Stephen King’s Pet Sematary has been chosen for another new adaptation as the author’s popularity in the eyes of moviegoers continues to skyrocket. This time, the story will be brought to life by Dennis Widmyer and Kevin Kolsch, the minds behind Starry Eyes, and according to Deadline, Paramount has the film locked in for an April 19, 2019 release.
For those unfamiliar with Pet Sematary, the story follows the Creed family as they move to a small town in the Northeast which borders a cemetery enabling the buried to return. Head of the family, Louis Creed thinks it’s far better to bring his loved ones back from the dead as murderous simulacra than let them rest in peace – but don’t worry, there’s plenty of interfering supporting characters to impart wisdom.
Pet Sematary was a truly captivating read when I first opened the novel years ago, so getting to see a darker adaptation that’s closer to the source material – which this will apparently be – is certainly exciting. While the original was a fair attempt at recreating the story, it simply lacked the intensity and atmosphere of what King wrote.
Then again, if I had to pick one of the author’s works to be re-adapted, it’d be Salem’s Lot. There’s something utterly terrifying about the vampires in that novel. With the way they were written, they weren’t the generic cheesy kind of bloodsuckers. Instead, they were absolutely demonic and dreadful; the kind of creatures that the horror genre could use more of in today’s age. In a time when horror films lack the riskiness and creativity of the past, I’m sure old Kurt Barlow would be happy to change that.
With that said, let’s hope the Pet Sematary remake is successful enough to grant more adaptations of King’s works. Then again, after the monster success of this year’s IT, I’m pretty sure it’s nearly guaranteed at this point that we’ll be seeing a lot more of the author’s stories on the big screen in no time at all.