This weekend, the new adaptation for the popular Stephen King novel Pet Sematary (2019) is coming out in theaters worldwide. After its world premiere at South by Southwest Film Festival last month, many voices raised claiming this new version was scarier than the first adaptation Pet Sematary (1989), and that the filmmakers managed to bring in a personal and creepy view of the story. All the reviews about this new film were positive enough, so now it’s the moment for the big audience, the real judges in the scene, to bring out the verdict.
The novel Pet Sematary was first published in 1983. In it, a Chicago doctor named Louis Creed moves into a large house near a small town with his wife and their two young children. The family befriends soon with their new neighbor, an elderly man named Jud Crandall, who is always there to help them when it’s needed. The old man warns the family about the mysterious powers of the local pet cemetery (misspelled “sematary” on the sign), where dark and occult powers reside. It has the power to bring the dead ones back to life, but “not everything that comes back is the same“. Soon, tragedy takes over the family and the father takes the wrong choice of using the magic from the sematary to bring his beloved ones back together. But, as one can imagine at this point, everything goes wrong.
The tandem formed by filmmakers Dennis Widmyer and Kevin Kolsch has directed Pet Sematary (2019). This is not the first time the duo has worked together, they are responsible for a good handful of horror-oriented short films, as well as the movie Starry Eyes (2014) and the segment Valentine’s Day in the anthology feature film Holidays (2016). David Kajganich and Jeff Buhler wrote the screenplay. John Lithgow is playing Jud Crandall, a role that Fred Gwynne was in charge to perform in the original film. Jason Clarke, Amy Seimetz, Jeté Laurence and Hugo Lavoie play the Creed family. Maria Herrera, Obssa Ahmed and Alyssa Brooke Levine also star.
The final trailer for Pet Sematary (2019) came out this week. You can watch it here: