Pet Sematary: Bloodlines review (spoilers)
Last edited Sat Oct 7, 2023, 02:38 PM - Edit history (7)
Fans of Stephen King received another installment to the Pet Sematary franchise yesterday on Paramount+. The series has already had a sequel and a reboot, so a prequel is surely in order (despite nobody asking for it). The prequel has a short running time and squanders little of it getting right to the zombification process. One of the suspenseful aspects of the original was not knowing quite what will happen after a visit to the cursed burial ground. The grieving family member returns home to go to sleep and await their fate the next day. Not so much anymore, now there is instant action at the gravesite.
Horror movies of old often relied on jump scares for cheap thrills. Modern horror movies like this employ that in addition to gore porn. The original was more about psychological terror, so this aspect feels like short-changing. Thanks, "Saw".
The Timmy character seemed to be more terrifying in his short appearance in the original than here. The filmmaker can't decide if he is a slow zombie or a fast zombie now. He starts off slow, then gets fast. Neither is very effective, and he just comes across as being kind of a dick instead of creepy. David Duchovny plays the dick father, I guess it runs in the family.
Pet Sematary II was a shitshow in its own way, but Clancy Brown played the zombie in a much more entertaining way. The zombie dog is a genuine threat. I'm not sure what was up with the girlfriend character, they sort of put her on ice in the hospital for a while.
The movie cuts to a prequel to the prequel at one point to fill in unnecessary details from colonial times and break what little momentum is built up. There's a family name tie-in that doesn't make a lot of sense. There's a Mi'kmaq Indian character thrown in to offer sage advice and provide a sense of authenticity.
The final battle features a rag-tag crew of protagonists going in to battle the zombies. They make critically bad decisions which is par for the course in a B-horror movie. They bring long rifles to a battle in cramped quarters. They manufacture reasons to split up so they can be picked off one by one. They hatch a dubious plan to deal with a burning house (they stay in it). They go into a sketchy-looking tunnel without good cause. The advice from the Indian isn't really followed.
Fortunately, it isn't too long so it is over fairly quickly. Sometimes, a movie not being made is better.