1. Resident Evil

REmake was my third Resident Evil game. I've mentioned this already, but I've never played Director's Cut (even though I do own a digital copy on the PS3), so I can't compare the two games.

Resident Evil is a classic survival horror game. Everyone's heard of it. Everyone knows what it's about. In 1998, near Raccoon City, a S.T.A.R.S. team (including Jill Valentine and Chris Redfield) is sent to investigate a series of murders. Is it still "murder" is the victims are eaten by zombies and zombie dogs (cerberus)? You can play as either Jill or Chris. Jill has more inventory space, acquires a lockpick and has a chance to find a grenade launcher, but her defense isn't great. Chris has less inventory space and has has to waste the few slots he has by collecting old keys, but he has a good amount of health.

REmake is the scariest game in the series, hands down. You have to avoid Lisa Trevor (you're unable to kill her until a specific point in the game, so don't waste your ammo) and as if she isn't bad enough, Capcom added in some fun new enemies for us to deal with, Crimson Heads. Crimson Heads occur when you "kill" a zombie, without burning the body afterward. They reanimate a second time and now they're able to run and slash at you with extremely deadly claws. They're awful. I had read about them before even playing the game and I remember being so scared that I called my cousin (who owned the game, but hadn't played it yet), walking him through the beginning of the game, until you encounter the first Crimson Head. I didn't tell him what was about to happen, I wanted to hear his genuine reaction so I could gauge just how terrible these things were. He barely reacted at all. I, on the other hand, am still afraid of them. If I don't have the supplies to immediately burn a body, I'm not killing any zombies.

This is a great game because it offers a lot of replayability through various unlockable game modes. One Dangerous Zombie turns on (automatically, whether you like it or not) after you play as both Jill and Chris on normal difficulty. In this mode, Forest (a member of S.T.A.R.S. Bravo team) returns as a zombie, with grenades attached to him, so you need to avoid him at all costs because shooting him will result in an explosion that will end your game. Real Survival Mode unlocks after beating the game on normal difficulty. Item boxes are no longer linked, so if you want a bit of an extra challenge, this is it. And if you want an extreme challenge, you can unlock Invisible Enemy Mode (by completing the game twice on any difficulty) where, you guessed it, all the enemies are invisible. Good luck with that.

I rate Resident Evil a 10/10 for being a genuinely terrifying experience, having so much additional content to play through, and being the "original" that started the entire series. (It's a remake, but it's a remake of the first game, so it counts.)

2. Resident Evil: Code Veronica X

Resident Evil: Code Veronica X takes place on Rockfort Island, where Claire Redfield is imprisoned after infiltrating an Umbrella facility in Paris. She meets another prisoner, Steve Burnside, and the two decide to work together to find a way off the island. Of course, there are zombies, hunters, bandersnatches and a pair of siblings named Alfred and Alexia Ashford who make that task extremely difficult for them. Meanwhile, Chris Redfield travels to Rockfort Island in search of his sister and finds Albert Wesker, his old S.T.A.R.S. leader who betrayed him during the events in Raccoon City.

In CVX, you're not given the option of who to play as. You'll play as both Claire and Chris at different points in the game and you need to really consider which items you keep on you because the other character won't have access to them later.

I really liked Code Veronica. I enjoyed the story, I appreciated that the game seemed a bit longer than the others, I was happy to play as both Claire and Chris because they were my favorite characters (I still love Claire, Chris doesn't exist for me in RE5 and RE6). I tried to get the infinite rocket launcher in this game and I made it to the free save (the only one the game allows you) when you switch disks, but the Nosferatu fight frustrated me and by the time I went back to it, my save data was corrupted. Maybe one day though, now that CVX has been released for the PS3 and PS4. (Yes, I did buy it on both consoles.)

Completing the game on easy or normal will unlock Battle Mode, which has you racing against the clock while defeating various different enemies. It's not my favorite mini game and I didn't spend a significant amount of time playing it.

