The Pet Sematary trailer is here to chill you to your core

The terrifying first trailer has been released for the upcoming new adaptation of Stephen King's horror Pet Sematary.

It features a group of children wearing creepy animal masks and marching into a haunted woods to the beat of an ominous drum, amongst other spooky imagery.

Pet Sematary is the story of an American family moving to a rural location and discovering a supernatural burial ground that can bring dead pets - and maybe people - back to life.

However, "Sometimes, dead is better", the film's tagline warns.

King wrote in 2000 that the story was almost too scary to write.

"I found the result so startling and gruesome that I put the book in a drawer, thinking it would never be published. Not in my lifetime, anyway," he said, according to Entertainment Weekly.

"I'm particularly uneasy about the book's most resonant line 'sometimes, dead is better'. I hope with all my heart that that is not true, but in the nightmarish context of Pet Sematary, it seems to be. And it may be okay. Perhaps 'sometimes, dead is better' is grief's last lesson."

Pet Sematary was released in 1983 and first adapted into a movie 30 years ago in 1989.

The new film is set for release in April, 2019, and stars Jason Clarke, John Lithgow and Amy Seimetz.

Newshub.