It was just a few hours ago that we shared the "Final Trailer" for Kevin Kolsch and Dennis Widmyer's upcoming remake of Stephen King's scariest novel PET SEMATARY with you guys. I'm excited as all hell for the movies, especially considering King himself said of the new film: "It’s f–king great. It’s a really good movie. It’s a grown-up, adult kind of movie. It’s not like twelve semi-clad teens get killed in a summer camp. It’s something different. They did a good job." But this has me wondering, after all these years, what does King think of this original source material?
Well, it turns out he's not fond of it. At all. Specifically, Stephen King recently said:
No, I mean it’s true. I listened to it last year when I was down here in Florida walking on the beach with the dog. Michael C. Hall [of Dexter and Six Feet Under] did the audiobook. I was curious about it. You know, I hadn’t been near it in 20, 25 years. So I listened to it, and thought, “My God, this is just awful. It’s just as dark as can be.
He adds:
When I read it over, I thought, “There’s such grief in this book.” Just awful.
He finally:
I just had the greatest time writing the book until I was done with it. And I read it over, and I said to myself, “This is awful. This is really f—ing terrible.” Not that it was badly written, necessarily. But all that stuff about the death of kids. It was close to me because my kids lived on that road.
As much as it sucks to think that King seems to think that PET SEMATARY is a terrible novel, at least we can take solace in the fact that the master of horror seems to really dig what Kolsch and Widmyer have in store for us with their remake. And that works for me at the ned of the day. Directed by Kolsch and Widmyer, PET SEMATARY stars Jason Clarke as Louis Creed, Amy Seimetz as Rachel Creed, Hugo and Lucas Lavoie as Gage Creed, Jeté Laurence as Ellie Creed, Obssa Ahmed as Victor Pascow, Alyssa Brooke Levine as Zelda, and John Lithgow as Jud.
Based on the seminal horror novel by Stephen King, Pet Sematary follows Dr. Louis Creed (Jason Clarke), who, after relocating with his wife Rachel (Amy 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 (John 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. We'll let you know once we hear more on the remake but until then let us know what you think thus far below!
The remake has been slapped with an R-rating via the MPAA for "horror violence, bloody images, and some language." PET SEMATARY opens in theaters near us on April 5th. Don't forget to check out our set visit HERE and our review HERE.