I rate Code Veronica X an 8/10 for giving us a game starring both Claire and Chris Redfield.

3. Resident Evil 2

Resident Evil 2 deals with the aftermath of the events from Resident Evil. The T-Virus has spread into Raccoon City, where Leon Kennedy is headed for his first day of work as a rookie cop at the RPD, because apparently no one told him not to show up for work now that zombies have taken over the city. At the same time, Claire Redfield arrives, looking for her brother, Chris. Leon and Claire are separated shortly after meeting.

You're once again able to choose which character you play as. If you choose Claire, you'll meet a child named Sherry Birkin, the daughter of William Birkin (who has injected himself with the G-Virus). As Leon, you'll encounter Ada Wong, a woman who to this day, after many appearances in this series, I still don't know the motivations of.

Resident Evil 2 is a nice change of pace because you're taken out of the mansion and given a chance to explore the city a bit. You do spend a significant amount of time in the police department (and later on, the lab), but it's nice to see Raccoon City at all. My favorite thing about this game is the way the A/B scenarios work. You can play as Claire or Leon first and then follow that up by playing as whichever character you didn't choose initially. What you do with the first character affects what happens when playing as the second. You'll have to solve different puzzles and fight new bosses and it was really well done and made playing through the game multiple times interesting.

Unlockables include Extreme Battle Mode (which gives you limited health and ammo and sends you off to fight through hordes of enemies, while planting anti virus bombs), 4th Survivor (a canon mini game about an Umbrella operative, HUNK, who has to escape from Raccoon City with a sample of the G-Virus, while sparingly using what few items you're given to start with) and Tofu Survivor (exactly like 4th Survivor, except you play as a piece of Tofu and you're only armed with a knife and a couple healing items).

I rate Resident Evil 2 a 9/10 (I rated it higher than the next title on my list, but it's still third). I love the way the A/B scenarios were implemented in this game, it really added a lot of replayability to RE2.

4. Resident Evil 0

Resident Evil 0 was my first RE game. Knowing what I know now, I regret playing this one first because there are major spoilers for the original Resident Evil in RE0.

In this game, you play as Rebecca Chambers (a member of S.T.A.R.S. Bravo team) and Billy Coen (a convicted felon). Rebecca has a talent for mixing herbs (and playing piano, but that's in Resident Evil) and Billy...Can push things and use a lighter. He's also able to take more hits than Rebecca and if you strategize well enough, you can avoid taking damage from a lot of enemies by having Rebecca wait in a corner somewhere and calling her over to you when you reach a door to the next area. (If you're playing the remaster, you can also play "Wesker Mode" and replace Billy with Albert Wesker, who has a few of his own advantages.)

Resident Evil 0 starts off with a train being attacked by leeches. Eventually, Rebecca wanders onto it, where she meets Billy. Even though Billy is a wanted man, they decide to work together because there are some damn strange things happening on that train. The train arrives at a training facility belonging to Umbrella Corporation, where Rebecca and Billy are forced to explore and find a way to escape.

Truthfully, Resident Evil 0's story isn't my favorite. There are two main reasons I love this game. The first is nostalgia. This was the first RE game I ever played, it was like nothing I had ever played before (I grew up on Mario and Donkey Kong games) and I really enjoyed it. The second reason is that I love the Leech Hunter mini game. Out of every mini game in this series, Leech Hunter is my favorite. Your goal is to go around the training facility and collect 100 leeches, 50 blue and 50 green. The catch is that the leeches take up space in your inventory, so you have to make your way around the facility, killing everything in your path, and then go back and pick the leeches up. The problem is that once you collect a certain amount of leeches, enemies will begin to respawn, so you have to leave the leeches in the rooms closest to the main hall for last, that way you can quickly run in and grab them and get back out. Depending on the number of leeches you collect, you'll be rewarded with new weapons and infinite ammo for the story campaign.

