31 Days of Halloween: David Duchovny and the Pet Semetary
Pet Semetary Bloodlines goes to show how popular and powerful the works of Stephen King really are, because this lifeless sequel wouldn’t exist otherwise. Pet Semetary Bloodines was dumped onto Paramount+ so you can only see it there. It is a prequel explaining some of the backstory behind the original, although contradicting canon in some places and using popular call backs to entice fans instead. The cast has many talented actors, including David Duchovy, who plays the character Bill, but he isn’t really the lead and he’s not in the FBI investigating anything. Bill lost his son in the Vietnam War, and he’s faced with doing the wrong thing to cope with his death, but that’s not his character arc in Bloodlines. I’m not sure what his character arc is really in Bloodlines. The movie is filled undeveloped characters, dry dialogue, and it’s never really that entertaining.
Director Lyndsey Beer does a good job giving everyone something to do. I could have used more David Duchovny but that’s just me. Jackson White does a good job as the real lead, although he isn’t much more than a regular joe from any other horror movie. He wanders around because that’s his purpose in this movie. The scenes where Jackson White and David Duchovny work together are very well done because Duchovny brings a sense of authority and menace I’ve never seen him really stress before. Bloodlines explores the burden of family and the responsibility of it all and Beer uses the Judd character to frame it. The novel focuses more on grief and how that drives a person to want to reclaim one more minute with dead loved ones. Bloodlines doesn’t follow King’s themes and ideas, so it feels more detached and not really like a Pet Semetary movie.
Bloodlines answers questions nobody was asking. It takes a tiny bit of exposition from the first movie and expands on it in this prequel in a big way, which sorta ties it directly to the original. If you’ve seen the original, you know which characters are in that movie, so they can’t die in the prequel. This is sorta the thing about prequels and Beer doesn’t really do anything to skirt around this flaw. She just goes with it. She makes a more generic movie than anything I’ve ever seen, mostly because everything’s already set in place, and her main character Judd is just finding out about it for the first time. David Duchovny’s character has already made the decision to bury his son in the pet semetary and none of his initial decision is explored. In my opinion, that’s the pet semetary movie they needed to make. There’s a little bit of Duchovny’s character crying and feeling bad about his decision but he’s already made it and doesn’t know what to do. He wanders around with a gun so I guess that’s his arc. None of the pet semetary themes are fleshed out in a pet semetary movie because Jackson White has to wander around some more.
In the third act, there’s this zombie siege type scene and it doesn’t work except to add just more action and jump scares. It’s like the studio had a surprising, loud noise mandate throughout the movie, and a creature requirement. Many of the jump scares are just external stuff anyway not related to the story, like a truck suddenly driving by, until we get to the third act, where zombies can pop up and stalk people.
Overall, this is a terrible movie. It has high production values and the acting is okay—it’s just focused in the wrong areas. Pam Greer, David Duchovny, Henry Thomas and even Jackson White do a good job but everyone’s performance has the same dry, serious tone. Most of the middle section where Natalie Lind is running from zombies in the hospital is okay for action but it’s just generic but she’s not in most of the movie anyway. It’s like they needed a scene where Lind was running around with perfect hair and participating in the plot, but it’s just a generic action scene. I keep saying the same thing. It’s generic. Boring. It’s not pet semetary. Sorry if I’m repetitive, but that’s what it is. As the third act opens, all the characters just end up together and the action just ramps up some more, leaving the story behind. In my opinion, Jackson White gets too much screentime wandering around over Duchovny and his themes, which is what makes pet semetary what it is. There’s no moral questions in Bloodlines without the Duchovny character, so it’s pointless and doesn’t go anywhere. What is the point of this movie then? It’s difficult to tell.
