Pet Sematary: Bloodlines (2023)

Although I didn’t feel optimistic about Pet Sematary: Bloodlines, I figured that it didn’t have to do too much to be an improvement upon the previous instalment in what has become another unnecessary expansion of a Stephen King property. Look, we all know that nobody was crying out for a prequel, but the premise always has potential for macabre fun.

Set decades in the past, of course, the tale focuses on a young Judson Crandall (Jackson White). Of course. He is keen to leave his home town, set to start life anew with his girlfriend (Norma, played by Natalie Alyn Lind), but things conspire against him. There’s a grumpy dog, to put it mildly, and a very grumpy young man who has recently returned from war (Timmy, played by Jack Mulhern).

Directed by first-timer Lindsey Anderson Beer, who also co-wrote the screenplay with Jeff Buhler, a lot of Pet Sematary: Bloodlines is easily enjoyable as a standard riff on the central idea. Unfortunately, as soon as you start to think about everything fully, about how the situation would affect the central character of Jud, the whole thing falls apart. The main idea of Pet Sematary can be reworked, but it feels wrong when viewers are shown a character that we know ended up voluntarily putting himself in the same dire situation more than once in his adult life. Fool Jud once, shame on you. Fool Jud twice, shame on Jud. The other big problem that the film has is the fact that a fair chunk of the final sequence is filmed while someone forgot to get the lighting right. I peered at one dark and murky scene after another while I tried to maintain consideration for characters who might be in peril. Or they might have gone off to do their weekly grocery shopping. I don’t know. Because I couldn’t see a damn thing.

There’s nothing else that stands out, for better or worse. The rest of the visuals, the effects, and the score are all perfunctory. Nothing feels cheap or rushed, nor does it feel like a nervous debut (I hope Beer is given a better opportunity with her next project), and it is helped by a cast that would all shine if the film around them was better.

White and Lind are both easy to root for, although we already know certain facts about their fate already, and there are also good turns from Forrest Goodluck and Isabella LaBlanc, two other “youngsters” who end up in serious danger, while Mulhern has to look mean and moody as everyone around him starts to realise how much he has changed. There are welcome supporting turns from Pam Grier, David Duchovny, Henry Thomas, and Samantha Mathis, each one doing their best to distract you from the flaws inherent in the screenplay.

Those flaws are unavoidable though, ensuring that this could never be viewed as a great film. If it wasn’t connected to other films then it might have fared a bit better, but it is, and it subsequently suffers from the connection that undermines it. It’s still better than the last film to have Pet Sematary in the title though, which allows it to be both disappointing and also a very minor success.

4/10

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Netflix And Chill: How To Blow Up A Pipeline (2023)

While this is only the second film from director Daniel Goldhaber, he's already marked himself out as someone I am always interested. Cam was a fantastic feature debut, and this shows a consistency of form while he moves comfortably from the horror genre into more dramatic, but no less thought-provoking, territory.

In case the title of this film hasn't already made you aware of the content, this is all about a group of people endeavouring to blow up a pipeline. That may seem like a foolhardy mission, and one likely to end in failure, but certain scenes are shown in non-chronological order to illustrate the many extra provisions put in place by activists determined to succeed against overwhelming odds. 

Based on a book by Andreas Malm, adapted for the screen by Goldhaber, Jordan Sjol, and Ariela Barer (who also stars onscreen in a main role), How To Blow Up A Pipeline feels like a film that is very much needed right now. Goldhaber definitely picks a side, which you might say is obvious from the fact that he even made the film at all, but we're at a point in our lives when picking the right side seems like the obviously right thing to do. The planet is burning (sometimes literally), profits are being put ahead of health and safety on a scale that is frankly horrendous, even if that isn't a problem inherent to modern life, and a lot of the news articles and coverage of this situation, and the protesters who have been ramping up their disruption and exposure, tend to frame it as yet another issue in which both sides have valid points to make about the climate change crisis. The data points to only one side being correct, and anyone who wants to deny the catastrophic events of climate change going on around us should do us both a favour now and stop reading. 

Anyway, apologies, back to the film itself. While not exactly lauding the characters as saints, Goldhaber and co. do a fantastic job of using the non-linear narrative to show the motivating factors here, and to make you view their actions as more naive and potentially damaging than they actually are. The clear visuals (from cinematographer Tehillah De Castro, working on only their second feature in this role, I believe, having done numerous music videos and short films) are accompanied by a very good score from Gavin Brivik (who also worked on Cam with Goldhaber), helped by a script that reflects the conviction of our leads while also conveying the attitudes of those who view them as criminals and ignorant pests.