People have very mixed feelings on inventory management in this game. You're able to drop items from your inventory wherever you want, but then you have to go back and get them if you need them later on. (Leaving items in the main hall is always a good idea.) Again, this was my first Resident Evil game, so I had nothing to compare it to and I actually enjoyed it. I found it easier to drop items in strategic locations than I found it to store items in the inventory boxes like you have to in other games.

I rate Resident Evil 0 an 8/10 for having the best mini game in the entire series.

5. Resident Evil 7

Resident Evil 7 was a breath of fresh air for this series after RE4, RE5 and RE6. Was it a perfect Resident Evil game? Not exactly. But I still loved every second of it, even if it's a departure from the zombies in the first several games. I appreciate that Capcom listened to the fans and brought back the horror atmosphere instead of releasing another third person shooter. And the demos for the game were genius, adding more with each new update.

In this game, you play as a man named Ethan, who is looking for his missing wife, Mia. While searching through a rundown house, he finds Mia, but there's clearly something wrong with her and she attacks Ethan with a chainsaw, severing his hand. When he regains consciousness, he's tied to a chair and surrounded by the Baker family. He manages to get loose and for the rest of the game, you're meant to evade this crazy family as they continue to stalk you throughout their property.

Most of Resident Evil 7 really does focus on survival and building tension. In the final act, it becomes more of an action game, but that can be forgiven because of how amazing the rest of the game is. I wasn't sure how I would feel about a first person Resident Evil, but it didn't take anything away from the experience. I wish I could have played it in VR because I imagine it must be 10 times more terrifying that way. It's cool that they implemented VR into the game.

Resident Evil 7's only free mini game/side story is the Not a Hero DLC featuring [SPOILERS] Chris Redfield and thank God they completely remodeled him because I hated his character model in RE5 and RE6 (as well as his personality). The DLC has Chris exploring the mine, where Lucas has set up more of his traps.

I rate Resident Evil 7 a 7/10. It brought back the horror this series so desperately needed and got us away from the third person action shooters the previous games were.

6. Resident Evil 2 Remake

I'll start off by saying this game would have been so much higher on my list if Capcom didn't force us to repeat boss fights in the A/B playthroughs that are supposed to take place during the same timeline. You could tell that was tacked on at the last minute and I would rather have not had it at all than have a version of the game that's identical in too many ways and therefore makes no sense. I get suspension of disbelief and all, but the original game got it right, so there's no acceptable reason for how this turned out. I loved the game so much during my Claire playthrough, but when I started playing as Leon afterwards and I had to fight William Birkin again after I had already been through that exact same fight with Claire, it really took away a lot of the initial excitement I felt.

Mr. X was an absolute nightmare this time around. He never leaves, until you progress to the next area (and even then, he comes back eventually). There were times I found it absolutely impossible to lose him, which was incredibly frustrating during my first playthrough because I didn't have the foresight to set certain things up for later, to make my life easier before he was triggered. I also felt like, because I could never escape him, I was always rushing through the game, which made it difficult to explore thoroughly and really take the time to enjoy it.

Resident Evil 2 Remake includes the 4th Survivor and Tofu Survivor modes, which I'll talk about a little more when I get to the original Resident Evil 2. In addition to those two mini games, Capcom released free DLC called Ghost Survivors, featuring three minor characters from Resident Evil 2, including the gun shop owner, the mayor's daughter and a third character who is a soldier.

I rate Resident Evil 2 Remake a 7/10 because even though I'm disappointed in how Capcom handled the timelines, I can't deny that this was an incredible game.

7. Resident Evil 3: Nemesis

Resident Evil 3 takes place before and after the events in Resident Evil 2. You play as former S.T.A.R.S. member Jill Valentine, who is trying to escape from Raccoon City, which is now overrun with zombies. Oh, and there's a terrifying new super-enemy, Nemesis, who stalks you throughout the entire game. At various points, you'll be given two options on screen and you have to choose which one sounds less deadly. Good luck.

