We’re continuing INK-King October with “Funeral Derangements,” the Pet Sematary (1983) inspired song from The Silver Scream 2: Welcome to Horrorwood (2021). The videos for Welcome to Horrorwood have a frame narrative film structure, much like that of The Silver Scream (2018), in this case following a police investigation and courtroom trial in which Ice Nine Kills’ frontman Spencer Charnas is accused of murdering his fiancée, with the band’s music videos becoming “clues” as investigators work to determine the truth. 

Much like “Enjoy Your Slay” engages with multiple versions of The Shining, including King’s 1977 novel and Kubrick’s 1980 film, “Funeral Derangements” taps into several iterations of Pet Sematary: King’s narrative and characters are a foundation, while the version of Victor Pascow that appears in the video draws on the character and makeup design of Mary Lambert’s 1989 film, and the animal masks worn by a group of dancing children reflect elements from the 2019 reboot. The most iconic adaptation shout-out in “Funeral Derangements” is the appearance of Miko Hughes, who played young Gage in Lambert’s film, now stepping into the role of the man driving the truck that runs down this version’s Gage. 

Visual representations of death, burial, and resurrection are shuffled and overlapping, as the video cuts between shots of Gage’s graveside service and Louis’s (played by Charnas) disinterment of his son. The intercutting of these two scenes echoes Louis’s thought process in King’s novel: even though he won’t allow himself to consciously acknowledge it, he has already made the decision to dig Gage’s body up and take it to the Micmac burial ground, and he has already set into motion the steps that will get Rachel and Ellie out of the way. The theme of sacrifice is similarly complicated in “Funeral Derangements,” as Louis kills Rachel and returns to the burial ground to place her next to Gage, with the two of them returning together to kill and bury Louis, uniting the family once more. (There’s no Ellie in this version). 

The video’s narrative and costume design visually represent the depths of Louis’s grief: in an early scene where the family is having a picnic prior to Gage’s death, Louis wears an open button-down shirt over a t-shirt and jeans, relaxed and casual. There is a sense of disconnection and numbness as he dons his suit for Gage’s funeral, and in the video segments that feature the band performing the song, he wears a variation of the same look sans jacket with loosened tie, rolled up sleeves, and dirt-smudged shirt. Finally, when he returns from burying Gage, his clothing is soiled and unchanged, but his eyes are dark and empty, another variation on the numbness that echoes his grief, exhaustion, and misery, a reflection of his loss of self and the catalyst for his violent attack on Rachel. 

“Funeral Derangements” taps into and amplifies the emotional core of this dark story. In King’s novel and Lambert’s film, Louis rationalizes his actions, reassuring himself that he is thinking like a doctor. But in “Funeral Derangements,” Charnas’s Louis is a traumatically bereaved father, driven by love, grief, and the refusal to accept Gage’s death. From the calm resignation of “I have to” to the outraged acknowledgement that “the wrath of God lies beneath the soil,” the stakes are clear but inconsequential. He cannot and will not accept the death of his child. King’s Louis might believe he is thinking rationally and behaving logically, but Charnas’s Louis follows the beat of his broken heart to death and beyond.