinking how I’d missed too many birthdays / and a couple of funerals.” If that isn’t a fitting closer for a record released in 2020, I don’t know what is. Until our full vitality and vim hopefully returns to us over the course of 2021, this EP is the perfect companion to all those who feel sick of their current state, perpetually stuck in the same locations and inevitably thinking… “this place sucks ass.”
