In 1989 director Mary Lambert brought Stephen King’s celebrated bestseller “Pet Sematary” to the big screen, spinning its tragic tale of grief gone wrong into a box-office hit that cemented a terrifying toddler, a cat named Church and lines like, “Sometimes dead is better” into the annals of horror history.

Lambert launched her career directing music videos for the likes of the Go-Gos, the Eurythmics, Sting and Janet Jackson and made her feature film debut with the 1987 experimental art-house flick “Siesta,” starring Ellen Barkin as a daredevil skydiver interrogating her own life and relationships.

The Arkansas-raised Lambert, who studied painting at RISD, developed a visual style highlighted by evocative imagery and saw some of her most fruitful early collaborations with Madonna (“Borderline,” “Like a Virgin,” “La Isla Bonita”), whose provocative “Like a Prayer” music video sprang out of ideas the two brainstormed while driving across Hollywood one night.

Read More – Original ‘Pet Sematary’ director Mary Lambert on Madonna and Stephen King meetings at Denny’s – LATimes