Many of Carrie, in 1976, two years after the novel’s publication, and since then, many other novels and short stories have followed, some even with multiple adaptations.
The 1980s saw a variety of The Shining, King’s issue wasn’t with the story itself and the changes made to it, but with the performances of the main couple.
Is Stephen King Right About The Original Pet Sematary Movie?
Pet Sematary follows Louis Creed (Dale Midkiff), who moves with his family – wife Rachel (Denise Crosby), children Ellie (Blaze Berdahl) and Gage (Miko Hughes), and their pet cat – to Ludlow, Maine, after he takes a job as a physician with the University of Maine. Behind their new home is a pet cemetery (with a sign misspelling it as “sematary”), and Louis is warned about it by a patient. When their cat, Church, is run over, and as this would devastate Ellie, their neighbor, Jud (Fred Gwynne), takes Louis to the deepest part of the cemetery to bury Church, and the next day, a reanimated Church returns to the house. Some time later, Gage is killed by a truck and Louis takes his body and buries it in the cemetery, and Gage returns as a malevolent version of himself, killing Jud and his own mother.
Speaking to Cinefantastique magazine in 1991 (via Lambert’s take on Pet Sematary as he thinks “Dale Midkiff is stiff in places” and Denise Crosby “comes across cold in places”, and as the story’s main couple, they lacked the warmth that would set them off against the supernatural presences and events happening around them. King’s comments on the performances of Midkiff and Crosby are on point, as they lacked chemistry and depth, and it was hard to believe that they were grieving after Gage’s death. Their performances are bad enough to impact the entire movie, as it completely failed the emotional aspects of the novel.
What Stephen King Thinks About The Pet Sematary Remake
Lambert’s 1989 movie wasn’t the only adaptation of King’s novel, as in 2019, a new take on Pet Sematary was released, directed by Kevin Kölsch and Dennis Widmyer, and with a screenplay by Jeff Buhler. The Pet Sematary remake followed the same premise, but made one big change to the story: instead of Gage dying, it was Ellie who was killed by a truck and brought back to life after being buried in the cemetery. This was a controversial change as many felt that Gage being the one who dies has a heavier emotional charge due to how young he is, yet King was actually welcoming of this change.
King shared (via the Pet Sematary remake to be superior to the 1989 movie, as so did most of the audience and fans of the novel.
