A full Free Movie of the Day is posted on the JoBlo Movies YouTube channel every day of the week – but on Fridays things get a little freakier and a little more fun. Get your weekend started the right way by indulging in Friday Fright Nights! Every Friday, we’ll be taking a look at another genre movie you can watch in its entirety, free of charge, either on the YouTube channel linked above or in the video embed here.
This week, Friday Fright Nights is aiming to add some creepiness to your weekend with the documentary Unearthed & Untold: The Path to Pet Sematary, a deep dive into the making of the 1989 Stephen King classic Pet Sematary. Which may leave you wondering, “How can a documentary about the making of a movie give me the creeps?” Well, the ideal way to approach this one would be to have a double feature of the ’89 version of Pet Sematary (which can be viewed HERE) and Unearthed and Untold – but even if you just watch the documentary on its own, there are things in this “making of” that might still unnerve you a little bit. That’s because Pet Sematary is one of the most disturbing stories King has ever written in his long career of trying to give us nightmares.
Pet Sematary is so disturbing, in fact, that King stuck the manuscript in a drawer after he finished writing it, certain that no one would want to read something that’s so messed up. Something that delves deeply into grief and loss. The loss of a beloved pet. The loss of a young child. And maybe even worse, it deals with people having the chance to bring their lost loved ones back to life… and it goes terribly wrong. What’s interesting – and the documentary tells about this – is that we might never have read Pet Sematary at all if it hadn’t been for a business deal between King and his former publisher. And then we might never have gotten the movie if a studio hadn’t been desperate for projects in the midst of a writers strike. Executives and even the story’s own author wanted to keep this hidden away from the public, but circumstances kept pushing it out into the world.
Unearthed & Untold: The Path to Pet Sematary was written and directed by John Campopiano and Justin White. The official synopsis goes like this:
This documentary takes a detailed look into the making of the original Stephen King’s PET SEMATARY, one of the most enduring cult-horror classics of our generation.
While the documentary doesn’t feature a new interview with King (and oddly, neither does Campopiano’s documentary Pennywise: The Story of It), it does feature interviews with Pet Sematary director Mary Lambert and multiple cast members, including Dale Midkiff, Denise Crosby, Miko Hughes, Blaze Berdahl, Beau Berdahl, Brad Greenquist, Susan Blommaert, and Andrew Hubatsek. Hubatsek played the character that many viewers find to be the most terrifying thing about the movie, even more terrifying than the sight of an undead toddler wielding a scalpel: Zelda, a terminally ill young girl. Campopiano and White also talked to the Maine locals who got jobs working on the movie and even King’s former neighbor who had a pet cemetery on her property. A cemetery where the spraypainted sign was misspelled “Pets Sematary”.
Whether you love the 1989 Pet Sematary, are a casual fan, or just want to hear some interesting behind-the-scenes stories, Unearthed & Untold: The Path to Pet Sematary is well worth checking out. It moves along at a good pace while being informative and giving a peek behind the curtain at one of the most troubling horror stories to ever make our skin crawl.
So take a look at Unearthed & Untold – after all, it’s free! Then share your thoughts on it (and Pet Sematary, novel and films) by leaving a comment below or over on YouTube.
