In 1989, Mary Lambert directed a successful adaptation of Stephen King‘s Pet Sematary, with the studio ultimately opting to have the filmmaker return to create a sequel. King’s original story didn’t have a sequel, leaving Lambert with her own ideas about where the narrative would go, yet the studio had its own ideas about what they wanted to see in a sequel. Lambert recently replied to a fan on Twitter about the sequel, “I wanted it to be a direct sequel about Ellie, but this was the script the powers that be wanted. We gave our all, though.” During a recent interview, Lambert elaborated on those original plans for the sequel.
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“What I really would like to do would be Ellie coming back as a young woman to Maine with her cat to find out what happened to her parents,” Lambert shared with Bloody Disgusting. “She’s in Chicago at the end of the original movie. I’m pretty sure her grandparents wouldn’t have sent her back to live alone in that house after all that had happened, so I would just take the point of view that Ellie grew up in Chicago but what happened to her parents was not discussed very much. I would have jumped ahead to have her be a young woman. I would have her go back to Maine with her cat.”
The narrative of the first film focused on a family whose young toddler is killed in a car accident, with the father burying the young boy in sacred ground, allowing the son to come back to life. The young boy is far from the innocent toddler who was killed, as the son returns with a thirst for murderous violence. Ellie escapes the ordeal, with the rest of her family seemingly killed.
A key component of the original story is the death and resurrection of Ellie’s cat Church, who Lambert said would be an integral component of her planned sequel.
“Actually I have a whole idea about feral cats because I love cats so much,” Lambert admitted. “The idea that there’s a feral cat community there that eventually takes her to find her father.”
Despite not getting the opportunity to explore the film she originally envisioned, she still looks fondly on the sequel she made.
“I love the one that we made,” the filmmaker detailed. “It’s very different in that it also went to a place that I really enjoyed going with. It was from the point of view of an adolescent boy as opposed to the point of view of a father who has relationships with his children, relationships with his wife, relationships with the community. This is about two crazy teenage boys who, again, make some bad judgments. It’s really about making bad judgments which teenage boys are famous for. Many movies are based on the bad decisions of teenage boys.”
The original Pet Sematary is out now on 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray while a new adaptation of the story hits theaters on April 5th.
Would you have liked to have seen Lambert’s original vision? Let us know in the comments below or hit up @TheWolfman on Twitter to talk all things horror and Star Wars!
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