You might be wondering where Stephen King got the idea to spell his now-iconic Horror masterpiece Pet "Sematary" instead of "Cemetery". Was it a printing mistake they went along with or was it something else?
Why is the book and movie title, Pet Sematary, misspelled? Here’s all you need to know about its origins.
READ MORE: Is Pet Sematary: Bloodlines a Remake, a Sequel, or a Prequel?
Was Pet Sematary Intentionally Misspelled?
At first glance, a Pet ‘Sematary’ doesn’t sound quite right. If anything, it would seem as though a kid wrote it the first time they tried holding a funeral. Your hunch is right if you were thinking the same thing.
The idea behind intentionally misspelling ‘Cemetery’ into Pet Sematary was thanks to his daughter and her deceased cat.
The misspelling intention was because of the actual pet cemetery right behind King’s house, where Pet Sematary was written on the sign, which the acclaimed author took for the final title of his book.
According to Stephen King’s website on his inspiration behind Pet Sematary, the Horror King author was a writer-in-residence at the University of Maine where plenty of dogs and cats pretty much die on a regular basis.
Behind the house was the woods where the local children built a small pet cemetery.
At the time, when King’s daughter’s cat got killed by a passing truck, he had to bury the pet’s body and explain the concept and meaning of death to his little one. In the words of King himself:
“I can remember crossing the road, and thinking that the cat had been killed in the road — and [I thought] what if a kid died in that road? And we had had this experience with Owen running toward the road where I had just grabbed him and pulled him back. And the two things just came together — what if the cat came back and on the other side, what if the kid came back? I knew immediately that it was a novel.”
How Pet Sematary's Misspelling Reflects the Movie
Considering that Stephen King nearly shelved this novel from being published due to its mixed reception, the idea of kids leading his horrific storytelling was similar to how IT came to life.
While Pet Sematary had kids learning about the concept of death, in the famous words, "Sometimes dead is better", IT had the kids re-learn the true meaning of fear through Pennywise. That fear is the only real enemy they need to face.
The misspelled cemetery reflects the innocence of the kids meant to go through their journey in the Pet Sematary franchise. That the dead must stay dead, that kids would have to understand they can only move forward from there.
Otherwise, their pets coming back to life are nothing but haunting images and memories of never letting go of the past.
The 2019 remake of the aforementioned film returns with a prequel, Pet Sematary: Bloodlines, and with the seal of approval from King himself, the deviation from the original source material is what would reel in its fans back into the franchise.
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