The novel Pet Semetary is widely considered the most terrifying novel in Stephen King’s repertoire. It details some of our innermost fears, and leaves the reader unsettled and with a subconscious urge to avoid busy roads.

When I read the novel for the first time, I was completely enthralled, and it quickly became one of my favorite books. Although it was scary on the surface, it held a deep message about how we live our lives, and how everything can change in an instant. The book isn’t just a cheap scare, it’s an in-depth look into how loss can slowly drive a person insane. It doesn’t rely on jump scares or gore, because the gradual escalation of the plot makes the reader just as uncomfortable. This is what the people behind the remake of this classic novel just didn’t understand.

When I heard about the new movie adaptation of Pet Semetary, I set my expectations way too high. In a previous article I said, “This chilling novel is bound to inspire a truly terrifying movie,” and while the new version was terrifying, it simply wasn’t a match to the novel, or the original movie.

The new film fell back on bloody corpses and loud noises to scare their audience and completely missed the point of Stephen King’s original piece. The original subject matter was drastically changed, which could’ve worked in favor of the new movie by catching people off guard, but instead it left people who knew the story confused and disappointed.

While the movie is certainly deeply unsettling, and popular with critics, I will never be able to overcome the disappointment I felt while watching it. I hope that fans of the movie will be inspired to read the book, and gain a full understanding of the story that captivated so many people, before Hollywood turned it into a cliché teen horror movie.