Film Review

Pet Sematary: Bloodlines (2023) • Paramount+ — sometimes, dead really is better

In the late-1960s, a young Jud Crandall discovers the horrifying secret of the Pet Sematary…

Screenwriter Jeff Buhler and producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura, who brought us 2019’s version of Stephen King’s Pet Sematary, team up with first-time director Lindsey Anderson Beer for this prequel. But whereas the 2019 movie had some merits (e.g. the performance of John Lithgow as Jud Crandall), even if it didn’t live up to the standard set by its 1989 predecessor, it’s difficult to discern a point to this latest film.

A lot of the acting is persuasive but the two supposedly central characters are undeveloped, and although the cinematography is often impactful and Beer’s direction is competent, everything’s let down by a script that fails in terms of logic and structure.

King’s novel is one of his more thematically profound, addressing the self-destructive depths we can be led to if we allow love for another person to dominate our behaviour completely. It touches at least implicitly on addiction…