User reviews

Plot

In 1969 a young Jud Crandall and his childhood friends band together to confront an ancient evil that has gripped their hometown of Ludlow.

Cast

Mostly mediocre, we do however get Henry "ET" Thomas, David Duchovny, Samantha Mathis (Who is used so little she may as well not be there), Pam Grier and Natalie Alyn Lind who keeps popping up in everything I watch and she's always a joy to watch.

Verdict

Bloodlines tells the story that Jud Crandall told in the original Pet Semetary, so you already know how it ends. Not sure it's a tale that needed putting to screen but they make the most of it.

Though loaded with veterans most of the younger cast are really quite poor, combine that with very bland writing and it makes for a very underwhelming watch!

Pet Semetary hasn't exactly been the best series, sure the original was amazing but with a forgettable sequel and an awful remake I wasn't exactly excited to see this pop up. However I'll give it this, it's better than the trailer makes it out to be.

It's a middle of the road movie with enough going for it to keep you drowning in its glaring flaws.

Rants

Now we've seen Jud's story sadly it makes his likelihood to show someone the semetary even less likely. Why would he do it? What motivation would he have being that he lived through these horrors and ultimately as per the original movie caused his ultimately demise.

Breakdown

Solid veteran cast Natalie Alyn Lind is great Just about enough King charm Mostly poor young cast You know what's going to happen Rather bland in places.

Great cast, I just wish Samantha Mathis had more of a role. A few good, creepy moments. Unfortunately, by the third act of the movie, some of the scenes/scenarios became completely absurd. There were the typical tropes of people doing incredibly stupid things-but it's a horror movie, so that's expected. Yelling at the TV doesn't help. I tried. The idiots died anyway. I found myself rolling my eyes more than anything else. The undead could seemingly teleport and do superman type of stuff. Sometimes people say a movie might have been better had they edited out 20-30 minutes. Not this movie. This was very tightly edited and could have used a bit more exposition. Just being familiar with the Pet Sematary story helped fill-in some of the blanks. Really wanted to like this. Given the caliber of the cast, I think a lot of people were rooting for this movie. Glad I saw it, just wouldn't watch it again.

This film is just bad. Pretty much in every way. They must have either ran out of budget or had to cut run time because this movie is utter nonsense. I kind of, maybe get what they were trying to do, but it's so poorly crafted and executed it's not worth watching.

Here are things that suck:

1. The plot doesn't make sense and really has nothing to do with the original Pet Sematery.

2. There's no one to root for and no one to care about. Live or die, I literally do not care what happens to any characters.

3. There's no point and the core premise is so confusing I really don't know why this was made.

4. The final act they just gave up. I don't know why characters are doing what they're doing. Nor do I care.

Bad filmmaking 101 - 2.2/10.

As far as I'm concerned, there are only two films in this franchise and they are the first two chapters, STOP!!! Now Hollywood is finished, it has no more ideas and does nothing but carry on with sequels, requels, remakes, prequels ruining great sagas born in the glorious 80s, today it only produces rubbish, in fact I hope that the actors' strike continues and that this situation destroy all of Hollywood and perhaps make it reborn in a serious way, producing fewer films, but more high-quality ones, and fewer sequels, reboots and the like because today we are faced with one of the worst periods, from a qualitative point of view.

Having made this necessary premise, let's get to this "Bloodlines".

The film is a total disaster in every respect, boring, useless, badly acted and shot, the gore is absent, there isn't a murder that sticks out, I still remember the magnificent murders of Judd in the first Pet Semetary or of the bully in Pet Sematary 2, bloody and imaginative murders, in this prequel they are truly forgettable.

But the worst thing is that, as already happened in the terrible remake of 2019, this film lacks pathos, pain, the mourning process, everything is told in a superficial way, in the first film you could see the heartbreak of the family for having lost their child, as in the second film we saw the boy's pain for the loss of his mother, in this prequel there is none of this.

I hope that producers realize that for a few years they have done nothing but ruin great classics, and I hope that the failure of this rubbish and other rubbish makes them understand that perhaps it is time to change the trend.

I approached this movie with some trepidation. Being a life long Stephen King fan, his movies had suffered badly from appalling, cash in sequels. A Return To Salem's Lot is a classic example.

