Actress Amy Seimetz has been established as a genre regular, having had roles in such projects as A HORRIBLE WAY TO DIE, YOU'RE NEXT, THE SACRAMENT, ALIEN: COVENANT, and Netflix's Stranger Things, and now she has landed a major role in a new genre film that is already drawing a lot of attention – a fresh adaptation of Stephen King's PET SEMATARY, which is set to be directed by the STARRY EYES duo of Kevin Kolsch and Dennis Widmyer.
Seimetz will be taking on the role of Rachel Creed, the matriarch of the family that's torn apart over the course of the story. Denise Crosby played Rachel in Mary Lambert's 1989 version of PET SEMATARY.
While Stephen King wrote the screenplay for the '89 film, David Kajganich, Matt Greenberg, and Jeff Buhler have written the script this time around. PET SEMATARY has the following synopsis:
Doctor Louis Creed moves his family to Maine, where he meets a friendly local named Jud Crandall. After the Creeds' cat is accidentally killed, Crandall advises Louis to bury it in the ground near the old pet cemetery. The cat returns to life, its personality changed for the worse. When Louis' son, Gage, dies tragically, Louis decides to bury the boy's body in the same ground despite the warnings of Crandall and Louis' visions of a deceased patient.
Although it will be strange to watch a version of PET SEMATARY that, presumably, won't be packed with Ramones songs, in general I do think there's room for improvement here. The one area where I thought a remake would never have a chance of living up to the first film was in the casting of Jud Crandall, who was wonderfully brought to life by Fred Gwynne in '89. Then Kolsch and Widmyer managed to cast an actor I can actually see playing a great Jud, John Lithgow. So I have hope for this one.
Seimetz and Lithgow will be starring alongside Jason Clarke in the film.
PET SEMATARY is scheduled to reach theatres on April 5, 2019.