Editorials
[It Came From the ’80s] The Traumatic Nightmare of Zelda in ‘Pet Sematary’
With horror industry heavy hitters already in place from the 1970s, the 1980s built upon that with the rise of brilliant minds in makeup and effects artists, as well as advances in technology. Artists like Rick Baker, Rob Bottin, Alec Gillis, Tom Woodruff Jr., Tom Savini, Stan Winston, and countless other artists that delivered groundbreaking, mind-blowing practical effects that ushered in the pre-CGI Golden Age of Cinema. Which meant a glorious glut of creatures in horror. More than just a technical marvel, the creatures on display in ‘80s horror meant tangible texture that still holds up decades later. Grotesque slimy skin to brutal transformation sequences, there wasn’t anything the artists couldn’t create. It Came From the ‘80s is a series that will pay homage to the monstrous, deadly, and often slimy creatures that made the ‘80s such a fantastic decade in horror.
In an era of fantastic practical effect driven horror that unleashed many memorable movie monsters, few instilled as many nightmares as Pet Sematary’s Zelda Goldman. An adaptation of one of Stephen King’s most beloved novels, there’s no shortage of monstrous horror in Pet Sematary thanks to a cursed Micmac burial ground that renders those buried in it undead and murderous. Yet, it’s the haunted memories of Rachel Creed (Denise Crosby), forced in childhood to care for her dying sister that struck the biggest chord with audiences. Zelda was a horrifying scene stealer, and considering the gore effects on display, that’s quite an accomplishment.
Relegated mostly to flashbacks, Zelda was the Goldstein family’s 13-year-old dirty little secret. Older sister to then 8-year-old Rachel, Zelda suffered from spinal meningitis, a disease that caused Zelda’s spine to painfully deform as she wasted away in the back bedroom physically and mentally. It was the reason that Rachel had such deep-seated issues about death; she was the one forced to care for her sister the fateful day Zelda finally succumbed to her illness. Fearful of contracting Zelda’s disease as much as death itself, Zelda’s memory terrifies Rachel even through her adulthood, and ours.
In the 1989 adaptation, Zelda was designed by special makeup effects designer Lance Anderson (The Serpent and the Rainbow, Shocker). Anderson researched meningitis and the effects on the body when creating the makeup design for the character, ensuring the spine was contorted and the face emaciated. But Zelda is a character that proves it takes two major components to creating a memorable movie monster; great makeup design and an actor that breathes life into it.
Originally, the role was envisioned to be played by a female; the character was a young girl after all. But director Mary Lambert wasn’t happy with the auditions for the part, the girls auditioning were simply too sweet and not creepy enough. So she decided to cast a wider net. Enter actor Andrew Hubastek, who was in his twenties at the time and had strong convictions of who he wanted this character to be. The voice, the physicality, and Anderson’s design all culminated in a character so off-putting and horrifying that it didn’t matter how small the character was to the plot; Zelda was pure nightmare fuel.
Casting Hubastek turned out to be more than just fortuitous on screen. The makeup process for the character was much more laborious than a child would likely have been able to handle. The process took at least 8 hours of application of the back and upper chest pieces, as well as the face and hands, that had been glued on by two makeup artists. Never mind that this was shot in Maine during the fall, so it was already chilly during the application process. Or that Hubstek filmed his scenes for upwards of 18 hours before having to endure a 6-8-hour makeup removal process. It was an exhaustive process that left him ready to rip the prosthetics off his skin, and likely contributed to an effectively chilling performance.
Anderson’s work on Pet Sematary is amazing. It was his idea to up the ante on Jud’s demise; the script called for Gage to simply slice Jud’s leg, so Anderson instead pushed for the brutal Achilles’ tendon severing. His work on Rachel’s oozing eye socket is also cringe-worthy in the best possible way. But for all of the gore and creepy undead on screen, it’s Zelda that’s most fondly remembered. There’s an irony in that, both in how small Zelda’s role is in the story and that this movie monster was birthed from a very real disease. It’s easy to see why this iteration of Zelda left such a lasting mark, though. Between Anderson’s design and Hubastek’s unnerving performance, Zelda is a monster for the ages.
Some movies are just so beloved that you can experience them through cultural osmosis without ever sitting down to actually watch them. From loving parodies to meticulous recreations of iconic scenes, memorable filmmaking lives on even after the curtains close on the silver screen. And when it comes to horror, few films can compete with the massive impact that Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining had on popular culture as a whole.