I really don't have a lot to say about Resident Evil 3. I've only played it once because I was really bad at it (even on easy) and I was so stressed out by Nemesis that I never went back to it again. It was a fun game and I did like it, but it's my least favorite of the "classic" Resident Evil games. I've heard that Capcom is remaking it and I'll definitely pick it up when it's released. If Nemesis gets the same upgrade Mr. X got in the RE2 Remake, I'm sure I'll be even more stressed out.

By completing the game, you'll unlock the Mercenaries mini game. You get to play as one of three different characters and your goal is to make it to the Warehouse Save Room. However, you're given a very short amount of time to accomplish this, so as you progress, you're forced to defeat enemies, which earns you more time.

I rate Resident Evil 3 a 6.5/10 because it's so much better than Resident Evil 5, but it's not in the same league as the next couple games I'll be discussing.

8. Resident Evil 5

I actually had to look up a plot summary for Resident Evil 5 because I don't think I've ever bothered to watch all the cutscenes, I was so bored by the game. Chris Redfield is now a BSAA agent, working with Sheva Alomar, to find and capture Ricardo Irving (who is attempting to sell BOWs). Albert Wesker is somehow involved in all of this, and he's also got a mind-controlled Jill Valentine working with him. The plot of Resident Evil was so convoluted by this point that I don't even care. The point is, Wesker is involved, Chris looks and behaves like a completely different person than the Chris from RE1 and RECVX, the story and gameplay are boring and Capcom decided adding co-op to a supposed "horror" game was a good idea.

Oh! And what the hell happened to the light affecting visibility feature that Jun Takeuchi said would be in the game? Supposedly, when you were outside in the sun and then walked inside, your eyes would have to adjust to the darkness. I still haven't forgotten about that, you know.

Now, with that being said, here's the thing. If you can make yourself forget that this is supposed to be a Resident Evil game, it can be fun. But only if you play co-op on Pro difficulty. It has to be on Pro, any other difficulty is too easy and the game becomes boring. If you play on Pro, you're going to die in one hit unless your partner is standing right next to you to heal you. They have like, a second to help you out, or it's game over. It sounds terrible, but it actually is fun because you need to rely on good teamwork to get through the game, rather than just shooting everything down.

Resident Evil 5 has a Mercenaries mode that's unlockable after beating the game. You're given a limited amount of time to score as many points as possible (by killing enemies). I do not enjoy the Mercenaries mini game in any of the RE games.

I'm not going to discuss any other DLC, but I do want to mention that Lost in Nightmares is fantastic and I highly recommend plaything through it, it's the best part of this whole mess. You can play with a friend or the AI, as Jill or Chris, and it takes place before the events of RE5. You start off in an area that looks exactly like the mansion from the first game (and if you click on the front door a few times,  the camera will change to the classic Resident Evil static camera in the main hall) and you're forced to flee from enemies that remind me of a large version of Lisa Trevor. To escape from them, you have to solve a bit of a puzzle (it's intense), but don't celebrate yet because you're then forced into battle with Albert Wesker. This is a really fun side story that takes around an hour to complete and it really brings the horror element back into the game. Plus, it's a nice throwback to the original Resident Evil.

I rate Resident Evil 5 a 5/10. The only thing that saved it is Lost in Nightmares and co-op on Pro difficulty.

9. Resident Evil 4

Warning: I'm about to tear Resident Evil 4 apart. I was actually going to make a dedicated post about why this failed as a Resident Evil game (in my opinion), but we're here now, so I might as well get it over with. To summarize: I have a grudge against this game because it completely changed the series, and not in a positive way. I also feel like if they were trying to turn Resident Evil into a third person shooter, the controls should have reflected that, with complete control over the camera and the ability to walk and shoot at the same time. Leon Kennedy...Is an imbecile. He has the worst one-liners I've ever heard. They're not even so bad they're funny, they're just bad. I really liked him in RE2, but I can't stand him in RE4.

