Pet Sematary: Bloodlines – Digs up more than just corpses

Pet Sematary: Bloodlines - Lindsey Anderson Beer - 2023 

★★★-I love Stephen King, and I liked this book. The first movie from 1989 was okay. The sequels and the remake sucked. This movie was okay to good. Better than expected. Plus, I think there is potential for a prequel from ancient times that could be super dope.  

Gist goes thus: Goes back to 1969, 50 years before the shenanigans of the previous film, before young Jud Crandall had a Mainer accent. Follow him as he starts to learn about the infamous local cemetery with a rather unique selling point - “the dead don't stay dead, thay-ah.” But, as we know, messing with the natural order of things never ends well. 

The film delves into Jud's family legacy, interesting though not so cheery. He's also apparently tied to his hometown, Ludlow, by this legacy and an ancient evil that's been hanging around since the town's inception. All the founders’ lineage is, I guess.  

Directed by Lindsey Anderson Beer in her first swing in the chair. She also co-wrote the script with Jeff Buhler. It's a prequel to the 2019 Pet Sematary, itself a reimagining of Stephen King's 1983 novel. 

Cast is pretty stellar.  Stars Jackson White, the son of actress Katey Sagal (Peggy from Married with Children, and Lela in Futurama) and drummer Jack White, not the Jack White, as Jud. Others include Forrest Goodluck (Hawk in The Revenant), Jack Mulhern (who always plays a druggy, out of control type, he was Dylan in Mare of Easttown and Tyler Kryger in Painkiller, for example), Henry Thomas (Elliot from E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial) as the patriarch Crandall, Natalie Alyn Lind (Silver St. Cloud in Gotham) who plays Jud’s girlfriend and is quite the looker, Isabella Star LaBlanc who plays Goodluck’s sister and is also quite a looker, Samantha Mathis (mostly think of her as Courtney Rawlinson in American Psycho), Pam Grier, and David Duchovny. Duchovny’s character sets all of this shit in motion when he brings back his son in the first minute of the movie. He, Duchovny’s boy, apparently killed himself after returning from Vietnam. Every Vietnam vet I’ve ever known has had a pretty hard life. Don’t envy being of that age. 

Also stars a very good boy named Jellybean who plays a zombie dog. You can read about this guy here in People magazine.  

She has hinted she wants to expand the universe, delving deeper into the origins of the evil that's been causing all this undead nonsense. By October, the producers were on board, considering a sequel and even more installments to further explore the demonic entity behind the franchise's horrific events. Cool cool. 

Little detail I loved was the scene when Jud goes to hockey tryouts with his old man, watching the young kids. Have things like that with my dad. Golden gloves, basketball sectionals, Indiana/Kentucky All-Star Game, so forth. Definitely always going to cherish those memories. 

Overall, Pet Sematary: Bloodlines is a huge step up from the 2019 remake. While maybe it's still not quite hitting the mark, I thought it was pretty not bad. The concept of a magic graveyard that brings back pets and, later, less-than-lovely people from the dead is cool, but it’s devastion is never better than in King’s novel, in my opinion. Though this is probably the best it’s ever been as a film.