'Pet Sematary' directors on rebooting the horror classic: How do you scare Stephen King?

First published in 1983, Stephen King's supernatural chamber tragedy "Pet Sematary" was a dark tale of terror that Dennis Widmyer and Kevin Kolsch both devoured growing up separately as budding filmmakers and horror fans in Long Island, N.Y.

Like scores of King devotees around the globe, they'd read the book as youngsters and pored over the 1989 film adaptation directed by Mary Lambert, which sealed a frighteningly adorable psycho toddler and a cat named Church into the horror cinema lexicon.

Kolsch remembers seeing its cult sequel "Pet Sematary II" in theaters in 1992, a few years before mutual friends would introduce him to Widmyer. They were the only two guys in their circle of friends so utterly obsessed with making movies, they'd type out screenplays on word processors at parties. Maybe they'd get along?

Cut to a year ago this month: After making a splash with their 2014 indie thriller "Starry Eyes," the directing duo