Pet Sematary 2 is actually more faithful to the book in this regard than the first movie.
In the book, the dead that have been buried in the Micmac burial ground don't automatically come back as blood thirty killers. They come back as clumsy, odd, and creepy. Church comes back this way, although Church develops a fondness for killing animals and leaving them for Louis to find. People instinctively know Church is dead even if they don't consciously know. People are disgusted by Church and avoid touching him or being near him.
When Gus comes back the first night, he acts like the book describes. He has an empty stare, and he is clumsy. He falls trying to walk up the stairs and laughs. Then he sadistically rapes his wife.
I think making the dead automatically come back as savage killers made the first movie a little non-sensical because a common question I've heard people ask is, "Why does Louis bury his son at the burial ground when he knew he would come back evil?"
When the dead don't automatically come back as savage killers, it was easier to understand Louis' justification for burying Gage at the burial ground. Louis notes that the evil Timmy Batterman was the exception, not the rule. Louis recalls a story when Gage was first born and they were worried he would've been mentally handicapped. Louis reasons that if he had been born that way, that they would've loved him just the same. So he figures he will let him come back and see how he is affected, and either run away with Gage, send for his family in Chicago, and start a new life, or put Gage back down if he came back like Timmy Batterman.
The personalities of the dead that have returned has nothing to do with their personalities when they were alive. All things that return are possessed by the "Wendigo." It's a demon like creature that inhabits the forest beyond the pet cemetery and the creature that gives life back to the dead buried at the burial ground and also gives them a taste for flesh, particularly human flesh.
The dead brought back typically only kill the ones who buried them there. Animals don't seem to kill like people. But Timmy Batterman was responsible for his fathers death. Timmy frightened several people, but did not attack any of the towns people. Rachael killed Louis. Gus killed Drew...Drew's mother was just collateral damage.
Gage was to kill Louis, but he didn't kill him in his sleep when he had the chance. Even when they murder, the wendigo doesn't kill for the sake of killing. First the wendigo wanted to torment Louis by having Louis see his best friend killed and his wife killed and to have his heart broken by seeing his son die again. Gage killed Jud because the wendigo warned Jud to not interfere in Gage's 2nd burial and because Jud interfered in the Timmy Batterman incident. He killed Rachael to torment Louis and because Zelda wanted revenge.
If you notice in PS1 when Louis finds Jud, Gage had eaten large chunks of his flesh. In the book, Gage had spent the night feasting on Rachael's flesh.
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