So here's what's going on in the game. Leon is sent on a mission to rescue the president's daughter, who has been kidnapped by a cult. The T-Virus isn't present, instead, we're given Las Plagas. These infected are not zombies, they are mind-controlled humans. Or something. And they're not that scary. (Except for the ones dressed in robes who you hear mumbling in the castle, they're creepy as hell and I hate them.) I'm just not into the story or the enemies at all. This is where the series really changed. And it's because people loved this game, it did extremely well. I'm not sure if Resident Evil 4 was so well received because it attracted a bunch of new fans or if the old fans were really receptive to the changes Capcom made here, but I think I'm in the minority because I really didn't care for it.

A lot of RE4 was an absolute nightmare to play through (remember the water room?) and it only became somewhat tolerable on subsequent playthroughs after unlocking Ashley's suit of armor and the Chicago Typewriter. I don't like having to babysit characters in video games. For the same reason I hate The Sims. I want to be able to play a game without worrying about a really needy character. I don't want to feed you, or bathe you, or save you from being carried off by murderous cultists. I'm not good at multitasking, just give me one person to look after at a time.

Here's a list of grievances I have with Resident Evil 4:

1. The story changed completely from the zombie outbreak in Raccoon City (to be fair, the city was destroyed).
2. Giving players the ability to carry more ammo and having enemies drop ammo takes away from the survival aspect of the previous games.
3. The script is corny. The Resident Evil series isn't known for having the best dialogue, but this was especially cringeworthy, from beginning to end, with Leon being the worst offender (to the point of him being unlikable).
4. It's a third person shooter without the ability to move and shoot at the same time and you're not given full control of the camera. It's a disaster.
5. It's not scary. I know that's subjective, but hey, it's my blog, right? With the exception of the brief section that allows you to play as Ashley, I was never scared, I was just frustrated.

I don't think I have a problem with change. Resident Evil 7 was a huge step in the right direction for this series, I loved that it returned to a rundown, creepy estate, even if there are no technical "zombies" in the game. It felt claustrophobic, it was dark, and that feeling of dread was brought back (at least until you get to Lucas' part of the game, but honestly, I even found that really fun to play). As another example, Silent Hill 2 and Silent Hill 3 are my favorite games in the Silent Hill series, but I really loved Shattered Memories and Downpour, too. They were both very different than the original games, but they were done in a way that still worked.

I think Resident Evil 4 would have been more interesting if they had gone with the original idea involving "hook man" (which we're supposedly getting in RE8 now). It's hard to say because we've only ever been given a brief glimpse at a short demo of that version of the game, but that demo looked scarier than anything I saw in the entirety of the official release of RE4.

As for additional content, we're given three new modes upon completing the game once. The Mercenaries has you killing as many enemies as possible in a limited amount of time, to attain a high score. Assignment Ada has you playing as, you guessed it, Ada Wong, and your objective is to collect plaga samples. I actually like this mini game, so I'll add a point to my rating just for that. The final mode is Separate Ways and it's basically showing you what Ada was up to during the events of the main game.

I rate Resident Evil 4 a 4/10 for bad dialogue, poor gameplay and the fact that the changes it made to the series eventually resulted in RE5 and RE6.

10. Resident Evil 6

Disclaimer: Please be aware that this post (as well as the next couple posts) is not indicative of my attitude towards the rest of the series. I just really dislike Resident Evil 6 and I want to get this post over with so I don't have to talk about it anymore.

Capcom was "ambitious" with this one. "Ambitious how?" you ask. There are four separate campaigns to play through (with a co-op partner, wonderful, co-op in a "horror" game), three to start with and one that's unlocked after clearing the three starting campaigns. Here's the lineup and a brief description of what to expect:

Chris Redfield and Piers Nivans - Did you like Resident Evil 5? Do you like your Chris Redfield with oversized arms, wallowing in self-pity? Then this is the campaign for you, folks. All action, no horror. And here's a tip: If you want to make this campaign a tiny bit interesting, choose to play as Piers for the final boss fight.

