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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Studio 666 (2022)

It would not be an entirely unreasonable reaction if you rolled your eyes when you heard that the Foo Fighters were starring in a horror movie that had them playing themselves. Based on an idea by Dave Grohl, this could have easily been a complete disaster. It isn’t. In fact, it is a lot of fun.

It is time for the Foo Fighters to release a new album. Their tenth album. It’s a big deal. Unfortunately, Dave Grohl seems to have no original ideas left. He has songwriter’s block. Growing ever more desperate, the band eventually relocate to an empty mansion in Encino, a place with a history of rock ‘n’ roll . . . and murder. It isn’t long until things start to get strange, and Dave becomes the focal point for a destructive supernatural force.

Directed by BJ McDonnell, a man with an appropriate directorial background in heavy metal music videos and the third Hatchet movie, Studio 666 is a gloriously gory and silly horror movie, stuffed with all the right nods and winks to show that everyone involved knows exactly what they’re doing (from John Carpenter music, and a cameo from the legendary director, to a fantastic homage to The Burning, and much more). Writers Jeff Buhler and Rebecca Hughes may not have filmographies that inspire confidence, but they do well here in just having fun with the concept and characters.

Which brings us on to the Foo Fighters themselves. Grohl and the gang have always had fun onscreen over the years, in a variety of videos and with any appearance that catches them making one another laugh in interviews, and they’re all suited to the task of playing versions of themselves being surrounded by horror movie tropes. It may be bittersweet for fans to now see Taylor Hawkins here, so soon after his untimely passing, but I am glad that this got made with the whole gang present, with everyone able to bring a bit of their own personality and humour to make it a hugely entertaining ensemble piece. There are also small, fun, roles for Jeff Garlin, Whitney Cummings, and Leslie Grossman, as well as a surprisingly decent number of CG evil entities appearing in numerous scenes.

Last, but not least, this matches the number of gags with some grisly deaths that should impress even the hardiest of gorehounds. Electrocution, barbecue grill, shears, chainsaw, all of these things and more are used in despatching various characters, and one of them is a contender for the most impressive bit of bloody FX work I have seen in the past few years.

Your enjoyment of this will, obviously, partially depend on how much you like the Foo Fighters, but I would encourage every horror movie fan to give this a go. It’s a knowing and sharp blend of old and new, and also counts as a fun addition to that subgenre known as “heavy metal horror”. 

8/10

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Netflix And Chill: The Prodigy (2019)

There's probably a good movie to be made about The Prodigy, the British dance band that suffered the sad loss of charismatic member Keith Flint last year. There's so much energy and attitude there, and quite the journey through rave culture and beyond. Having said that, there's also probably a good movie to be made about a child prodigy. A "bad seed" child with the smarts and innovation to start killing many people they encounter without relying on the stupidity of others to avoid being caught. Or just a child mentally developing so rapidly that it causes them to lash out, mood swings and strong arguments being put on display that are far removed from the standard behaviour of a child at that age.

The Prodigy isn't any of those. It's a depressingly dull slog through familiar material, trudging from one predictable moment to the next, lacking tension, scares, and energy. If you ever decide to give yourself a triple-bill of home viewings and you pick The Prodigy as one of your options then place it in the middle, to be carried by the other two a la Weekend At Bernies.

Here's the plot, because I suppose I must. Taylor Schilling and Peter Mooney are Sarah and John Blume, and they have a son, Miles (Jackson Robert Scott). Miles is a very smart cookie. Which doesn't matter much, not until he starts to speak a different language in his sleep and show signs of being what is known in proper medical terminology as . . . an evil little shit. That's all I'll say. There IS more to it, but a) I don't want to spoil anything for those who like to know as little as possible, and b) I can't be bothered expending more energy on something so lazy and horrible.