But taken on it's own merits, I actually enjoyed this. It was generally well acted, the story was interesting, if not original. I disagree that the characters were unlikeable, I found my self really rooting for the people. I liked the pace that the story unfolded, revealing the history and background in satisfying doses. Also, it did not focus on the "Semetary" too much. Although building on the Pet Sematary mythos, it does stand as separate to the main franchise. SO if you view it with this in mind, I think you will enjoy.

Quick review: I had really hoped I was going to enjoy 'Pet Sematary: Bloodlines', however very early on in the film I knew I was going to struggle with it. The reason? I could not find a single character who was likeable or charismatic enough to care about. Without that being there it is so hard to stay invested and care about the outcome of the film.

There are a lot of cheap jump-scares in this film. People and trucks just appear out of nowhere and we get a loud jolt of music with them. Otherwise though, the film really doesn't have a way to scare you. I was a bit let down by this one. I didn't expect a masterpiece, but I expected more than we got. 4/10.

It's more or less the first Pet Sematary all over again: the same setting (the small town of Ludlow), the exact same circular appearance of the animal burial ground, even some of the first and family names are the same (Judd, Crandall). It's only the story that is slightly different, as if the makers thought that it was all so familiar, that they could skip the preliminary introduction and jump immediately into the horrifying action. So if you stand on originality, you should maybe leave this one be.

But then you'd miss out on a pretty decent movie. The atmosphere is pleasantly creepy, the pace is high, there are numerous well dosed and effective scares, there's some serious gore, and the acting by all major characters is fine. I was especially impressed by Jackson White, who has a great screen presence.

In short: in a pleasantly familiar way a well made and entertaining horrorflick.

Pet Sematary is and probably always will be my favorite Stephen King book so I am quite pleased that the chapter going further into Jud Crandall's past was finally given a more in depth film adaptation. Yes there were many changes made here like most book to film adaptations usually always do but I still found myself pleased to see many of the characters given more screentime compared to the original film and the remake. I really enjoyed the casting of the actor playing Timmy Baterman. Although they took a ton of liberties, he definitely embodies that character and makes the movie excellent. Just like described in the book, it's almost like everything he says and does is like a "radio signal". I am very pleased they were able to capture that here. They did a great job.

If it means watching Pet Sematary: Bloodlines again, you probably won't wanna be buried in a pet sematary. Why not treat yourself this year for Halloween by avoiding this mess and taking the time to pick something else? This is one of those movies that you hear about, see the poster for and immediately ask: what were they thinking? Is this really necessary? Who in their right minds came up with the idea of this? Bloodlines centres on a young Jud Crandall, and tells the story of... well... a whole bunch of crazy stuff happening around him during the time period.

Coming from an unpopular opinion with no real hatred towards remakes, reboots, sequels, prequels or spin-offs, it's undeniable that this is a completely catastrophe of a movie, founded by an average idea. It's filled with so many ridiculous plot holes and dumb circumstances, that it becomes difficult to watch without wondering why the project was even taken up in the first place. For where credit's due though, the film actually has a pretty interesting first act that moves smoothly, and it's competently made in terms of how the shots look, how the camera works and the fact that the actors actually do somewhat of a decent job, but that's pretty much all that's good about it.

Everything wrong with Pet Sematary: Bloodlines can pretty much be summed down to most of the writing and whoever the hell came up with the idea. It feels very much like the writers had a bunch of "cool" horror movie ideas that they wanted to just put out there, but a bunch of stupid clichés crammed into one is how it turned out to be. There's also a few scenes where you can tell they're sort of trying to add some emotions with the characters, but those deeper feelings are never explored further, so all of the emotional crap feels very forced and unnecessary.

Remember how the original adaptation in 1989 and the 2019 remake both offer brief, yet multiple references to the events that occurred in the past of supporting character Jud Crandall? Well you can toss all of that aside; nearly none of it applies here or is given second thought, providing the film with even more logical issues and missed opportunities than it already had. This is a movie that's so bad, you can barely even have fun with it because it takes its stupidity staggeringly seriously. The characters are unlikable, there's nobody to care about, and overall, it's another classic example of Pet Sematary's quote of why "sometimes dead is better".

