Pet Sematary (1989)

Fred Gwynne: Jud Crandall

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Quotes 

• Jud Crandall : Sometimes, dead is better.

• [Louis returns home after burying Rachel] 

  Jud Crandall : [narrating]  The soil of a man's heart is stonier, Louis. A man grows what he can, and he tends it. Because what you buy is what you own. And what you own... always comes home to you.

• Louis Creed : [about the Indian Burial Ground]  Has anyone ever buried a person up there?

  Jud Crandall : [Jud spills his drink]  Christ on his throne, no. And who ever would?

• Jud Crandall : How's your cat, Louis?

  Louis Creed : It's Ellie's cat.

  Jud Crandall : No. It's your cat now.

• [Jud tells Louis the truth about the ground beyond the Pet Sematary] 

  Louis Creed : I'll bite Jud. What's the bottom of the truth?

  Jud Crandall : Well, that sometimes, death is better.

  Jud Crandall : [narrating]  The person you put up there ain't the person that comes back. It may look like that person, but it ain't that person. 'Cause... whatever lives in the ground beyond the Pet Sematary ain't human at all.

• Jud Crandall : Do you know what a graveyard really is?

  Ellie : Well, I guess not

  Jud Crandall : It's a place where the dead speak.

  [Ellie gasps] 

  Jud Crandall : No, not right out loud. Their stones speak or their markers. This ain't a scary place, Ellie. It's a place of rest and speaking.

• [the Creed family enter the Pet Sematary] 

  Jud Crandall : I told you it was a bad road Louis. It's killed a lot of pets and made a lot of kids unhappy. At least something good come of it. This place. Couldn't plant nothing but corpses here anyway, I guess.

  Rachel : How can you call it a good thing? A graveyard for pets killed in the road, built by broken hearted children.

  Jud Crandall : Well, they have to learn about death somehow. Now, don't they Mrs. Creed?

• [Jud and the Creed family look at the Pet Sematary gravestones] 

  Ellie : Daddy, look, this one's a goldfishy.

  Jud Crandall : That's right, Ellie. They weren't all killed by the road. Especially the ones from back in my times as a child. They get older as you go towards the middle. Harder to read.

• Jud Crandall : [pulls out his buck knife]  Gage? Come on out. I brought you something.

• [Jud makes a comment about Missy after her funeral] 

  Jud Crandall : Poor Missy. I don't know why God takes someone like her. She should still have a bunch of years in front of her and let's an old fart like me go on and on.

• [Jud finishes the story of Timmy Baterman] 

  Jud Crandall : Four or five days after Timmy's funeral...

  Jud Crandall : [in a flashback, narrating]  That Margie Washburn seen Timmy walking up the road towards Yorkie's Livery. As time went by... lots of folks saw Timmy walking back and forth.

  Jud Crandall : But it was Margie who finally came to some of us men folks and said it had to be stopped. She knew it was an abomination.

• Jud Crandall : [Jud looks upstairs for the reanimated Gage]  Gage? You the one playing games?

• [Jud pleads with Louis to not bury his son in the Micmac burial ground] 

  Jud Crandall : [narrating]  Louis, sometimes dead is better. The Indians knew that. They stopped using that burial ground when the ground went sour. Don't think about doing it, Louis. The place gets holier, but the place... is evil.

• [Jud tells Louis to keep the Indian burial ground a secret] 

  Jud Crandall : When you talk to them... not one word about what we done tonight.

  Louis Creed : What did we do tonight, Jud?

  Jud Crandall : What we did, Louis, was a... secret thing. Women are supposed to be the ones who are good at keeping secrets, but any woman who knows anything at all will tell you she's never seen into a man's heart. The soil of a man's heart, Louis, is stonier, like the soil up there in the old Micmac burial ground.

• Jud Crandall : [sits on his porch looking at the Creed house]  You've done it, you stupid old man. Now, you've got to undo it.

  Jud Crandall : You've done it, you stupid old man. Now, you've got to undo it.

• Jud Crandall : [tells Louis why the pet cemetery was created]  It's that damn road! It uses up lots of animals. Cats and dogs mostly.

• Louis Creed : My little girl's got a cat. Winston Churchill. We call him Church for short.

  Jud Crandall : I'd get him fixed if I were you. Fixed cat don't tend to wander.

• Jud Crandall : [on the phone]  Louis, afraid you may have a spot of trouble here.

  Louis Creed : Jud? What trouble?

  Jud Crandall : Well, there's a dead cat over here at the edge of my lawn.

  Louis Creed : Oh, Jesus.

  Jud Crandall : I think it might be your daughter's.

• [Jud and Louis stand over Church's dead body] 

  Jud Crandall : At least it don't look like he suffered.

  Louis Creed : Well, Ellie will suffer. She'll suffer plenty.

• [Jud suggests they handle burying Church a better way] 

  Jud Crandall : You going to tell Ellie?

  Louis Creed : I'll have to mull that over for a while. Maybe when they call I'll just tell her I haven't seen the damn cat around, you know? I don't want to spoil her holiday, and Rachel's.

  Jud Crandall : Maybe... there's a better way

• Jud Crandall : [Jud shows Louis how to climb the hill of branches at the Pet Sematary]  I've climbed it a time or two before. I know all the places to step. Just follow me. Move easy. Don't look down... and don't stop. If you stop, you'll crash through for sure. Just don't stop, and...

