THE CAT
Nine killer facts on Pet Sematary’s feline stars…
- There were six cats in total used to play the pivotal role of Church, the cat who starts Pet Sematary’s descent into Hell.
- “Really, though, it was two of the cats that did the bulk of the work,” says co-director Dennis Widmyer. “And obviously you feel like you’re just seeing one cat on screen. That’s how good those cats are.”
- Those two particularly talented cats’ names are Tonic and Leo.
- Widmyer’s co-director, Kevin Kolsch, says that having the cats on set was also a form of therapy for the pair. “We’re both cat guys and have a lot of cats. And we were both shooting away from home, so it was good to have them there.”
- Church the cat is based on Stephen King’s daughter Naomi’s pet cat, Smucky, who was run over outside their home and in part inspired him to write Pet Sematary.
- Kevin Kolsch maintains that even though these were movie-star cats, there were no diva-like displays on set. “They were way better behaved than my cats,” he notes.
- That’s not to say everyone was a fan. Amy Seimetz, who plays Rachel Creed, is allergic to cats so had to keep taking anti-allergy pills, just to survive shooting with them.
- Seimetz thinks that maybe her allergy to cats is why the first Stephen King book she ever read was Cujo, “just because it’s about a dog”.
- “I’m fascinated by cats,” Seimetz says. “Just because they’re such assholes, whether they come back from the dead or not. I attract them because I can’t touch them. So, I look indifferent, so of course they want to come and sit on me. I feel like they know my eyes would fall out if I touched them, so they don’t leave me alone; that it’s their sadistic side that attracts them to me. I’m pretty sure it’s the asshole in them.”