Jake Muller and Sherry Birkin - Capcom would like you to believe this is a stealth based campaign, but guess what? It's going to go right back to the action game it always wanted to be.

Leon Kennedy and Helena Harper - This one...This hurt. I played the RE6 demo when it was released and I was so excited because it actually looked like we were getting a zombie horror game again. And we did, for about thirty minutes. Then it was right back to more of the same 3rd person shooter gameplay from the previous Resident Evil. Disappointed, but not surprised.

Ada Wong and some random soldier - This is what I like to call "Let's throw everything at you at once and make your life a living hell" mode.

I'm going to say this for Resident Evil 5 as well, but the story in RE6 is so convoluted at this point that not only do I not want to summarize it, I don't even think I could if asked to. The game isn't interesting, in any way. It's so bad I can't even think of anything to say about it other than the few things I've already said.

Unlockables include Agent Hunt (a multiplayer mode that's unlocked once you beat any campaign and allows you to play as either the infected or humans), Mercenaries (immediately available, your goal is to get the highest possible score in a limited amount of time) and, finally, Ada's campaign (available after clearing all three default campaigns).

I rate Resident Evil 6 a 2/10 because I can't even think of one redeeming thing about it except that it was the last awful game in a string of lackluster sequels.

Ranking Every Main Resident Evil Game

Last month, Resident Evil 0, REmake and Resident Evil 4 were released for the Nintendo Switch. In the middle of ranting that REmake was sneakily included as a download in the Origins Collection (which I understood to be a physical copy of both RE0 and REmake), I tweeted a list, ranking all of the main Resident Evil games. I thought it would be fun to elaborate on why I ranked the games the way I did, so I decided to continue it over here for the next week and a half.

I'm almost ashamed to say I own many of these games as digital copies as well, between the PS3, PS4 and Switch.

Disclaimer: I know that, for at least Resident Evil 4, there are some content variations between the Gamecube version and the other versions. I may discuss content that's included in one release, but excluded from another. Also, I know Resident Evil: Director's Cut is missing from this list and that's because I've never actually played it. I do own it (a digital copy on the PS3), but I played REmake first and that was such an excellent game that I never really felt the desire to go back and play the original. Don't kill me.

Horror News Roundup

Over the past week and a half, a lot of horror news has come out that I'm super excited about, so I thought I would post about it. And maybe every now and then, if something interesting is announced, I'll do more posts like this. Because these kinds of posts don't take a lot of time to put together, whereas sometimes it's hard to find time to set aside to watch a movie or read a book when I have a job and a boyfriend and Persona Q2 was just released and I haven't even started playing Persona Q yet. You know? Anyway!

Are you Afraid of the Dark is getting a reboot.

Okay, so this isn't "new" news, but we've been given more details on the upcoming reboot. The series will be back in October with 3 episodes (an hour each). The original cast isn't returning, sadly. Instead, Sam Ashe Arnold, Miya Cech, Tamara Smart, Jeremy Taylor and Lyliana Wray are playing the new members of the Midnight Society.

I still love Are You Afraid of the Dark? just as much as I did when I was a kid and I'm happy they're bringing it back in time for Halloween, even if it's only as a 3 episode mini series. I am slightly concerned that they'll try to tone down the scares a bit, but of course I'll watch it anyway.

Steven Spielberg is creating a new horror series.

First of all, let's get this out of the way. Yes, Steven Spielberg is writing a horror series for Quibi (an upcoming streaming service), after voicing his disapproval of streaming services. I love him, I love his films. He had an opinion, whether you agree with it or not, he's entitled to it. I really couldn't care less about his comments on that subject. I'll admit it seems hypocritical of him to work with a streaming service on a new project, but again, I don't care. It sounds interesting and I just want good horror content.