Barer is very good in her role, but I wouldn't feel right singling any one person out from the others. Kristine Froseth, Lukas Gage, Forrest Goodluck, Sasha Lane, Jayme Lawson, Marcus Scribner, and Jake Weary play the core activists, and each and every one of them has a different, but equally important, part to play in the grand plan. They are also working together for a number of different reasons that all happen to stem from the one big issue, and the performances effortlessly show the different types of relationships within the central group (whether they are lifelong friends or newly connected by the requirements of their mission) and why they are so determined to strike a blow for eco-terrorism.

There's a famous Albert Camus quote that more of us should remember on a daily basis: "The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion." That applies more and more nowadays to people who are striving to correct the balance of a world that is being shifted so far off its axis as to be unrecognisable from what it once was. How To Blow Up A Pipeline reminds us that, despite the headlines and opinion pieces, a lot of people you may view with disrespect and disdain are actually risking a hell of a lot to benefit all of us in the long run. You can apply that to the many people currently taking strike action around the world as easily as you can apply it to the eco-terorrism featured here, and I hope this film succeeds in reframing the mindset of at least a few people who sit down to watch it.

8/10

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The Miseducation Of Cameron Post (2018)

When Cameron Post (Chloe Grace Moretz) is caught in a sexual encounter with another girl, she is sent away to a gay conversion therapy centre. Here she meets Reverend Rick (John Gallagher Jr) and his sister, Dr. Lydia Marsh (Jennifer Ehle), who run the centre, and other teenagers who are supposed to be being "cured" of their sickness. The teens include Cameron's roommate, Erin (Emily Skeggs), and the likes of Jane (Sasha Lane), Adam (Forrest Goodluck), and Mark (Owen Campbell). Very few of them seem to believe what the adults are trying to sell to them, but that doesn't make the whole process any less harmful.

The fact that The Miseducation Of Cameron Post can both make you very angry while also proving to be enjoyable entertainment is testament to the quality work put in by everyone involved, from page (it's base on a novel by Emily M. Danforth) to screen.

Indeed, there are many scenes here that you've seen many times before. Standard coming-of-age stuff, or moments of individuals who feel like outcasts meeting kindred spirits and finding strength in that revelation that they're not as alone as they first thought. But everything is freshened up by the setting, the background to why all of these characters are here, and not just the teenagers but the adults too (it's revealed early on that Reverend Rick was "cured" some time ago).

All of the younger cast members do great work, although it's strange that Moretz, who is often so good, feels like she spends many scenes taking a step back while she remains the lead character. This isn't a major criticism, it's a compliment if anything, but Cameron is more our lens through which we get to view this warped world rather than someone going on their own journey. She may be moved around physically but Cameron very rarely feels anything but disdain for the process that she has been pushed into. The same goes for the characters played by Lane and Goodluck, both are confident in just knowing who they are while trying to do what needs done to placate the adults and get themselves out of there as quickly as possible. More interesting conflict comes from the moments involving Skeggs, who tries to act positively saintly at times, and Campbell, who obviously feels the most pain from how his sexuality has damaged his relationship with an uncaring father. Ehle is very good, and most worryingly self-satisfied at the fact that they are doing the right thing for the teenagers they view as sick, but Gallagher Jr. is given at least one great moment in which he expresses a major moment of self-doubt and shows that the harm being caused, the lives being potentially shattered, all stem from someone who means well but is also being ignorant and selfish. We all know what road is paved with good intentions.

Director Desiree Akhavan, who also co-wrote the screenplay with Cecilia Frugiuele, does an excellent job of showing who is in the right and who is in the wrong without turning anyone into outright heroes or villains. You can easily boo and hiss the adults here, and with good reason, but the script and direction doesn't demonise them. What induces rage and frustration also induces no small amount of sadness, and the inevitable thought that these people work with teenagers because adults would be in more of as position to shut their bullshit down within seconds and push them aside as they headed out the door.

The Miseducation Of Cameron Post is, undoubtedly, a film about abuse, and the way in which it sugarcoats the bitter pill is very impressive indeed, making it more accessible to some who might otherwise have avoided it. Check it out when you can, and I hope you're also moved and angered by it.

8/10

You can buy the movie here.
Americans can buy it here.