Buoyed by the runaway success of New Line’s It, not to mention the likes of Gerald’s Game and, er, The Dark Tower, Stephen King’s celebrated oeuvre is very much in vogue.
Case in point: directors Kevin Kolsch and Dennis Widmyer are currently in the process of spearheading a remake of Pet Sematary, the cult horror title about a family feline that returns from beyond the grave. Mary Lambert was the first to adapt King’s thriller for the big screen in 1989, and now, almost three decades later, Kolsch and Widmyer are ready to deliver what they believe to be a “dark fucking movie.”
By that logic, a hard R rating is practically a given, as Widmyer tells Bloody Disgusting:
It’s a dark fucking movie. It’s Pet Sematary, this is not… a lot of Stephen King’s work is, I love it, it’s sentimental. The good guys win. Even at the end of The Shining, Wendy marries Dick Halloran, people forget that, that’s not in the movie, but Stephen King has a heart. And a lot of his work has a heart. This one… he like put in a drawer for a like a year and he felt really disturbed by what he had written. So, you have to make that story.
Based on the initial teaser trailer, Kolsch and Widmyer are well on their way to delivering a spooky, edge-of-your-seat rendition of the Stephen King classic, and Pet Sematary‘s inherent darkness has already drawn comparisons to the pair’s breakout hit, Starry Eyes.
Now, they’re ready to take their game to the next level with what is clearly one of the most-anticipated horror flicks of 2019. There’s still plenty of time left for Paramount to promote their dark and twisted thriller, and we’ll be bringing you every little update as it emerges from the King camp.
Paramount’s spooky, R-rated remake of Pet Sematary creeps into theaters on April 5th, 2019.