Does the remake of "Pet Cemetery" live up to what kind of life and death view Stephen King gave it?

Edwardo 2021-12-15 08:01:08

Stephen King's "Pet Cemetery" was again adapted into a movie and put on the screen.

But works that originally contained a serious view of life and death were made into a pure thriller .

Boss Xiang couldn't sit still, so he had to rectify the name of "Pet Cemetery".

1 Stephen King whose works are frequently adapted

Stephen King is a master of contemporary horror literature .

Whether it’s Shawshank’s Salvation , which discusses reality and hope ,
Or "The Shining" , which contemplates psychological deformity and loneliness ,
Or how to face the fear of "Recall the Clown" ,

The fame of the few works mentioned casually is almost as loud as a thunderous ear.

He often gives his works different life issues :

A group of teenagers searched for bones in "Walk with Me" to illuminate the path of exploration in the process of growing up;
The strangers in "The Mist" are intertwined with despair and hope. Should they believe in others or in themselves;
In "Miracle in the Green", angels are also afraid of the dark, but after all, evil has its retribution and should be accompanied by good people.

In his works, there is often a great contrast between the characters' inner journeys and situations , attracting the audience to follow the progress of the characters in the play and reflect on the fate of the characters.

In addition, creating an atmosphere is Stephen King’s consistent creative style.

While telling horror stories and the demons at the same time , the plot is wonderful and vivid, which is very suitable for highlighting the dramatic effect in film and television dramas. His works have become the preferred source of material for film and television adaptation teams.

There are countless horror stories written by Stephen King.

He considered the scariest "Pet Cemetery" , after the first edition in 1989, it was remade again in 2019 and returned to the big screen.

2 Excluding the connotation, only horror remains

The 2019 version of "Pet Cemetery" has made major adjustments in the plot:

Maybe I want to take advantage of the popularity of loli horror movies in recent years . The 2019 version changed the youngest son who was killed by a car in the original book to the eldest daughter , but the new version reduces the daughter’s fear of death and also reduces the death of the dead cat The value of the resurrection of the male lead;
Amplified the psychological shadow caused by the death of her sister when she was a child , and only used the horrible figure of the sick sister as an atmosphere booster, and failed to further describe the heroine's mental journey after adulthood;
The male with the father faded contradiction between the two plays , the original, the main cause of male childhood dissatisfied wife get unfair treatment, very critical of the father, father-in-law is also accused of failing to protect the grandson funeral own flesh and blood, which are then pushed An important motive for the male protagonist to take risks and resurrect his daughter (child) ;
The new version not only deletes the process of overthrowing atheism by the male protagonist who is a doctor, but also completely deletes the plot of the neighbor's grandfather's dead wife, making the neighbor 's intention to inform the male protagonist of the mysterious resurrection place become abrupt ;

The ending is "Big Change of Blood" , abandoning the open ending after the resurrection of the male protagonist's dead wife in the original book, but in the new version sacrifices the lives of the whole family and degenerates into a resurrected zombie family...

In the 2019 version of "Pet Cemetery",

The changes in the characters are not convincing enough ,

The horror atmosphere basically only relies on jumpscare,

The adaptation at the end also lost the suspense of the original one-click blanking .

_______

At this point, the 2019 version of "Pet Cemetery" has completely become a pure thriller, diverging from the original intention of Stephen King:

The original intention of the creation of "Pet Cemetery",

Originally by creating a mysterious event of death and resurrection,

Arouse people to discuss their views when facing life and death.

3 Stephen King gave "Pet Cemetery" a view of life and death

In "Pet Cemetery",

The characters face the different fate brought by their beliefs in life and death,

It was fully utilized by Stephen King to highlight the importance of this issue and lead people to reflect on their views.

3-1 Established boundaries cannot be crossed

In fact, the pet cemetery really exists in a life experience of Stephen King, and this experience also created the background setting of this work.

The English version of a pet cemetery should be Pet Cemetery ,

But the road sign in the work is PetSematary.

Stephen King wrote in the preface of the book : This setting is based on the actual incident of children making spelling mistakes for the pet cemetery .

Put it in the work and guess that the misspelling will highlight the innocence of the children .

It is also a "metaphor" that this post-mortem resting place created by children for their beloved pets hides mysterious powers that are unknown.

Pets that have come back from the dead are also like misspelled words. Although they look the same at first glance, they may not be the same as they once were.

When the neighbor’s grandfather was young, he not only resurrected his dog,

I also saw that the dead villagers were resurrected by their relatives.

Whether it's a dog or a villager, the returnees are completely different from their lives.

Later, the neighbor buried the resurrected dog, but the resurrected villager took his relatives to hell.

The tragic result made the neighbor want to bring this secret to the grave, but because the poor man’s daughter suffered from the loss of the cat, he broke the vow to keep the secret and helped the man to resurrect the dead cat.

————

No one is allowed to step into the mysterious zone in the cemetery, just like the secret that the neighbor's grandfather should have kept .

