Sometimes dead is better, but sometimes resurrecting an old horror property can yield surprisingly worthwhile results. And while we’re still a few months away from being able to judge for ourselves which of these two categories Pet Sematary falls into, the promotion so far suggests a remake with potential.
Just take this tense little TV spot, viewable above, which offers our first fleeting glimpse at the character of Zelda, played by Alyssa Brooke Levine. Seen crawling across the floor amidst the 15-second preview, Zelda is the late sister of Rachel Creed, played this time by Amy Seimetz (Upstream Color).
In the original Stephen King novel, the character suffered from spinal meningitis and died when she and Rachel were both young. For the 1988 Pet Sematary film, Zelda was played by a grown man named Andrew Hubatsek, and it was thanks in part to this unconventional casting choice that the character is often singled out as a creepy highlight of the horror hit.
Evidently, directors Kevin Kölsch and Dennis Widmyer are going a different way for the new movie, but it’s hard to have too many gripes with a cast that includes the likes of Seimetz, John Lithgow (The Crown) and Jason Clarke (Dawn of the Planet of the Apes).
In any case, the film is coming at quite a busy time for Stephen King adaptations, spurred in part by the financial and critical success of 2017’s It. The Shining sequel Doctor Sleep, for instance, is due for release early next year, though not before It: Chapter Two comes out on September 6th, 2019. But first, we’ll find out if the Pet Sematary remake can bring new life to the property when the film hits theaters on April 5th.
