If Pet Sematary (2019) was a lukewarm reheating of Stephen King’s original nightmare casserole, Pet Sematary: Bloodlines is the congealed leftovers someone microwaves at 3 a.m. because they’re too tired to care and too hungry to stop. It’s a prequel that tries to answer the question, “But where did the creepy cemetery come from?” — a question no living human has ever actually asked, yet here we are, staring down 90 minutes of shovel-swinging exposition and the mushy moral lesson that sometimes dead franchises should stay dead.
Directed by Lindsey Anderson Beer in her debut, the film tries very hard to convince you it has a purpose. Like a zombie clawing its way out of the dirt, it reaches up with high hopes but only manages to grab your ankle and trip you into yet another sludge puddle of generic horror filmmaking. If you ever wanted a film that proves the Peace Corps would be a preferable experience to spending another minute in Ludlow, Maine, this is the one.
A Story Set 50 Years Earlier, Yet Somehow Feeling 50 Years Longer
The film follows young Jud Crandall — yes, that Jud Crandall, the one who learned the hard way that sometimes dead is better, though in this movie he’s still bright-eyed enough to think he’s destined for the Peace Corps. Jackson White plays him with the earnest, wide-eyed optimism of a man who hasn’t yet realized he’s the protagonist in a Pet Semataryprequel. Give him 20 minutes and a shovel and he’ll figure it out.
In this version of 1969 Ludlow, Jud is trying to leave town with his girlfriend Norma when undead hijinks commence — specifically involving Timmy Baterman, a Vietnam vet who comes back from the war in a particularly “Why is he drooling on everything?” kind of way. His dad Bill, played by David Duchovny with the dazed energy of someone wondering how he ended up in this movie, drags his dead son into the cursed cemetery in the opening scene. That’s right — Duchovny digs a shallow grave so the script doesn’t have to.
What follows is a parade of scenes where Timmy lurches around town, kills people for reasons no more profound than “the screenplay says so,” and whispers angsty monologues about how everyone is out to get him. It’s less Vietnam trauma allegory and more Hot Topic journal entry.
The Curse of Ludlow: Ancient Evil or Weak Screenwriting?
The film attempts to deepen the franchise’s mythology by introducing a 1600s backstory involving settlers, the Mi’kmaq, and a monstrous resurrected founder named Ludlow. It tries to be grand. It tries to be ominous. It tries to be anything besides aggressively boring. Unfortunately, every attempt at world-building plays out like someone read a Wikipedia summary of The Witch, got inspired, and wrote their own version on a bar napkin.
The priest character who info-dumps the town’s cursed history may as well have walked onscreen with a PowerPoint presentation titled “Things You Absolutely Don’t Need to Know for This Story to Work.”
The deeper the movie digs, the more it hits rocks — namely the fact that the mystery surrounding the cemetery was always more terrifying when unexplained. This movie solves that problem by explaining everything whether you want it or not. It’s like someone prying open a crypt just to show you it’s empty.
Characters Who Make Choices Only Because There’s Runtime to Fill
The characters in Bloodlines behave with the thoughtful intelligence of background extras in a slasher parody. People wander into cornfields alone. They investigate creepy noises at night. They drive freshly undead dogs back to the place they obviously came from. In a film full of death, the real casualties are common sense and narrative tension.
Norma spends half the movie being bitten, stalked, or strangled; Manny (Forrest Goodluck) keeps getting “I’m too smart for this town” moments that the script immediately punishes; and Donna becomes the franchise’s latest entry in “lovely character turned decomposing murder machine.” All these actors deserve better — or at least hazard pay.
Jud’s father Dan is part of a long line of Ludlow residents who allegedly guard the town’s secret. Jud learns this after about five minutes of effort, proving the only thing this bloodline really protects is poor information management.
Scares That Feel Like They Were Dug Up and Reused
Horror prequels have two obligations:
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Make us care.
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Make us afraid.
Bloodlines accomplishes neither. The scares arrive with the timing of a smoke alarm low on batteries — constant, predictable, and annoying. Terrifying threats emerge in slow motion. Loud violins shriek over moments that were already telegraphed three shots earlier. Nothing surprises because everything has happened before, and better, and with fewer undead pigs.
The film’s idea of horror is leaning over your shoulder and whispering, “Did that make you jump? No? Well, what if we add another fog machine?”
Timmy himself, despite a committed performance by Jack Mulhern, ends up less frightening revenant and more “guy who got lost on his way to a Walking Dead audition.”
Action Scenes with All the Urgency of a Town Council Meeting
As bodies begin to stack up — slowly, methodically, and without emotional impact — we get a final act filled with chases, tunnels, swamp assaults, and flare guns. It should feel climactic. Instead, it feels like a group of actors performing in different movies taped together with grave dirt.
By the time Manny fires a flare into Timmy’s head, you’d think the film would end triumphantly. But no, it has another emotional beat to hit: Jud deciding to stay in Ludlow and “guard the evil.” Translation: he trades his future for a lifetime of burying pets and offering ominous warnings to neighbors. The only thing scarier than the undead is this town’s career prospects.
So… Why Does This Movie Exist?
Hollywood’s prequel machine never sleeps — it just shambles around like an undead toddler tugging at your pant leg demanding attention. Bloodlines serves as a reminder that expanding lore for the sake of content rarely results in anything worth resurrecting.
The original Pet Sematary story worked because it explored existential dread, grief, and the unbearable ache of loss. This film works because… well, someone green-lit it.
In the end, Pet Sematary: Bloodlines doesn’t justify its own existence. It’s not scary. It’s not insightful. And its changes to the lore are about as welcome as a resurrected house pet tracking graveyard mud across your living room carpet.
Final Verdict
Pet Sematary: Bloodlines is a horror prequel that spends 90 minutes proving the old lesson: sometimes dead is better — and sometimes not making a prequel is best of all.
If this is the future of Stephen King adaptations, maybe the cemetery isn’t the only thing that needs a “Do Not Resuscitate” sign.
