10 Horror Movie Characters Given Last Minute Deaths

1989's original Pet Sematary ends in bleakly violent fashion, with grief-stricken protagonist Louis (Dale Midkiff) deciding to bury his recently deceased wife, Rachel (Denise Crosby), in the pet cemetery in the desperate hope of resurrecting her.

However, the film's final scene sees a reanimated, mutilated Rachel return home, where she and Louis lovingly embrace, just as Rachel grabs a knife from the kitchen table. We then cut to black, and all that can be heard is Louis' dying scream.

But this was a deviation from Stephen King's original novel, where the story ends with a resurrected Rachel returning to Louis, yet what happens is left eerily ambiguous.

Similarly, Pet Sematary director Mary Lambert confirmed that she originally shot a book-faithful ending before Paramount executives "encouraged" her to reshoot the ending, adding in more grotesque effects for Rachel's rotting face and ending the film with Louis' death. She said:

"The original scene as written was more spooky and sad… tragic... It was more ambivalent [originally]... It's like this isn't gonna be good but what is it gonna be? It kind of leaves a question mark. I like ambivalence, especially in an ending honestly because rarely in life is there a resolution, a clean, happy ending resolution where oh, we know exactly what's going to happen now.

It was just felt it needed more of a punch... Honestly I think the ending that we have is less scary but more fun... She comes back grotesque and holding a knife and ready to carve him up and eat him, whereas in the other one it's more bittersweet. We know it's not going to be what he wants. She's not coming back as his wife."