From Jeremy Kibler

Needless prequels always deserve a chance to prove us wrong, but Pet Sematary: Bloodlines warrants little reason to exist. Half of a century before the Creed family moved onto that busy Maine road in Kevin Kölsch and Dennis Widmyer’s solid 2019 adaptation of Stephen King’s novel, this film purports to show us why Jud Crandall, the Creeds’ neighbor, always knew dead was better in 1969. If you thought trying to demystify what made the well-spoken, cannibalistic Dr. Hannibal Lecter tick was pointless in 2017’s misbegotten Hannibal Rising, here we get more of the same dark forces that haunt the sour burial ground just beyond a cemetery. 

Jackson White (HBO’s Mrs. Fletcher) is fine, a bland albeit good-looking conduit filling the Achilles tendons of both Fred Gwynne and John Lithgow as Jud. He’s about to put the town of Ludlow and his supportive parents (Henry Thomas, Samantha Mathis) in the rearview mirror by joining the Peace Corps with girlfriend Norma (Natalie Alyn Lind). Not even a few miles out, the Baterman dog gets in their way and changes their plans. It seems Bill Baterman (David Duchovny) made the mistake of bringing back his son, Timmy (Jack Mulhern), Jud’s old pal who was killed while serving in Vietnam. Timmy is back, but hmm, there’s something a little funny about him.

Debuting director Lindsey Anderson Beer, who co-wrote the script with Jeff Buhler (writer of the 2019 remake), traces over a lot that came before competently but with less tragic resonance and nastiness. The film doesn’t shy away from the gore, even laughably digital decaying flesh on a foot, and a slash-y set-piece in a hospital works up a little tension where there’s little escape. Everything that fails Pet Sematary: Bloodlines seems to be mostly on a script level, although the filmmakers can’t even seem to get a simple sense of time right; for example, scenes clearly set in the dead of night bookend an attack in a sunflower field that seems to be set around dusk.

Forrest Goodluck and Isabella Star LaBlanc get the more interesting characters as Mi’kmaq natives, Jud’s longtime pal Manny and Manny’s loving sister Donna, that one wishes the film changed its focus to them. Henry Thomas and David Duchovny are also unassailable as two fathers with different ideas about letting their sons go, while Samantha Mathis is underserved by the script as Jud’s mom. Natalie Alyn Lind makes for a solid scream queen, but she’s pretty hard to buy as a young woman named Norma, let alone one in the late-‘60s. Finally, Pam Grier, always a sight for sore eyes in genre pictures, gets the mere crumbs of a character here as mail-carrier Marjorie before becoming pure stock fodder.

The idea of resurrecting a deceased loved one and seeing them as a decaying, remorseless shell of their former self will always be a chilling one. However, Pet Sematary: Bloodlines doesn’t really tell us anything we didn’t already know or glean from the lore of the previous incarnations, despite a 1600s flashback of when Ludlow was founded. “Aim for the eyes” might be a new piece of advice for killing the dead in these movies, but it’s hardly new enough to tell this story all over again. Sometimes, leaving well enough alone (and buried) is better. 

Rating: 1.5/5

Pet Sematary: Bloodlines is now streaming on Paramount+.

Follow Jeremy at @JKiblerFilm