Director Nicholas McCarthy has a decent filmography, from those I have seen. The Pact is a supernaturally-tinged thriller that worked well with genre tricks, while At The Devil's Door was an improvement, in terms of confidence and atmosphere. So it's a shame to see him take this big step back. I'm not going to give him all the blame though, because Jeff Buhler is the person who wrote the screenplay, and Jeff Buhler seems to be doing his best to upset horror fans recently, considering his work on this, Pet Sematary, the Jacob's Ladder remake, and The Grudge reboot/reworking/sequel. I really enjoyed his first screenplay over a decade ago, Midnight Meat Train, but perhaps that was more down to the vision of the director than anything that Buhler put on the page.

Cast-wise, there's nobody helping to make this more bearable. Schilling and Mooney are just present, Scott makes mean faces, usually changing suddenly after making sweet faces, and Colm Feore is the only one managing to stand out from the supporting cast that includes Paul Fauteux, Brittany Allen, and Paula Boudreau.

There's a minimum degree of competency in all departments, which saves it from being among the worst of the worst, but this is an absolutely dire mainstream horror movie. Viewers aren't drawn in at the beginning, the middle section meanders from one incident to the next without much sense, and the ending is as unengaging as it is tiresomely nonsensical, and also painfully predictable.

3/10

Don't buy the movie here.
Americans can not buy it here.

Pet Sematary (2019)

You probably already know all about Pet Sematary. You may have already seen this movie. Or you saw the trailer, that gave away one big twist that the film used to distance itself from the 1989 original. Or you saw the 1989 original (lots of people view that one with fondness). Or maybe, just maybe, you read the book before any of the movies appeared. I was in a peak Stephen King period at that point in my life, devouring many of his works, and read it as soon as I could. I was old enough to enjoy it and still young enough to somehow miss the obvious fact that it was the ultimate way for King to rework one of his favourite ever tales, "The Monkey's Paw".

Jason Clarke and Amy Seimetz are Louis and Rachel, a married couple with two children, Ellie (Jeté Laurence) and Gage (played by twins Hugo and Lucas Lavoie). They have just moved in to a new home, somewhere that seems potentially idyllic for them. If it wasn't for that road nearby that sometimes has large trucks hurtling down it. There's a friendly neighbour (Jud, played by John Lithgow), at least, and he is the one with some extra information when they discover that somewhere on their land is the titular "pet sematary". Tragedy strikes. The nearby ground has powers. Sometimes dead is better. All of those three things will converge in the second half of the film.

It's a shame that Matt Greenberg helped to write the screenplay for 1408, one of the better Stephen King adaptations in the last fifteen years. A shame because that may lead you to believe that his work here, fleshed out by Jeff Buhler, will be good. It's really not. In fact, it's ridiculously lazy in places. Whether making changes to the source material that don't seem to be for the better or failing to shake off the spectre of the original film, Pet Sematary shambles from one bad decision to the next. It's telling to say that some of the better moments here feel so enjoyable because they could easily have come from any late '80s/early 90s Stephen King movie adaptation.

The casting is the best thing here. And that's working around the fact that the lead actor is Jason Clarke, a man who surely owes his career to being occasionally confused for Joel Edgerton by harried casting agents. I've seen him do decent work onscreen but he's rarely the best choice for any lead role, and doesn't have much charisma that you expect to find in most leading men. Fortunately, Seimetz is much better, and you have Lithgow doing the best he can to put his own spin on the character of Jud (no small feat when you remember how great Fred Gwynne was in the original). The children are also very good, with Laurence given more opportunity to shine than either of the Lavoie twins. And kudos to the cats involved (oh, animal lovers be warned, the death of a cat is the real turning point in the plot).

Directors Kevin Kölsch and Dennis Widmyer have done some great work together. Starry Eyes remains a film I will happily recommend to any horror fans after something different. Seeing them churn out something so ill-judged and poor is slightly depressing. It made a profit, although I am not sure if it was a good enough profit to please those who keep count or just enough to ensure people kept their jobs, so I am sure that they will get more work after this. I just hope they go back to doing something of their own creation.

The original novel or the 1989 movie, take your pick. Both of those options are much better than sitting through this. And I couldn't even be bothered to mention the new incarnation of Zelda (played this time by Alyssa Brooke Levine), all too familiar to fans of the original, but also with another pointless change that adds nothing to this empty experience.

3/10

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