The show is titled Spielberg's After Dark and reports say it will run for 10-12 episodes. The intriguing thing about this series is that you can only watch it, you guessed it, after dark. (The first article I read said it's available after midnight, which had me up in arms because 1. I can't stay awake that late and 2. I kept thinking, "Well, how long after midnight do you have to watch it? An hour? Two hours?") Apparently, the Quibi app uses the clock on your phone to determine when the sun is going to set. At that point, you'll have access to the series, while the in-app clock counts down until the show is disabled for the rest of the day. (I couldn't find the specifics of this in any of the articles I read, but I'm going to assume it's disabled at sunrise.)

I've never heard of Quibi before, probably because it hasn't even been launched yet (the projected launch date is April 6th, 2020). Subscriptions are set at $4.99 a month (with ads) or $7.99 a month (ad free). Quibi is apparently short for "quick bites," with the goal of each episode on the platform running between 7 and 10 minutes long. It sounds as if it's going to be a mobile only app, but I'm not sure if it's limited to phones or if tablets are also considered "mobile."

This is a really innovative idea and if they're able to pull it off, I will 100% sign up for a Quibi subscription. At least long enough to watch Spielberg's series. They're also claiming Guillermo del Toro will be producing content for them, so Quibi definitely has my attention.

Announced at E3: A Blair Witch video game.

Apparently, we are getting a Blair Witch game. I don't know why, but we are. And I'm actually looking forward to it. This is a first person survival horror game, featuring a man, his dog and a camcorder. You play as a former police officer, searching for a missing boy. From the trailer, it looks absolutely nothing like the film (meaning things actually happen) and I'm okay with that.

I'll be honest, I saw The Blair Witch Project when I was a kid and I was bored to death by it. I think now that I'm older, and afraid of the woods, and I understand the dangers in the real world more than I did as a child, the movie would probably affect me more.

Blair Witch will be released on August 30th for PC and Xbox One (I'm slightly disappointed, as a PS4 owner). You can check out the trailer below.

Pet Sematary (Audiobook) - Narrated by Michael C. Hall

Have you ever looked at a list of Stephen King's scariest novels? I did recently, and most people seem to agree that Pet Sematary is his scariest novel yet. I usually don't listen to audiobooks because I tend to lose focus easily. My mind wanders and then I have to go back and listen all over again. This one (mostly) held my interest for the first five hours, then it began to feel long and a lot of the time I was left thinking, "Get to the point." To be honest, I don't enjoy Stephen King's novels. His novellas and short stories are great, I love some of the movies based on his work (Silver Bullet, 1408, The Shawshank Redemption...Apt Pupil wasn't "bad," but it made me sick, though not as sick as the novella) and Nightmares and Dreamscapes was a fantastic mini series, but his novels...He's too verbose for me.

The audiobook is narrated by Michael C. Hall and is about sixteen hours long. I listened to it in the morning while applying my skincare and makeup before work, so it took me about two weeks to finish it.

As a note before getting into the actual book, it was really interesting to hear about how Stephen King came up with the idea for this story, from his own personal experiences.

There are major spoilers for the book starting now.

Pet Sematary begins with a family moving into their new home. The father, Louis, is extremely unlikable at the start of the book. He has no tolerance for his children. Honestly, Gage and Ellie are both annoying (I think it may be, in part, because of the way they're narrated), listening to how they scream and carry on drove me crazy, too. But that's why I'm not having kids. Listening to a parent think the things that he thinks about his family is incredibly off-putting and I took an immediate dislike to him. He does get better (until he begins resurrecting dead family members) as the story goes on, but it was too late by then.

When Louis' family goes away for Thanksgiving, his daughter's cat, Church, gets hit by a truck and dies. His neighbor, Jud, asks if Ellie will be devastated by the loss. Of course she will, Church was family. Jud takes Louis on a dangerous hike through the woods, past the "pet sematary," to an old Native American burial ground. As Louis buries Church, he has a nagging feeling that something about that place is wrong. When he tries to question Jud about it, he's told he'll understand soon.

