'Pet Sematary: Bloodlines' Is So Bad

By Dustin Rowles | Film | October 9, 2023 |

By Dustin Rowles | Film | October 9, 2023 |

I didn’t think the 2019 remake of Pet Sematary was particularly necessary, but I also thought it was a solid, entertaining horror flick. As remakes go, directors Kevin Kölsch and Dennis Widmyer did it right and appropriately remembered that Zelda is the most terrifying thing about the Stephen King novel.

Kevin Kölsch and Dennis Widmyer did not return for the 2023 prequel, Bloodlines, and whatever atmospheric sense of dread they brought to their 2019 film is decidedly missing here. There’s a reason why this one skipped theaters and went straight to Paramount+. It feels like a straight-to-streaming knock-off of a Stephen King movie.

Lindsey Anderson Beer, who wrote the terrible Netflix film Sierra Burgess is a Loser and is attached to write every unnecessary remake lined up for the next few years (Bambi, Short Circuit), makes her feature directorial debut here and co-writes along with the 2019 writer, Jeff Buhler.

Bloodlines takes us back to 1969 to explore the mythology of the Sematary. Sort of. The script is basic AF: Generic white guy Jackson White plays a young Jud Crandall, the character played by John Lithgow in the remake and Fred Gwynne in the original. Crandal wants to get out of his hometown of Ludlow, Maine, but as he and his girlfriend Norma (Natalie Alyn Lind) drive away, they run into a dog with their car. The dog does not die.

That dog leads them to the home of Crandall’s friend, Timmy (Jack Mulhern), who has returned home from Vietnam. Crandall doesn’t realize that Timmy died in Vietnam and that his father, Bill (David Duchovny), buried him in the pet cemetery. Timmy is a zombified version of himself. If he kills others, they turn into zombified versions of themselves. Things quickly escalate from there. The violence is uninspired.

The mythology is less inspired. Back in 1674, the men traveling with the town’s namesake, Ludlow, came upon an animal burial ground surrounded by rotting crops and being protected by members of the Mi’kmaq tribe. Ludlow had been buried in the pet cemetery and returned as a zombie. The white founders of the land called the town Ludlow “to remind them of their sins,” and the town’s original families have been protecting it ever since. Those original families include the families of both Crandall (whose father is played by Henry Thomas) and Bill (Duchovny).

Spoilers: In Bill’s grief, he buries his son anyway, and they spend the rest of the movie dealing with the fallout. Crandall’s Dad is killed, and I think that Bill dies trying to put down his son or because he shot himself (the last act, which takes place underground, is so dark that even with the brightness turned all the way up and after watching it twice, I couldn’t tell you exactly what happens beyond the fact that Bill is not seen again after firing a gun that he had pointed at his osn. Timmy is killed by Manny, a Native who lives in the town and grew up best friends with Crandall and Timmy. Crandall’s girlfriend Norma — who had been abducted by Timmy — survives, and she and Crandall decide to stay in Ludlow and protect others from the pet cemetery. Manny, however, gets the hell out of dodge.

As the credits roll, we see Crandall rocking in his chair on the same porch that older versions of himself, played by Fred Gwynne and John Lithgow, are seen in the original and the Pet Semetary remake. The Band’s “The Weight” plays over the credits. It is easily the best thing about the movie.