Pet Sematary: Bloodlines Announced for Fantastic Fest

Pet Sematary: Bloodlines has will be one of the films at this year’s Fantastic Fest horror movie convention – before it premieres on Paramount+. 

Fantastic Fest 2023 will feature quite a lineup of movies: Game of Thrones‘ Peter Kinklage will be starring in the reboot of The Toxic Avenger; the V/H/S franchise will continue with V/H/S/85, while Blumhouse/Amazon will close out the festival with Nahnatchka Khan’s time-travel slasher comedy film, Totally Killer. Netflix will also premiere its new horror-themed series The Fall of the House of Usher, which is the latest work of Mike Flanagan (Haunting of Hill House, Midnight Mass).

What Is Pet Sematary: Bloodlines About?

In 1969, a young Jud Crandall has dreams of leaving his hometown of Ludlow, Maine behind, but soon discovers sinister secrets buried within and is forced to confront a dark family history that will forever keep him connected to Ludlow. Banding together, Jud and his childhood friends must fight an ancient evil that has gripped Ludlow since its founding, and once unearthed has the power to destroy everything in its path.”

The name fans of the series will recognize is “Jud Crandall,” the elderly neighbor who appears in the original Pet Sematary story. Jud had knowledge and experience with the old burial ground and its supernatural powers – as evidenced by his now iconic line, “Sometimes, dead is better.” Pet Sematary: Bloodlines will finally show us the terrible truth of how Jud came to appreciate that saying. 

While Bloodlines is the fourth Pet Sematary movie, it will be the first in the series to jump back in time before the story of  Louis Creed and his family, in the first film. That prequel status can open some new doors for the whole Pet Sematary concept, while also throwing some potential twists into our assumed knowledge of what the Creed family was really up against. 

The first Pet Sematary, made in 1989, starred Fred Gwynne as Jud Crandall; Pet Sematary Two was released in 1992 but didn’t hit well at the box office, or with audiences. Pet Sematary stayed buried until Paramount released a  Pet Sematary remake in 2019, which made $113 million on a $21 million budget, and kept the rights at Paramount (instead of them reverting to Stephen King’s estate). John Lithgow played the role of Jud Crandall in the 2019 remake; Jackson White will play the younger version of Crandall in Bloodlines.

Pet Sematary: Bloodlines stars Samantha Mathis, David Duchovny, Henry Thomas,