Whether or not you think the flick is a good adaptation of Stephen King’s seminal novel, 1980’s The Shining slowly but surely grew into one of the most influential genre movies ever made, inspiring everything from surprisingly heartfelt sequels to classic episodes of The Simpsons. However, not all The Shining references are created equal, and today I’d like to shine a light on six unexpected homages to Kubrick’s iconic film.
In this list, we’ll be focusing on references and Easter eggs that either came out of the blue or came from creators that you wouldn’t expect to be fans of this classic ghost story. That being said, don’t forget to comment below with your own favorite references to the Torrance family and the Overlook Hotel if you think we missed a particularly memorable one.
With that out of the way, onto the list!
5. A Nightmare on FaceTime – South Park (2012)
Regardless of the brand’s iffy reputation among former employees, the death of Blockbuster Video was a serious blow to fans of physical media. Of course, some folks were more affected by this than others, and South Park’s Randy Marsh definitely took things a little too far in the twelfth episode of the show’s sixteenth season.
Titled A Nightmare on FaceTime, the main plot of this 2012 story is a surprisingly faithful recreation of The Shining where Randy purchases an empty Blockbuster store and begins to go mad once he realizes that his investment may not have been a very good idea due to the rise of streaming and the now-defunct RedBox storefronts.
4. The Overlook Hotel Level – Ready Player One (2018)
I was never really a fan of Ernest Cline’s Ready Player One, so I viewed Stephen Spielberg’s divisive adaptation of the novel as an improvement over the source material despite having its own narrative issues. In fact, I actually prefer how Spielberg changed the story by removing several references to his own work and replacing a lengthy Blade Runner detour with an over-the-top homage to The Shining.
A CGI-heavy recreation of the film’s most iconic moments that feels like a big-budget ghost train ride set within the Overlook Hotel, this intense sequence is more of a recreation of the freaky aesthetics of The Shining rather than its mind-bending narrative. However, it’s still fun to see Spielberg make a heartfelt tribute to a filmmaker that was once his close personal friend.
3. IKEA Singapore Halloween Ad (2014)
It makes sense that commercials don’t typically borrow from the horror genre, as it might be a bad idea to scare away potential customers, but some references are just too much fun to pass up.
That’s probably why the publicists behind this Ikea ad from Singapore were allowed to turn their commercial into a genuinely unsettling recreation of Danny’s tricycle scene from The Shining. After all, nobody cares if your store is haunted so long as it offers late-night shopping hours and a large selection of merchandise that you can become lost in forever and ever…
2. The End of ‘Bondage and Beta Male Sexuality’ – Community (2014)
Community is no stranger to recreating iconic movie moments within the show, and the series had previously tackled horror tropes in episodes like the fan-favorite Epidemiology. However, the most laugh-out-loud moment on this particular list comes from a brief gag towards the end of the season five episode ‘Bondage and Beta Male Sexuality’.
The majority of this episode has nothing to do with scary movies, but there’s a brief subplot involving supporting character Chang and a possible encounter with ghosts that leads him to question his own existence. This subplot culminates in the episode’s hilarious ending where the camera zooms in on a black-and-white photograph of Chang in period clothing at some kind of celebration, just like Jack Nicholson at the end of The Shining.
However, the picture’s subtitle eventually reveals that it’s merely a conveniently placed keepsake from the ‘Old Timey Photo Club’.
1. The Overlook Hedge Maze Sequence – Zootopia 2 (2025)
Disney movies are pretty far removed from both the gruesome horror of Stephen King and the heady filmmaking of Stanley Kubrick, so I don’t think anyone was expecting the climax of last year’s Zootopia sequel to take place in an animated version of the snowy hedge maze from The Shining.
In this unexpectedly intense sequence, friend-turned-villain Pawbert Lynxley (an unhinged lynx cat played by Andy Samberg) chases our protagonists through a creepy labyrinth in a loving recreation of Jack Nicholson’s icy demise outside the Overlook Hotel. The actual ending here might be a little more child-friendly than what’s being referenced, but it’s amazing that the filmmakers were able to push the horror elements as far as they did – especially since the scene doesn’t really have anything to do with the rest of the movie.
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