I was actually pretty excited about the upcoming Pet Semetary prequel movie Pet Semetary: Bloodline, and it was supposed to tell the dark and tragic story of Timmy Baterman. This is a story that hasn’t been properly explored before… and it still hasn’t. Pet Semetary: Bloodline is a film inspired by this backstory in Pet Semetary lore, but they changed the whole story, they changed the lore, and they did it with a poorly written and directed movie. I was so disappointed with how this movie turned out and how they handled the story and characters.
The Baterman history is a side story within the main narrative of King’s novel, and it was used to emphasize the dangers of the burial ground. During World War II, Timmy was killed in action and his grieving father, Bill Baterman was unable to cope with the loss, so he buried his son in the Micmac burial ground, which is the ancient cemetery with the resurrection power. This brought Timmy back to life, but he wasn’t the same. He began acting strangely and violently, terrifying the townsfolk. Stories about his behavior, including mutterings about secrets of the townspeople and acts of violence, spread throughout the town.
Several men from the town, including Jud Crandall went to the Baterman house to confront Bill about his undead son. They found Bill in a state of denial, refusing to acknowledge that the thing in his house was no longer his son. Eventually, the Baterman house burned down under mysterious circumstances, with both Bill and Timmy inside.
This really is a fascinating story, one that could’ve made a really great horror movie! But Pet Semetary: Bloodline is the perfect example of how you ruin a great and interesting story. The director of the film, Lindsey Beer, talked about how this is such an important missing piece in the mythology and how she was excited to tell it, but then she and the creative team just made a bunch of stuff up that isn’t even in line with the Pet Semetary story that Stephen King told, and it even broke certain rules, a big one being how the dead have to be buried by their own. I won’t get into any spoilers, but when you watch the movie, you’ll understand.
Then, for some reason, they turned the film into a zombie movie. The people that were burial in the ancient burial ground had a lot more zombie attributes for some reason, and that was never a thing with the original story. They even came up with a certain way to kill the people who were raised from the dead like a zombie, and that was also never a thing in the original story. This movie just made a bunch of stupid stuff up that made the film feel generic and uninteresting.
On top of the film’s weak writing, the direction wasn’t any better. I don’t know what the director was trying to do but it was all over the place with all kinds of shots that made no sense, and the pacing was off. The editing was also jittery and it made the flow of the story confusing. They also had to tone down some of the sound effects in the film, for some reason, they went way overboard. This is especially in regard to the characters that were raised from the dead. So the movie was filled with technical issues.
This movie seriously played out like a bad student film. It’s like they took the idea of a truly unique story and changed it into something that we’ve already seen a thousand times before in horror movies. It’s was just so damn generic I walked away from the film sad because I know how great of a film this could and should’ve been! Yeah, Pet Semetary: Bloodlines really bummed me out.
While I like the casting in the film, the movie just wasted all of the talent! That cast included Jackson White, Henry Thomas, Isabella Star LaBlanc, and David Duchovny. I guess they did the best they could with what they were given to work with.
The movie is currently streaming on Paramount+. It’s up to you if you want to waste your time watching it or not. But… I did not like this movie. I honestly can’t believe that the studio signed off on this rubbish. I was excited about the prospect of seeing the history of Pet Semetary explored further, but after watching this film, I’m not interested anymore. I hate that the creative team ruined this story!