If you liked this review, check out the full review and other reviews at aussieboyreviews.

Pet Sematary: Bloodlines (2023)

Henry Thomas, David Duchovny, Samantha Mathis, Pam Grier... What a waste of a good cast. Jackson White was also good as a young Jud, kind of reminded me of a young Matt Dillon.

But none of them can save this prequel. It adds almost nothing to the original story and it just drags slowly and aimlessly. It tells the story of Timmy, who came back from the war - the story Jud tells briefly in the original movie - but everything seems to be a bit off and it's pretty pointless.

Better watch the original classic or even the remake which actually wasn't bad.

4/10 Skip it.

This film attempts to tell the historical excerpt story from King's Pet Sematary novel, and hits across the face with it like a wet fish. For starters, it was so completely unconvincing of the timeline, I refused to believe this was telling the story it thinks it is. It also fails to bring a single bit of atmosphere or eerie King style nuance from the story itself. The characters were all flat, wooden, boring, or caricturally miscast and some were all of the above. Haven't really seen anything interesting from Dave D since Californication come to think of it, so not sure this was all the director's fault.. but still. It did tell the story at least, but I was dragged with it and never really got on board.

This is the weirdest directing I've ever seen in a movie, special mention to the editing part that made everything even more confusing and boring.

Basic TV movies are more entertaining than this and... based on Stephen King's amazing novel? How can someone ruin a beautiful horror story like this?

There were about 20 minutes left and all I could think was "what in the H am I watching?!".

This to be avoided, just know there is no "horror" in this movie and no direction whatsoever. Feels like someone had the money to play "let's direct a movie and then go eat pizza because I don't even care..."

What an amateurish slog of a film. Why on earth would any studio hand the reigns of a franchise film to Lindsey Anderson Beer? She was a writer on a handful of really, really, terrible films and tv shows. That's all she's done. How is someone with zero experience behind the camera and a resume that's chock full 'o nothing but vacuous garbage expected to craft a frightening, nuanced film? The part of the novel when Jud tells the story of Timmy and Bill Baterman is absolutely chilling, expanding it to feature film length could have been something in the hands of even the most modestly skilled director, but instead we get jump-scare trash made by someone that may as well been picked off the street. What a wasted opportunity.

When I saw this movie I was delighted, and immediately remembered the first part from the late eighties and my childhood. Ok, I also liked the part from 2019, the so-called remake, and I approached this film full of optimism. Actually, I made one of the biggest mistakes of not stopping the movie at 40 minutes. In fact, this is a textbook example of how to destroy a wonderful franchise. This is actually a TV movie, nothing more. I would understand that it's some other movie company, but it's Paramount, folks. Honestly, I'm sorry that there is no zero star rating for movies on imbd, because one star for this movie is a reward for it. Shame on you Paramount for destroying my childhood memories for this movie!

Pet Sematary: Bloodlines managed to impress me, despite its lacklustre reception among the general public and its direct-to-tv or streaming release.

Make no mistake however, Pet Sematary: Bloodlines maintains an honest Stephen King vibe reminiscent of 80s-90s classics like "Stand by Me," "IT," or even a slight ambiance of the original Pet Sematary.

Adapting a story with established foundations is always a challenge, requiring a delicate balance of relevance, novelty, and faithfulness to the source material. In this regard, Pet Sematary: Bloodlines hits the mark rather admirably.

While not a masterpiece, the film deserves recognition for several reasons. The cinematography feels both vintage and fresh. Additionally, the cast includes well-known but somewhat forgotten actors like David Duchovny (X-Files, Californication) and Henry Thomas, (E. T, Legends of the Fall) evoking a sense of nostalgia reminiscent of films from that era.

The acting is solid overall, with Natalie Alyn Lind impressing me immensely and Jackson White delivering commendable performances. Although White's portrayal didn't captivate me as much, he still stood out as unique and likable character.

However, Pet Sematary: Bloodlines does fall short in some key areas. The kills are relatively tame, the suspense feels subdued, and the characters, while possessing personality, lack significant depth. Additionally, the ending feels rushed and somewhat cheap, detracting some chemistry and memorability from the overall viewing experience.

