Pet Sematary: Bloodlines takes us back to 40 years before 2019's Pet Sematary remake to explore the backstory of John Lithgow's Jud – and director Lindsey Anderson Beer is keen to delve even further into the world from Stephen King's 1983 novel.
"You could do so many movies within the Pet Sematary universe that peel back the onion more and show more and more of what this evil really is, and really comes from, but I certainly have lots of versions of a very extensive origin story in my head," Beer tells SFX magazine in the new issue, which features The Exorcist: Believer on the cover.
She says additional films in this world "would be something that I would be further interested in exploring. It was definitely a tightrope to balance because I didn’t want to give it all away. I also feel like if you explain too much, it almost becomes more confusing, but I was trying to just explain enough that it felt intriguing and satisfying in and of itself, but would beg more questions."
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The decision to have this installment be a prequel to the 2019 remake predated Beer’s involvement in the project. She says that the producers felt that the story of Timmy Baterman – who appeared extensively in the novel but less so in the 1989 film – was the best place to land a prequel, because it hadn’t been properly explored before.
“It’s such an interesting piece of the lore, because the book basically implies that it was because Jud had this interaction with the evil and Timmy earlier in his life that the evil was now targeting him as an adult, but that’s not something we ever learn in the film. So it seems like such an important missing piece in the mythology that I’m really glad that’s what they chose to focus in on.”
Pet Sematary: Bloodlines arrives on Paramount Plus on October 6. The above is just a snippet of our interview, available in the latest issue of SFX Magazine, which features The Exorcist: Believer on the cover and is available on newsstands from Wednesday, October 4. For even more from SFX, sign up for the newsletter, sending all the latest exclusives straight to your inbox.
