‘Pet Sematary: Bloodlines’ — A Cinematic Offbreed Fit to Its Name
‘Pet Sematary: Bloodlines’ — A Cinematic Offbreed Fit to Its Name
My first timely ‘Pet Sematary’ review
Look, I might’ve been fashionably late (by several decades) with my first Pet Sematary review. Being a 90s child, though, I suppose I have my excuses. But there’s really no reason I couldn’t at least grace the world with my thoughts on the 2019 remake before a pandemic swept the world. And for that, I owe you all an apology, and a promise to do better.
But fortunately, with its quiet October 6th straight-to-Paramount-Plus-release, Pet Sematary: Bloodlines has given me this chance. Like a grieving Louis Creed, I’ve been given the opportunity to set things straight — once and for all.
For a film called Pet Sematary: Bloodlines, perhaps it’s only appropriate that it be erected on bad soil. It’s a Pet Sematary film after all. And a Pet Sematary film without a pet graveyard that reanimates the victims buried within it is hardly a Pet Sematary film at all.
As the non-canon prequel — to a remake — of the notorious Stephen King story, Pet Sematary: Bloodlines is a film that entered the world with a funny legacy. Director Lindsey Anderson Beer traveled uncharted ground in trying to write a trailblazing prologue to the grisly saga. In the Pet Sematary universe, the only prior attempt to deviate from King’s vision resulted in near-disaster.
Though the original Pet Sematary film garnered a spot in the hearts of many 80s horror lovers with its simple and driven narrative, Pet Sematary Two had a far less welcoming reception. Without the King source material to work off of, director Mary Lambert’s finished product wasn’t something that was enjoyed by very many. With character changes, tone shifts, and the general lack of suspense that defined her earlier installment, it was largely lambasted by critics for its runaway direction.
Game of Thrones, the famous (infamous?) HBO fantasy series, faltered similarly as it began to grow an identity separate from its source material. Once it was a few seasons removed from George R.R. Martin’s guiding words, it spiraled downward to an early grave that stands solemnly where it was erected, a steady stream of mourners still lining up to pay their respects.
To write the sequel — or a prequel — to a story that isn’t your own is no easy task. The trading of hands can often lead to some noticeable discrepancies as visions vary between writers and directors.
Pet Sematary: Bloodlines isn’t a bad film; but it’s one that flees far enough away from the shadow cast by King’s conception of Derry, Maine to lose some of its staple traits and waypoints.
By itself, I enjoyed Pet Sematary: Bloodlines upon the first viewing. Perhaps it’s just my affinity toward the 60s set design and flower power accoutrements that surround it, that I was willing to see past some of its earlier flaws. It was only in the movie’s second half that I began to struggle a bit with some of its shortcomings. It’s not an adaptation without its strengths, but much of the haunting charm that defined at least two of its three Pet Sematary predecessors seems to be absent in this latest attempt to personify King’s macabre vision.
In many films, isolation engenders a sense of fear within the viewer. So many of the great horror movies of history are confined within single homes. In both versions of Pet Sematary — the name of the movie, not the broader franchise — the narrative benefits from being centered around the home of the Creeds, their neighbor, and the town cemetery. When a narrative devolves into an endless series of chases, it has a way of bending the genre entirely. Enough of these desperate pursuit scenes can leave a movie feeling like a slasher, no matter how terrifying the threat of the ghost, ghoul, zombie or masked predator.
In many regards, Pet Sematary: Bloodlines feels like a cross between its predecessor and a modern Scream or Halloween movie. It’s got more visceral gore, more hunting down of the good guys, and more of Hollywood’s standard terror tropes on full display.
A crowning achievement of the 2019 remake of the 1989 film was its ability to recapture the strengths of its original and elevate them with a fresh coat of paint and a clever re-imagining of the plot. But where the 2023 sequel to the remake manages to sustain that visual intrigue, it by and large lacks the unnerving soul of both of those earlier versions.
I enjoy the Foley art used to capitalize on the labored movements of the risen dead, but it’s hard to deny that the effects are employed a little gratuitously. The movie cheapens the mystique that surrounds the people buried within the cemeteries into something that can fairly be described as “flesh-eating zombies.” Though they retain some of their personality and memories from their lives before, little intrigue is left about exactly why they do what they do.
What many had hoped that this movie would provide was an explanation for the origins of those evil animal burial grounds, but the film ultimately fails to deliver on that promise. There’s a brief flashback that attempts to explore some of its roots, but it leaves more questions than answers. The cursory look into the cemetery’s history is creepy but not expository. The movie’s expanded exploration of Jud Crandall’s past is hardly more revelatory.
Though it’s nice to see David Duchovny acting outside of his comfort zone, none of the film’s acting is particularly strong. The role of Jud Crandall, the only character with whom the viewer is likely already acquainted, feels largely wasted on Jackson White, an actor whose credits include Mrs. Fletcher, Tell Me Lies, The Space Between and SPF-18.
Natalie Alyn Lind and Isabella Star LeBlanc effectively portray their characters, Norma and Donna, but those characters are of relatively shallow depth. The film’s script doesn’t give any of the actors much room to truly shine. One standout role for me was Jack Mulhern as Timmy. Though he doesn’t exhibit the same range of emotion as Jeté Laurence’s Ellie Creed in the prior film, his mercurial stoicism serves the role well — especially in its earliest acts.
One aspect of the film that’s frustrated some is the way that it squanders part of the lore that King had established surrounding Jud Crandall. For Crandall to have had these awful experiences with the cemetery during his youth, it shines a questionable new light on his actions in his twilight years. Why, if he’d endured this relentless zombie pursuit, would he be so willing to allow the Creed family to go down that same road? Why, after saving his fiancée from this terrible plight back in the 60s, would he subject her to a burial in those desecrated grounds only a few decades later?
Where before the plot granted some ambiguity to Crandall’s motives, now the viewers are confronted with the sour understanding that not even this town’s kindly farmer is halfway decent. It ends up feeling like more of a plot hole, though, than it does a shock. The film concludes more quickly than all of its predecessors, and gives off the distinct impression of a movie racing to the finish line.
But for all of its flaws, there’s plenty of room for forgiveness. The core of Pet Sematary is its simplicity. It’s a knee-deep horror that doesn’t hinge on a detailed origin story for it to be scary. It doesn’t aim to be a thought-provoking masterpiece. In fact, King was famously so ashamed of the original novel’s tasteless material that he only published it against his will. It’s a story with far less nuance than so many of his others.
If the task at hand was to create a digestible horror/thriller centered around the historic cemetery, then Beer succeeded on nearly all fronts. It won’t leave an indelible stain in the minds of most viewers, but it’s an enjoyable use of an evening for the strapping few with proclivities for psychedelia, sixties set pieces, and sacrilegious “semataries.” While I enjoyed parts of the film, I won’t be devastated if this prologue remains the franchise’s final chapter.