With just a little more than a week to go until the release of Guillermo del Toro’s Nightmare Alley, the Oscar-winning filmmaker sat in on an episode of popular Stephen King-centered podcast, The Kingcast, and gushed about a classic King novel that he would have loved to direct a film adaptation of, Pet Sematary.
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In a Collider transcription of the podcast episode, del Toro said:
“You know the novel that I would have killed to adapt, and I know there’s two versions of it, and I still think maybe in a deranged universe I get to do it again one day is Pet Sematary. Because it not only has the best final couple of lines, but it scared me when I was a young man. As a father, I now understand it better than I ever would have, and it scares me a hundred times more.”
The filmmaker then spoke about a particularly gruesome scene from the book that hasn’t appeared in either film, that he’d have a blast creating:
“For me, the best scene in that book is when Louis opens Gage’s coffin, and for a second, he thinks the head is gone, because this black fungi from the grave has grown like a fuzz over the kid’s face…I think you cannot spare those details and think that you’re honoring that book. One of the things I thought about Pet Sematary that we would do in post is when the dead return, when Gage returns, I’d spend an inordinate amount of money taking out the sheen from his eyes, so that the eyes are dull.”
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Though the original 1989 Mary Lambert adaptation of the book is well-liked by horror fans, it does leave out many gruesome sections of book. The same can be said for Kevin Kolsch and Dennis Widmyer’s 2019 version, to an even greater extent. Currently, Lindsey Beer and Paramount Pictures are working on a prequel that follows the horrific story of young Jud Crandall and his experiences with the magic of the cemetery.
The property may be a little saturated at this point to get a del Toro-helmed version any time soon, but with the Revival vibes we’re getting from Nightmare Alley, I think we’d be happy to have any Stephen King & Guillermo del Toro collaboration.
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