You Can Now Watch (Part Of) The Disturbing 'Pet Sematary' Alternate Ending

Here's a little extra creepiness for your weekend. Part of the Pet Sematary alternate ending is now available to watch online, and it's disturbing to say the least. While I enjoyed the ending that made it to theaters, I can't help but wish the film had stuck with this dark conclusion instead. To be fair, the theatrical cut's ending is plenty dark – but in an almost playful way. This version is far more unsettling. Watch the Pet Sematary alternate ending below. And beware of spoilers.

Pet Sematary Alternate Ending

Like the Stephen King novel that inspired it, the new Pet Sematary movie does not have a happy ending. Every member of the Creed family, save one, ends up dead...and then undead. In the theatrical cut, Dr. Louis Creed (Jason Clarke) brings his dead daughter Ellie (Jeté Laurence) back from the dead thanks to a cursed Native American burial ground. The Ellie that comes back has a murderous streak, though, and promptly kills her mother Rachel (Amy Seimetz). Ellie then buries Rachel in the same burial ground, at which point Rachel returns from the dead and kills Louis. The zombie mother and daughter then bury Louis, and he, too, comes back, and now they're one big undead family.

But in the alternate ending above, things differ considerably. Louis doesn't end up dead. Instead, he decides to bury the slowly dying Rachel himself – much to her horror. Rachel has a deep-seated fear of death, which makes this scene all the more disturbing.

Speaking with EW, who debuted the alternate ending clip above, director Kevin Kölsch said: "Everybody liked the original scripted ending. But both endings were tested [with preview audiences] and what came back is [the theatrical ending] was clearer to people and it was what people seemed to resonate with and it left them with fewer questions — I don't mean questions in a good ambiguity way but questions in that people didn't understand everything that happened."

"[The alternate ending is] the ending that really should be tested a week after you screen a film when you've had more time to sit and process it," added co-director Dennis Widmyer. "The theatrical ending is the big loud slam dunk ending where it goes out on a bang. There's an immediacy to it that's satisfying. The [original ending] is haunting, it's lingering, it stays with you."

I spoke to Kölsch and Widmyer about the alternate ending when Pet Sematary hit theaters. "They're both disturbing and dark," Widmyer told me. "[But] I would say that the current ending [in the final film] sends off the audience with a smile on its face, while at the same time though, [they're saying] 'That was that was messed up!' Whereas the other one, I don't think anyone would be smiling. The other one has more of a bleak, kind of sad tone to it."

The full version of that alternate ending, and several other deleted scenes, will be included on the digital and Blu-ray releases. The digital release drops on June 25, while the Blu-ray arrives July 9. A full list of special features is below.

  • Alternate Ending
  • Deleted and Extended Scenes
  • Night Terrors – Family Haunting Visions
  • Louis
  • Rachel
  • Ellie
  • The Tale of Timmy Baterman
  • Beyond the Deadfall
  • Chapter One: Resurrection – Directors, screenwriters and cast discuss bringing this classic back to life
  • Chapter Two: The Final Resting Place—A deeper look into finding the right location for the terror to unfold
  • Chapter Three: The Road to Sorrow— Inside the film's tragic themes and creating the iconic cat "Church"
  • Chapter Four: Death Comes home—Unearth the creepy elements behind the climax and final scenes of the film