"Both symbolize boundaries"

Beyond that limit, you will step into a forbidden place and bring endless troubles,

"Metaphors" Whether we are in friendship, love, or family relationships, we should respect the boundaries between each other and avoid regrets caused by crossing the boundaries.

3-2 Face death rather than escape

The hostess in this family once had an older sister in her teenage years.

My sister has to stay sick all year round because of polio . As the sister of the hostess, she helped take care of her sick sister at the request of her parents.

Once an adult was out, my sister didn't come up at once and died on the bed. The first female protagonist found tried to rescue but failed.

This has become the psychological shadow left by the heroine after adulthood:

She believes that her sister's death has her own responsibility, so she feels that her sister's grievances surround her all the time, so she is afraid of death and does not want to face death.

Relying on this view of being unable to face death,

The hostess refused her husband’s desire to tell her daughter that the cat was killed.

At the same time, the daughter had the same fear of death.

This reminds me of a similar true story:

I followed a female cartoonist on Weibo.
Not long ago she called home hi beans cat died, the family hope as soon as possible happy beans "buried", only she insisted until her daughter came home from school from kindergarten, one last time with the dead joy beans , do arrangements .
Because she knows that her daughter loves this cat the most, if she doesn't explain clearly to her child what death is, she may not be able to deal with the child's mention of the happy death in the future.

————

On the contrary, the heroine in "Pet Cemetery" was given the view of fear of death by Stephen King .

Although she claimed that no one would die, she refused to embrace the resurrected daughter.

This also caused the resurrected daughter to hate the hypocrisy of her mother,

Therefore, the heroine eventually ended up in the hands of her daughter.

"This is exactly what Stephen King created through dramatization,

The key to warn people to face the death problem. "

3-3 Strong stay is a curse in the name of love

People usually cannot accept the departure or even death of their loved ones,

Will do everything possible to " stay " them.

There is an episode of the American drama "Desperate Housewives" which says:

In the community where the protagonists live, because of a power outage, the freezer in one of the lonely grandmother's homes broke.
The stench gradually emanating, revealed a shocking secret of the old grandma , it turns out that her wife passed away a long time ago!
Unwilling to face the lonely grandmother, she hid her wife in the freezer. She faces the freezer every day and talks and chats with her wife as if he is still alive.

——————

Coincidentally, this time in "Pet Cemetery",

The deceased relatives were left behind, showing another mode of expression:

The male protagonist once advocated telling the fact that the cat is dead before his daughter was alive .

Because of his wife’s opposition, he chose to resurrect the dead cat alone to conceal the facts.

Later, the hero's daughter passed away.

Unable to bear the pain of losing his daughter, he tried to break the laws of nature to revive her.

The neighbor who confided in the secrets found that it was a mistake to resurrect the cat, so he kept warning the male protagonist not to take risks with humans.

However, the male protagonist who has the identity of a doctor and firmly believes in science still becomes obsessed and chooses to believe in sorcery.

The daughter who was resurrected by the male lead turned into a murderous madman after all.

This dramatic setting has become the climax of the original work.

In the 2019 version of the movie, the male protagonist is finally killed by his resurrected daughter.

Because he made a big mistake:

The greed for reluctance makes him knowingly guilty.

The daughter who turned into a zombie in the movie said that she didn't want to be resurrected at all.

When the person who wants to leave tries to walk his own life,
The one who is reluctant to leave is either unwilling or unable to let go,
Will use different ways to stop, or even force the other party to stay.

Doing so often produces an emotional blackmail ,

Let the people who can't leave feel resentment,

Become like the daughter who came back from the dead in the movie,

"Even if the body comes back, the soul is no longer there."

In the original book, before the daughter killed the neighbor’s grandfather,

I also relayed the words of my wife who was resurrected by the grandfather:

Because the grandfather resurrected her, causing her to accept eternal torture in hell, he wanted to kill him and take him to hell with him.

Even if life and death, return to the world of fireworks,

If we just impose our ideas on the people around us wishful thinking,

Not only will it cause stress, it may even cause harm.

4 Let go of obsession and learn to let go

In the real world,

We have spent our entire life learning how to get it,

But in the face of loss, they are often helpless.

Can't face the person who loves to leave, can't let go of obsession,

In fact, the suffering is the person who is trapped in obsession,

Companionship by force will only make each other lonely.

This unshakable thought that arises from attachment,

Instead, they have more powerful power,

Once let go and let a person who can't stay go away,

What you get will belong to your own freedom.

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Extended Reading
  • Mozelle 2021-12-15 08:01:08

    As the original party, what can I say. The whole story relies on sound effects and jump scare, so the plot can’t be deleted and changed.

  • Concepcion 2021-12-15 08:01:08

    Life is a family, death is a ghost. Large-scale safe driving video, thousands of roads, safety first. The traffic is not standardized, and the others are two lines of tears.

Pet Sematary quotes

  • Ellie: His name's Church. It's short for Winston Churchill. He's someone who lived a really long time ago.

    Jud Crandall: I know who Winston Churchill is.

    Ellie: Wow. You must be really old.

  • Ellie: So many trees.

    Rachel: It's beautiful, right?

    Louis Creed: It's definately not Boston.