Despite these flaws, Pet Sematary: Bloodlines exceeded my expectations. While it may not offer many surprises due to its familiar story and lack of surprises, it still holds up as a solid stand-alone film. Surprisingly, I wouldn't hesitate to re-watch the film, as it provided me with a thoroughly entertaining experience.

6/10.

No matter how much of a fan you're of the original, sequel or remake. Save your time and sanity by avoiding this pile of rubbish. How did this get the go ahead let alone funding? Honestly, I'd watch any old rubbish to kick back and relax but this was even below my low bar. The movie was completely nonsensical and sometimes that's alright but in this case not. It's not even a movie so bad that it's good. It's just absolute garbage. I'll be making a note of both the writers and directors thanks to this movie to avoid anymore wasted time and I suggest you do the same too. It is a shame though as I enjoyed the original and still found entertainment in the remake.

Anyone hating on this movie saying it makes no sense clearly hasn't read the book. This movie was a really great addition to the franchise, focusing on Jud Crandall's monologue/cautionary tale in the novel. Some of the narration was directly from the novel as well. Was it Oscar worthy? No. But was it a thrilling horror movie with a good story? Yes. They took some creative liberties from the story in the book too, but overall I really enjoyed seeing that portion of the story expanded into a movie of its own. They connected it really well with the 2019 version of the movie, especially timeline wise, but it could just as well be placed before the original if you suspend your belief in the timeline.

My wife and I watched Pet Sematary: Bloodline (2023) on Paramount+ last night. The plot unfolds in Ludlow, Maine, during the 1960s, as a young man returns home from the war, triggering a series of killings. Some teenagers are eager to leave town, but their every attempt is mysteriously thwarted. Could the murders and the inability to escape be connected?

This movie is both written and directed by Lindsey Anderson Beer, marking her directorial debut, and features a cast including Henry Thomas (E. T.), David Duchovny (The X-Files), Pam Grier (Coffy), Natalie Alyn Lind (Gotham), Jackson White (Tell Me Lies) and Forrest Goodluck (The Revenant).

The promising cast and well-selected settings initially raised my expectations for this film. However, while the cinematography is impressive, it leans a bit too clean and could have been grittier and darker. The kills are the best part of the film, offering a satisfying blend of creativity and gruesome moments, with the "I think I'm too high" scene being a particular favorite. However, the acting and writing in the movie are disappointingly inconsistent. I found it challenging to connect with the main characters and felt the story might have been better told from the perspective of David Duchovny and his son. Additionally, the flashback scenes were awful.

In conclusion, Pet Sematary: Bloodline doesn't quite live up to our expectations for a revitalized Pet Sematary universe. I would give it a 4/10 and recommend skipping it.

This prequel goes back 50 years to narrate the story of Jud Crandall who wanted to leave Ludlow with his girlfriend, wanting to join the Peace corps. Bill Baterman falls for what the semetary can happen and brings back his son. This unleashes evil on Ludlow as Jud and his friends learn about their respective families history with the land. Will they be able to put an end to this mayhem on time forms rest of the story.

For all it's intent, this prequel fails to offer anything new storywise or the scares. With a short runtime of 80 odd minutes, the narrative is slow enough to be boring. The friendship between Jud, Manny and Timmy is never established properly for the story to work considering the entire film revolves around them. There is nothing much explanation provided for the semetary itself than we already know and this film barely explores it more. Neither the performance nor the writing saves this borefest.

What did I just watch?! This film was absolutely awful. There was nothing in this film I want to remember in fact I want someone to get one of those mind eraser things from "MEN IN BLACK" and erase my memory of this hour and a half of this horrendous film. I had high hopes for the cast as it included David Duchovny and Henry Thomas, but even their efforts in the film were like the efforts of these SAG Writers using CHAT GPT. I think roughly around forty-five minutes into the film I needed my wife to stick me with a rapid release shot of Epinephrine to keep my a** awake. There are absolutely no spoilers to add in. This film is like solving a simple math equation in your head. I have nothing else to add other than don't waste your time, watch a series you've already binged thirty times again or eat paint chips before gazing upon this lesser entity of a film.