The 2019 movie Pet Sematary resurrected Stephen King’s classic horror story for a new generation. Now a prequel, entitled Pet Sematary: Bloodlines, returns to Ludlow in Maine, where children invent all kinds of creepy rituals and bodies buried in a particular spot of earth have the nasty habit of coming back… wrong.
In a similar fashion to the recent The Last Voyage of the Demeter, which zoomed in on an oft-overlooked section of Dracula by Bram Stoker and mined it for chills, this prequel is inspired by a very specific passage from the original book.
Pet Sematary: Bloodlines revisits one of the novel’s most important chapters
Spoilers follow.
In the novel, following the accidental death of his son Gage (changed to daughter Ellie in the most recent movie), a grief-stricken Louis Creed plans to unearth the child’s body and rebury it in the Pet Sematary, in the hope it will bring Gage back.
His friend and neighbor Jud Crandall tries desperately to talk him out of it, telling him the story of Timmy Baterman, whose body was repatriated back to the States after he was killed in World War Two. His father Bill buried him in the Pet Sematary, but when Timmy was resurrected, he had become something else entirely. He terrorized his former friends and family, and seemed to know everybody’s deepest, darkest secrets. The story, as Jud told it in the novel, ended with Bill shooting this new Timmy, and then himself.
Pet Sematary: Bloodlines revisits the horrors of this ultimately unfollowed cautionary tale, while also further exploring the folklore surrounding the burial ground and its origins. And unlike many other movies and TV shows which adapt or draw inspiration from his work, Stephen King has given this prequel his seal of approval.
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BLOODLINES: In the book, this is the story Jud Crandall tells Louis Creed to try and dissuade him from using the Pet Sematary. The screenplay takes a few liberties, but it’s a fine story. David Duchovny is excellent.
The secret, as always, is caring about the characters.— Stephen King (@StephenKing) September 12, 2023
The X-Files alum David Duchovny plays grieving father Bill, while Timmy is played by Henry Thomas, no stranger to the horror genre after his frequent collaborations with Mike Flanagan on The Haunting of Hill House, The Haunting of Bly Manor and Midnight Mass. Jud Crandall, played as an older man by John Lithgow in the 2019 film, is portrayed here in 1969 by Jackson White. The cast also includes Pam Grier, Forrest Goodluck, Jack Mulhern, and Samantha Mathis.
Pet Sematary: Bloodlines is now streaming on Paramount+.
Philip Ellis
Philip Ellis is News Editor at Men’s Health, covering fitness, pop culture, sex and relationships, and LGBTQ+ issues. His work has appeared in GQ, Teen Vogue, Man Repeller and MTV, and he is the author of Love & Other Scams.