Paramount dares to dream as it brings the saga back with its fourth installment, hoping to claw its way into our hearts and tap into the magic that made the original story a horror cornerstone, but Pet Sematary: Bloodlines (2023) stumbles into the grave it was supposed to avoid and barely stirs the vision of Stephen King’s iconic tale.
Rewinding the Clock to Jud Crandall’s 1969 Origins
Bloodlines teases a premise dripping with potential, luring us back to Ludlow, Maine, in 1969, where a young Jud Crandall, played by Jackson White, yes, that Jud, the fan-favorite who once guided the Creeds, grapples with a town full of malevolent secrets. Digging into Jud’s backstory feels like a clever hook, a chance to unearth the roots of a character beloved for his weary wisdom.
Director and co-writer Lindsey Anderson Beer positions Bloodlines as a prequel to the 2019 Pet Sematary remake, which starred John Lithgow as Jud, rather than to the original which featured Fred Gwynne in the same role. Despite 1989 movie remaining the franchise’s unholy grail, revered by horror fans as the gold standard, the prequel’s allegiance to the lesser remake feels a bit strange, but acceptable. Perhaps they simply wanted that 1960s backdrop.
Potential Roars to Life in Ludlow, but Jud and His Story Fall Just as Quickly
Bloodlines captures the essence of Pet Sematary right out of the gate as a truck thunders down the road, an image that has become almost synonymous with the franchise as a symbol of tragedy, while elsewhere David Duchovny’s tormented character, Bill Baterman, drags his son Timmy’s (Jack Mulhern) body through the tangled woods to the cursed burial ground to be resurrected. Round this off with a well-composed shot of the “Welcome to Ludlow” sign as the band Creedence Clearwater Revival belts out the hit classic “Bad Moon Rising,” and all early signs point to a proper Pet Sematary revival.
But spoken too soon, as Duchovny’s Bill must have buried the script along with his son Timmy, a Vietnam War veteran and Ludlow’s main antagonist. Jud, who’s meant to be our main character, seems to slip into the shadows, allowing everyone else to drive the narrative of his own story.
White, saddled with a script as flimsy as a cobweb, tries to embody young Jud but feels miscast and definitely misused, not his fault, mind you, but a casualty of poor writing more than his performance. Perhaps it is just him being disconnected from the rugged Jud of later years that we remember, making it hard to see him as the same character, but it simply doesn’t feel like Jud.
Desperate to escape the evils of Ludlow and those within it, the plot wanders through filler, with scenes that drift like lost souls. A tepid love story between Jud and his girlfriend, Norma (Natalie Alyn Lind), fails to ground the movie as they fumble through personal dramas amid the town's horrors.
Bloodlines Is Where the Magic of the Franchise Goes to Die
Long lost now and not feeling much like the movies we've come to enjoy in the franchise, Bloodlines attempts to realign with its roots through a flashback to Ludlow's cursed beginnings. A detour into the settlers’ discovery of the graveyard’s power feels like a half-buried relic, incomplete and lacking in personality, as if the filmmakers edited it in as an afterthought. Bloodlines leaves us mourning, mourning what could have been, as we continue to wait for another worthy resurrection of the Pet Sematary legacy.
