Warning: Major spoilers for Pet Sematary: Bloodlines below!

Summary

• Pet Sematary: Bloodlines expands on the character of Jud Crandall and turns him into a potential villain, explaining his actions in the 2019 film.
• The prequel also hints at the fate of Jud's wife Norma, suggesting she was later brought back to life and tried to kill him. A potential sequel could explore this further.
• While there is room for more Pet Sematary stories, it may be best to let the franchise rest unless there is a truly compelling story at it's core.

Another entry in the Pet Sematary franchise can cement one Stephen King character's turn to the dark side. Pet Sematary is easily one of King's darkest tales, and the author has itted it's one of the stories that disturbed him the most too. It has become an unlikely movie franchise too, with the original 1989 adaptation spawning a direct sequel, while the 2019 remake also received a prequel in Bloodlines. While King was mixed on Pet Sematary Two as it wasn't based on anything he'd written, he gave a social media endorsement to Bloodines.

That's because it adapted a key chapter from his novel, where Ludlow resident Jud Crandall recounts the tragic tale of Timmy Batterman. The prequel greatly expanded on this age, of course, adding a bigger bodycount and some backstory for the town. It also detailed Jud's (Jackson White's) own familial connection to Ludlow and Pet Sematary: Bloodlines ending explained why he and future wife Norma (Natalie Alyn Lind) stayed there despite the bloodshed. Given all he experienced in the prequel, Jud's actions in the 2019 film - where he's played by John Lithgow - become truly baffling, but one more sequel could help bridge that gap.

The Next Pet Sematary Can Make Jud The Franchise's Biggest Villain

When Bloodlines begins, young Jud is ready to leave the depressing little town behind with Norma. He's also blissfully unaware of the dark forces in the woods, or what happens when something is buried in the titular burial ground, but he soon gets a crash course in "sometimes, dead is better." By the time the prequel has ended, his father Dan (Henry Thomas) and many other residents are dead, and Jud had to put down the evil, reanimated corpse of former best friend Timmy (Jack Mulhern).

Jud also puts his own future to one side to remain in Ludlow and protect it from future resurrections. Knowing the chaos bringing an animal or person back can bring, it's astonishing that he would later key Louis (Jason Clarke) into the "Sematary's" reviving qualities decades later, which only kicked off a new cycle of death. While Bloodlines teased that another entry could explore how the town itself was founded, maybe another Pet Sematary movie should explore Jud's fall to the dark side.

Bloodlines reframes his actions in the 2019 film as misguided at best and downright villainous at worst. Another sequel that takes place about 20 years later could reveal how the "evil" in Ludlow gradually broke down Jud's defenses over the years - which is a concept the prequel briefly touches upon - and that another tragedy could have convinced him the occasional resurrection isn't such a bad idea.

Pet Sematary: Bloodlines 2 Can Reveal What Happened To Jud's Wife Norma

The 2019 remake briefly touches upon Norma's fate and implies during the scene where Ellie (Jeté Laurence) kills Jud that he had brought Norma back after she died. A Collider article revealed that there was once more backstory about Norma in the film, with a mysterious scar on Jud's arm eventually being explained as a stab wound caused by his late wife. The film was meant to confirm that following her death the distraught Jud had revived her via the cemetery, and she thanked him by trying to murder him,

This was one plot thread too many for the final edit, so it was removed. That said, the implication remains in the film, so a potential Pet Sematary: Bloodlines 2 could flesh this out further. Bloodlines already indicates that the cycle of bloodshed in Ludlow is almost doomed to repeat itself, and can reveal that despite his best efforts to protect the town, Jud eventually succumbed to the Wendigo's insidious influence.

Will Another Pet Sematary Happen?

Bloodlines received a mixed response, and being a Paramount+ exclusive, it's hard to say how it's actually performed for the streamer. There's certainly room for more Pet Sematary stories should producers want to revisit the concept, be it a sequel set in between Bloodlines and the remake, or even one set beyond the events of the 2019 film. That said, unless there's a compelling story behind it, perhaps it's best to let the unlikely franchise rest. Even a sequel following Jud's descent into an accidental villain could just repeat the key beats of past films, and it wouldn't even have any basis in King's own writing to help it.

Source: Collider