  Louis Creed : [falls through the branches]  And don't look down. Right.

• Jud Crandall : [after Louis falls through the branches]  Louis, You all right?

  Louis Creed : Yeah. I just lost my happy thoughts there for a second.

• [Louis hears a scream as they make their way to the Indian burial ground] 

  Louis Creed : Jud, what's that?

  Jud Crandall : Shh!

  Jud Crandall : [the two remain silent for a moment as they hear what sounds like a scream]  Just a loon, that's all.

• [Jud and Louis make their way to the Indian burial ground] 

  Jud Crandall : [through the forest]  Won't be much longer now.

  Jud Crandall : [through the rocks]  Just down here a little ways.

  Jud Crandall : [on the mountain]  Almost there, Louis.

  Louis Creed : You keep saying that.

  Jud Crandall : This time I mean it.

• [Jud shows Louis the Indian burial ground] 

  Louis Creed : What is this place?

  Jud Crandall : This is their burial ground.

  Louis Creed : Whose burial ground?

  Jud Crandall : Micmac Indians. I brought you here to bury Ellie's cat.

  Louis Creed : Why, for God's sake? I said why Jud?

  Jud Crandall : I had my reasons.

• [Rachel asks Jud about the trail next to her new home] 

  Rachel : Mr. Crandall? There's a path over there. Do you know where it goes?

  Jud Crandall : [Jud pauses while looking down the trail]  Oh. Ayuh, that's a good story. A good walk. I'll take you up there sometime. Tell you the story, too. After you get settled in.

• [Jud cheers his beer with Louis on the front porch] 

  Jud Crandall : Meantime, Doc, here's to your bones.

  Louis Creed : And your bones.

  [both men take a drink] 

• Louis Creed : I've tried to tell myself that I buried him alive. I'm not a vet. It was dark.

  Jud Crandall : Sure, it was dark. But his head swiveled on his neck like it was full of ball bearings. When you moved him, he pulled out of the frost, Louis. Sounded like a piece of ticky tape coming off a letter. Live things don't do that. You only stop melting the frost under where you're laying when you're dead.

• [Jud tells Louis the story of his dog Spot] 

  Jud Crandall : [narrating]  It was the Ragman who told me about the place. He was half Micmac himself. He knew how I felt about my dog Spot. Spot had got caught in barbed wire that infected. When he died, I thought I was going to die. Ragman did for me what I did for you last night. Only I wasn't alone when Spot came back. My mother was with me. You could still see the barbed wire marks on him

  Jud's Mother : [in a flashback Spot the dog growls at Jud's mother]  Jud, come and get your dog! He stinks of the ground you buried him in! Jud!

  Jud Crandall : [narrating]  Spot, came back, alright. He wasn't quite the same dog that I knew. When he died peacefully in the night that second time, I buried him up there in the pet cemetery where as you saw, his bones still lie.

• [Jud tells Louis why he helped him bury Church] 

  Jud Crandall : A man doesn't always know why he does things, Louis. I think I did it, 'cause your daughter ain't ready for her favorite pet to die. Maybe with more time, she'll learn what death really is, which is where the pain stops and the good memories begin.

• [Jud sees a picture Ellie carries with her of Gage] 

  Jud Crandall : Oh. Ain't that real nice. You pulling him in the wagon. I bet he liked that, didn't he?

  Ellie : I'm going to carry this picture Mr. Crandall until God lets Gage comes back.

  Jud Crandall : Ellie... God doesn't do things like that.

  Ellie : He can if he wants to. I have to keep his things waiting for him. That's what I think.

• Jud Crandall : You're thinking thoughts best not thought of, Louis.

  Louis Creed : I thinking about going to bed.

  Jud Crandall : I'm responsible for more pain in your heart than you should have tonight. For all I know, I may even be responsible for the death of your son.

  Louis Creed : What? Jud, you're talking crazy.

  Jud Crandall : You are thinking of putting him up there. Don't deny the thought hadn't crossed your mind, Louis.

• [Jud tells Louis the Indian burial ground might have made Gage die] 

  Jud Crandall : You see, Louis, what I'm getting at here, you understand?

  Louis Creed : You're telling me that place knew Gage was going to die?

  Jud Crandall : [in tears]  I'm saying... that place might have made Gage die because I introduced you to the power. I may have murdered your son, Louis.

• [Jud tells Louis the story of Timmy Baterman] 

  Jud Crandall : Louis... you asked me if anyone had ever buried a person up there in the Micmac grounds. I lied to you when I said no. It's been done. What you've been thinking of has been done. He was a local boy. It was towards the end of the second world war. His name was Timmy Baterman.

  Jud Crandall : [narrating]  He was killed on his way home from the second world war. His father Bill Baterman was so grief-struck. He was so grief struck, he buried his son up there before he ever had a chance to get to the bottom of the truth.

• [Jud hands Louis the shovel to bury Church] 

  Jud Crandall : The soil's thin, but you'll manage. I'm a sit over yonder and have a smoke. I'd help you, but you got to do it yourself. Each buries his own.

• Jud Crandall : i dont understand god takes a young person like miss danbridge but lets an old fart like me live on and on .

• Jud Crandall : That road uses up alot of animals dogs n cats mostly.