And he does. Because Church, the previously dead cat, returns home. He has blood caked in his mouth and he smells like dirt, he stumbles around like he's drunk and he isn't behaving like himself, but he's Church. When he finally talks to Jud, his neighbor explains that when he was a child, he buried his dog there. The dog came back and he was never the same, but he was a good dog and he lived for several more years. Only one pet ever came back bad (a bull) and he tells Louis he shouldn't worry too much. Louis then asks if a person has ever been buried there and even though Jud denies it, he gets the feeling the old man is hiding something.

Let's talk about the way the family treated Church when he came back because it really upset me. They pushed him, kicked him, yelled at him. Then they acted surprised when he started hissing at them, after they beat him with a vacuum attachment and threw toys at him. I'm inclined to believe these imbeciles are the reason Church turned on them. I don't know how I would react to an undead cat, but I would like to believe I would treat it better than they treated Church.

I'm not sure why Stephen King "spoiled" Gage's death before it happened, unless he felt that him dying wasn't as horrific as his father deciding to bring him back from the dead. It's hard for me to say whether or not I would have been annoyed by this since I watched the original film when I was like, five years old, so I already knew he would die.

For about five hours, I didn't take any notes. This audiobook is almost sixteen hours long and a whole lot of nothing happens for most of it. What we get, repeatedly, are Louis' little asides to himself, and they got on my nerves in a way I didn't even know was possible. I couldn't stand it. If I had to hear "Oz the Great and terrible," "What you buy is what you own," or "Hey ho let's go" one more time, I would have lost my damn mind. Get on with it already.

Anyway. Obviously, Gage comes back and tries to kill everyone. Louis knew something like this would happen, because Jud came clean about the last person who was buried in that place. I can't even feel sorry for him because he knew better and he still did it. I get it, he was grieving. Or maybe he's a doctor with a God complex. But when someone tells you, "Yeah, the last guy buried up there came back and knew things he shouldn't have known and he was probably possessed by a demon," YOU DON'T BURY YOUR KID THERE. How are you even supposed to explain that to people? Louis is the worst.

Gage and Church team up to kill Jud and Rachel, and while I'm sure this wasn't meant to be humorous, I laughed. Was Church waiting that entire time for the demon to be set free so they could wreak havoc together? I still think he would have been fine if that damn family hadn't abused him when he came back.

Throughout the end of the book, after Gage had killed Rachel, I kept telling myself there was no way Louis would make the same mistake with his wife that he made with Church and Gage. Surely burying Rachel there was just written in for the movie. As it turns out, Louis is even dumber than I thought he was. Three strikes, you're out. The book ends with Rachel coming home, so you can draw your own conclusion as to what happens next. Personally, I'd like to think Rachel killed him and put an end to his madness. Good thing his daughter was away when Gage came back, she might be the only surviving member of this family. Her father most likely orphaned her by not heeding Jud's warning.

I think I understand why most pets came back okay-ish, but the bull, the other dead boy, Church and Gage came back "bad." There's a line in there somewhere that says something like, being touched by the wendigo makes you ravenous. I believe it was also alluded to that Gage was eating Jud and Rachel after killing them. And Church was eating just about every living thing he could get a hold of. The wendigo must have found them on their way back home. I could be totally wrong, but I hope not because I really want the wendigo to have a more significant role than just some creature stomping around the woods.

I haven't watched the original Pet Sematary in years, so maybe I'm wrong, but from what I remember, it seems like a pretty faithful adaptation of the book. Of course they cut some things out, some characters don't exist in the movie, but Stephen King drones on for five hundred years (usually about trivial things that don't affect the plot) and a movie is usually between an hour and a half/two hours, so I think they did a good job with the time they had.

Conclusions on the audiobook...I know most people really enjoyed Michael C. Hall's narration, but I found it grating. Jud was the only character that didn't bother me, his voice was perfect. I would like to reiterate that I really enjoy Stephen King's short stories and novellas, so I'm honestly not trying to insult him or his work. His novels just aren't for me and I won't attempt to read another one.