[Spoilers for Pet Sematary, the film and book!]

In a guide published by PBS Masterpiece titled "ADAPTATION: FROM NOVEL TO FILM", three reasons are given that a screenwriter may alter, add, or remove elements from a book that they are adapting into a film. Firstly, the mode of film is radically different than the written word, and certain narrative devices, internal thoughts, or other features of the text have no direct translation on the big screen. In other cases, modifications are made in order to "fix" the original film. If a character's action is out of place, a plot point seems to function as a deus ex machina, or a theme is deemphasized in the original work, the adapter can edit the actions to enhance what he or she thinks the original author was trying to get at. The final reason is the most radical--- the adaptor "refreshes" and "modernizes" the work, adding new themes and making it applicable by focusing on the parts that they think their audience will jive with.

I'll get this out of the way: I think Pet Sematary was a terrible adaption of the original novel. My opinion is not based off of the "scariness" of the film, and I am self-admittedly not judging the work on its own two feet. The film was spooky, although of a hollow kind that missed why King's novel was so haunting. I can say this on an opinionated level, in that I did not enjoy the adaptation as much as the original book, but who cares? Instead, I will use the PBS article as a guide in understanding why the screenwriter and director might have made certain changes, and prove that it detracted from the work according to these three dimensions.

The least harmful change is the switcheroo from Elie to Gage as original "undead" child. Gage, being the younger and thus nonverbal-- at least before his resurrection--- child, cannot substitute the role that Elie did in the original novel. In the novel, Elie is haunted by the ghost of Victor Pascow, much like Gage is in the movie. However, unlike Gage, Elie is able to verbalize and converse with her mother, which makes Pascow's warnings clearer and more ominous.

On the flip side, when Gage returns in the novel, he is gifted with the ability to talk in a way that was impossible before he died for any child of his age. His appearance is uncanny, unnatural, and impossible. Jeté Laurence does a great job of making Elie seem creepy, but it cannot produce the same knee-jerk reaction that Gage would have. On Elie's first night, she seems just as scared, confused and alone as Louis is in reaction to seeing her. It is only the next day, when she acts erratically, that she reveals her true nature.

I view this as the most justified change because, as much at it detracts atmospherically from the film, it does "refresh" it, in a manner of speaking, for readers of the original novel. Adapting horror novels is hard because much of horror relies on suspense and fear of the unknown. I assume that when most readers who watched the film saw Gage go out onto the road, they thought he was going to be crushed. For a brief moment, it manages to shock the viewer.

This still does not make it fundamentally better as a work. For people who are not exposed to the source material, which is probably most viewers, the story is not more modern because the younger kid dies instead of his older sister. Thematically, it changes very little; nothing Ellie does in the film would be impossible for Gage, nor do they touch on aspects of gender or childhood that would alter the themes of the movie. There is also no reason that the child swap would be more effective as a movie, at least that I can think of.

The next major change is to how Zelda, Rachel's sister, dies. King's Zelda dies because Rachel purposefully lets her die. Greenberg, the film's screenwriter, made her die through a freak dumb-waiter accident. Though he partially preserves Rachel's blame, it takes her culpability down a notch. This culpability is so important to Rachel's character, because her fear of even looking at death is a large part of what propels Louis to revive Gage. Rachel's actions exist in a moral gray area. Yes, obviously she was a child who was going through extreme stress, but if her memory is Zelda die on purpose. In the movie, she merely was happy she died, but at no point was she cognizant she was killing her until after it was all over.

I don't see how this can be an attempt to modernize the work. In fact, given that the movie is "modernized" from the 1980s to include laptops and the internet, the dumb waiter feels especially out of place. In fact, if the movie had taken place in the 1980s, it would make much more sense for Rachel's childhood home to include a dumb-waiter. These devices were not exactly ubiquitous in the 1990s and 2000s.

Whereas the original novel strongly implies that Zelda or a demon masquerading as her is Gage's possessor, the movie uses Zelda as a psychological prop for Rachel's PTSD. The conclusion I came to while watching the movie is that stress is reigniting her past traumatic experiences, and I did not see any evidence of Zelda in Elie. This change had the potential to allow the movie to explore PTSD or anxiety, but it goes nowhere with this theme. Elie taunts Rachel about Zelda before she kills her, but there is no resolution and no redemption-- only a cheap resurrection which has no bearing on her life.

The original plotline carries over very well to the visual medium, and I can prove this easily by pointing to the 1989 adaptation of Pet Sematary. I haven't watched the whole film, but Zelda's death scene is chilling. I don't see any reason that Greenberg made this change other than for the sake of change itself.

The most important change made is to the ending. The original film is an an exploration of grief. Except for his resurrection of Church, Louis revives everyone while being fully aware of the consequences. Jud warns him about Timmy Baterman, whose revival was a disaster for those around him. The movie not only erases Baterman, but it also modifies the ending: the book depicts man who is so overcome with grief that he is willing to bring a demon to life just to interact with a facsimile of his loved one. In the movie, they turn into wannabe zombies.

To have a resurrectee revive someone else fundamentally changes the nature of the Pet Sematary. In the book, the Sematary is implied to be an active presence that changes reality to tempt individuals into reviving their loved ones. The reader doesn't want to Louis to keep burying those around him, but they understand why he does it--- his grief is realistic and genuine. The movie misses the entire point as soon as Elie buries Rachel.

This, most of all, is what damns the film. It doesn't introduce any meaningful new theme, it isn't any more cinematic, and the ending doesn't make it jive more in the 2020s.

On its own, this is just a slightly above-mediocre horror flick. It could have been so much more.