Stephen King’s greatest work has had two adaptations thus far, both worth watching for different reasons. Mary Lambert’s 1989 film absolutely rules and sits as a cult object with a loving and loyal fanbase while the film by Kevin Kölsch and Dennis Widmyer took an aggressive but bold step that I found interesting if ultimately hollow. The latter seems to have had enough for a prequel, expanding the story Jud Crandall told Louis Creed about Timmy Baterman.
I sort of love that this exists despite how bad it is. I remember an era of direct-to-video nonsense (The Crow: Salvation, Children of the Corn III: Urban Harvest) that my local Blockbuster clerk let me rent far too young. Those movies are absolute dogshit but they also let me see performers like Kirsten Dunst and Charlize Theron in a schlocky horror movie. Pet Sematary: Bloodlines is a pretty bad movie, riddled with silliness and not enough gore to promote as a trashterpiece, but I won’t deny that I had a strange kind of giddiness as the credits rolled.
Anyone who looked at Fred Gwynne and John Lithgow and thought, “Wow, I bet he was insanely hot when he was younger,” is gonna have an incredible time with this. Jud Crandall, now embodied by Jackson White (checks notes…Officer Zach in Ambulance?), plans to leave Ludlow, Maine with his equally hot girlfriend, Norma (Natalie Alyn Lind). It should be a relatively quick trip out of town but they come across a very dirty and grumpy golden retriever. Thus begins their journey into the world of reanimated flesh, Wendigo-possessed aggression, and a few very questionable choices in regard to the handling of several character deaths.
By the time David Duchovney graced the screen I was already giggling to myself. Everyone in this film is trying to look and behave as though they are living through an America tearing itself apart over the ongoing Vietnam War and failing. These are the most Gen Z-lookin’ kids possible and the only one that feels appropriately cast is Duchovney, who doesn’t get enough to do as a grieving father protecting his reanimated son. He’s just doing his best Fox Mulder-but-sad and it’s working, but everyone else’s ridiculously modern looks and vernacular are hilarious.
I will cite one genuinely good performance amongst the younger cast. Isabella Star LeBlanc is doing the absolute most she can to give a real performance and It’s appreciated. Like Duchovney, she gets lost amongst the silliness and Teen-TV-ass performances her costars are giving, but I enjoyed her time onscreen.
I just wished everything onscreen looked better. Pet Sematary: Bloodlines looks like ass, hard to believe when The Watcher cinematographer Benjamin Kirk is on the job. His work on the aforementioned film, along with this year’s Being Human, is something I truly enjoyed so I was so disappointed to see something fall this far from grace.
Look, there’s an audience for this. I’m part of it and I’ll admit that. It’s far from good but it made me feel fourteen again, walking out of Blockbuster with something I shouldn’t have been allowed to rent handed to me with a wink. That’s how little horror kids get started, be it a parent or video store employee or an older cousin. This thing is crap but it’s crap that I had fun with, looking back to the days when horror sequels/prequels were just the wild west, cranked out with low budgets and shoddy scripts with hot people in as many roles as possible. It’s just fun.
Pet Sematary: Bloodlines is streaming on Paramount+.
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