In 1989, Mary Lambert created a horror classic when she directed the movie adaption of Stephen King’s Pet Sematary. This past July we reported that Pet Sematary was boarding the remake train. The project is now moving forward with 28 Weeks Later director Carlos Fresnadillo at the helm, working off of a script he co-wrote with Jeff Buhler (The Midnight Meat Train).
During an interview with Dread Central Buhler gave an update about the status on their reboot.
“They are currently out to cast, and they are going for some bigger names, so it’s taking some time.” He did not mention any names, but it does sound as if they’re going big.”
Last year Buhler told Dread Central that “The characters in this script make some tragic decisions. There are still the supernatural aspects of the book, with the pet cemetery and the burial ground from which things come back from the dead, but the real horror is, what do these things do to the family? What does it do to a person to see their child killed, but then to know that that they can bring them back? He continues. With this one, we really wanted to get into the emotional aspects of it. There’s still plenty of visceral horror that’s explored, but I’ve always felt that if you lean more into the characters and into their emotional lives, when the visceral shit hits the fan, it’s ten time more scary.”
Buhler has also mentioned that he adores the original, but if that is true, why reboot it? I’ll be blunt, in my opinion, Pet Sematary is one of the few perfect horror films that exist. I can not picture anyone making it any better. I find it troubling that a filmmaker can speak of love for a film in one breath and turn and say “Oh, but we’re going to change it and make it something very different, but better.” in another. Why bother? Why not make a whole new film? Oh, right, then they wouldn’t have that name recognition that comes along with a classic.
