10 Movies That Had The Balls To Do It Better (AND WANTED YOU TO KNOW)

2019's Pet Sematary adaptation made one major, unexpected change from both Stephen King's novel and the original 1989 movie.

Instead of having the Creed family's toddler son Gage (Hugo and Lucas Lavoie) be hit by a truck and killed, it was changed to be their eight-year-old daughter Ellie (Jeté Laurence).

Even though some of the movie's trailers pointlessly spoiled this twist, for anyone who went into the film unaware, it certainly made for a tide-turning "this ain't your daddy's Pet Sematary" surprise.

More to the point, filmmakers Kevin Kölsch and Dennis Widmyer didn't just swap the ill-fated child's identity, they followed through with a bewildering fake-out.

At first, the scene appears to unfold as previously, with Gage about to be creamed by an incoming tanker, but at the last moment his father Louis (Jason Clarke) rescues him from the road.

At this point, the tanker driver swerves to avoid Gage, causing the vehicle to break apart and be propelled directly towards Ellie, who is also in the road, killing her.

No matter what you make of this new adaptation as a whole, there was a lot of logic to making the dead - and eventually resurrected - child the older of the two, given how silly the undead toddler came across in the '89 film.

Plus, having an older, more experienced child actor play the resurrected kid simply lent it a greater dramatic dimension.

By faking the audience out in such a savage way, the filmmakers promised this would be eschewing the silliest part of the previous adaptation.