There’s been no shortage of disappointing Stephen King adaptations over the decades, but Pet Sematary: Bloodlines still conspired to score some of the worst reviews the legendary author’s live-action back catalogue has ever seen.
On Rotten Tomatoes, the 20 percent approval rating held by director Lindsey Anderson Beer’s prequel adapted from a passage in a book that was already brought to the screen in 1989, awarded a sequel, and then rebooted 30 years later before being dusted off again comfortably places it among the bottom tier of page-to-screen translations inspired by King’s bibliography.
In fact, of the 52 King movies currently ranked on the aggregation site, only eight of them have fared worse among critics, which isn’t ideal company to find yourself in. Regardless of what the reviews say, though, Bloodlines was given the stamp of approval by the man himself, even if there’s clearly a lot of people out there who’d disagree.
It’s a small mercy, but it’s one that wasn’t lost on Beer during an interview with CBR, where she made the salient point of noting that King doesn’t exactly hand out his endorsements for everything.
“I have not been in personal contact with him. At each critical step of the way, for instance, when we had our shooting script, we wanted to get his approval. He read it, gave us the thumbs-up, and said he really liked it, so that was a big relief. He tweeted a couple of weeks ago that he gave his thumbs-up to the film as well, and he’s very vocal when he doesn’t like things. I’m glad that it didn’t go another way!”
The mastermind behind its inspiration thought it was solid, which is about the only positive you can take away from Pet Sematary: Bloodlines, although it’s hardly an invalid accolade given King’s status.