Pet Sematary remake trailer brings the franchise back from the dead

Last Updated on August 2, 2021

The first poster for the upcoming remake of the 1989 Stephen King film PET SEMATARY (or the new adaptation of King's 1983 novel, if you prefer to think of it that way) was released online yesterday, and close on its heels comes the first trailer for the film.

Directed by the STARRY EYES duo of Kevin Kolsch and Dennis Widmyer, this PET SEMATARY stars Jason Clarke, Amy Seimetz, Hugo Lavoie, Lucas Lavoie, Jeté Laurence, Obssa Ahmed, Alyssa Brooke Levine, and John Lithgow. The story follows 

Dr. Louis Creed (Clarke), who, after relocating with his wife Rachel (Seimetz) and their two young children from Boston to rural Maine, discovers a mysterious burial ground hidden deep in the woods near the family’s new home. When tragedy strikes, Louis turns to his unusual neighbor, Jud Crandall (Lithgow), setting off a perilous chain reaction that unleashes an unfathomable evil with horrific consequences.

King wrote the screenplay adaptation for the '89 film himself. This time the script was written by Jeff Buhler, who previously wrote the Clive Barker adaptation THE MIDNIGHT MEAT TRAIN, developed the George R.R. Martin story Nightflyers into a television series, and wrote a remake of JACOB'S LADDER that has yet to be released.

The first PET SEMATARY has its issues, but it's so creepy and disturbing it will still be a tough act to follow. The trailer embedded below makes the new film look like it could be a good horror movie, but more than anything I was left feeling sorry for Lithgow. Nobody can live up to Fred Gwynne's line deliveries as the character Jud Crandall in the first movie, but here they have Lithgow's new Jud repeating Gwynne's most famous line, and it doesn't come anywhere close to the line delivery we all know.

Poor Lithgow.

Check out the trailer and see what you think. PET SEMATARY is scheduled to reach theatres on April 5, 2019.