A new take on the classic Stephen King tale, Pet Sematary is out now to download and keep, and hits Blu-ray and DVD on August 12. To whet the appetite, directors Dennis Widmyer and Kevin Kölsch, and actors John Lithgow, Jason Clarke and Amy Seimetz discuss various aspects of the tone of the movie…

What kind of classics did you think of when you started work on Pet Sematary?

Dennis Widmyer: The Exorcist (1973), definitely. Any good horror is a drama – a drama dealing with horrific elements. Most great horror films, the director never says they’re making a horror film. [Stanley] Kubrick never saw The Shining (1980) as a horror film, [William] Friedkin never saw The Exorcist as a horror film, you know? And that’s because, really, they’re domestic dramas, about family. Families that are falling apart. So, we took a lot of influence from that…and they all take their time, just like we are trying to. You’ve got to really build the characters up and earn that psychology before you get to the more horrific stuff and that’s what we’ve tried to do here.

Kevin Kölsch: That’s what we always look for in movies. We’re not just horror people. I mean, Kubrick worked in every single genre, and always brought the Kubrick stamp to it. For us, we always look for great characters and relatable themes. We do love the horror genre but when we make a horror movie, we want those elements in there. Relatable characters going through themes that are universal, that people can relate to and the horror should stem from that, it should be an extension of what these people are going through.

What did you bring to the discussion, in particular?

John Lithgow: When I was first sent the script, I had some problems with it. I had a list of three or four things that bothered me, that didn’t make any sense to me, and that I couldn’t quite motivate. Before I even met [Kevin and Dennis] I got on the phone with them and we had a long conversation and I went blow by blow through these things that troubled me and in each case, these things had already troubled them too, and they had already fixed them! They said, ‘We can’t wait for you to see the draft that we’ve just finished, because it answers all of these questions.’ That sold me on the project as much as anything. I thought, ‘Oh, these guys are smart. These guys are even smarter than I am…’ And that’s always a great relief!

How are you and the directors tackling the character of Louis? He is the audience’s way into this story, isn’t he?

Jason Clarke: He is, absolutely and Louis is straightforward – he’s a doctor, a father and everyone loved him [in the original novel]. They [Kevin and Dennis] will sometimes have references from other films that we’ll talk about. For one scene with Jud [John Lithgow] and I they showed me a scene from There Will Be Blood (2007), of Daniel Day-Lewis and another guy sitting around the campfire, as a reference. A lot of directors do that now. It’s a great way of letting the whole crew know the texture of a scene, you know? But it was all kind of there on the page. There wasn’t much to talk about in terms of the journey; it was about making Louis believable. You’ve got to invest in Louis, not just watch him. You’ve got to go with him, and then it almost becomes too much.

As well as the gore and scares, this is a movie that raises big questions. How would you describe it to people?

Amy Seimetz: If people like horror, obviously it’s a movie for them but it’s also basically a movie for everyone. The heart of it is dealing with universal themes, like the denial of grief and the denial of loss. Wanting people who have gone to come back, and for everything to be normal again. But that’s not how life works. Death is inevitable and this deals with that in a very, very scary way. When you play with death, the outcome is rarely good. Like the tagline says, sometimes dead is better. [This movie asks] If you try to cheat death, what are the consequences of that?

 

Pet Sematary is available to Download & Keep now and on Blu-ray™ and DVD 12 August, from Paramount Home Entertainment