Blu-ray Review: Pet Sematary: Bloodlines

By John Corrado

★½ (out of 4)

Positioned as a prequel to the 2019 adaptation of the Stephen King novel Pet Sematary, the Paramount+ original movie Pet Sematary: Bloodlines is an example of a needless franchise expansion that doesn’t do enough with the source material to really justify itself.

Set in 1969, the story expands on that famous quote “sometimes dead is better,” by focusing on a young Jud Crandall (Jackson White), who is desperate to leave his hometown of Ludlow, Maine.

Jud is preparing to leave for the Peace Corps with his girlfriend Norma (Natalie Alyn Lind), when he gets pulled back by mysterious circumstances involving his childhood friend Timmy (Jack Mulhern), who hasn’t been the same since returning home from Vietnam.

There was potential in exploring more of the folklore behind the Mi’kmaq burial ground at the heart of this town that has the power to bring animals (and people) back to life, including a flashback that takes things back even earlier to the 1600s.. The film does try to tie it into issues like the Vietnam War and Native American land rights, a perspective explored through Jud’s fellow boyhood friend Manny (Forrest Goodluck) and his sister Donna (Isabella LaBlanc).

But the film’s execution feels lacking, and Pet Sematary: Bloodlines fails to really define itself. Even at a brief 87 minutes, the film just sort of sputters along, struggling to build much tension or dread beyond a few jump scares and flashes of gore. It doesn’t help that the direction by first time filmmaker Lindsey Anderson Beer, who also co-wrote the screenplay with Jeff Buhler (a co-writer the 2019 movie), is somewhat bland.

Henry Thomas, David Duchovny and Pam Grier round out the cast as some of the grown ups in town, but like pretty much everything else about this film, their roles mostly feel underwritten. What we are left with is a series of half-baked ideas that had some potential, but are executed in the most generic, TV movie way possible.

Bonus Features (Blu-ray):