Starring David Duchovny, Pam Grier, Henry Thomas

Directed by Lindsey Anderson Beer

Paramount+

In 1969 a young Jud Crandall and his childhood friends band together to confront an ancient evil that has gripped their hometown of Ludlow. 

The fourth version of Stephen King’s grim novel follows two adaptations and a sequel. First-time director Lindsey Anderson Beer co-writes with Jeff Buhler, who wrote the screen story for the 2019 remake, but is unable to add anything new to the story.

The main problem here is that the story just doesn’t warrant being turned into a film in its own right. Fred Gwynne played the role of Jud Crandall in the 1989 movie and told an apocryphal tale about Timmy Bateman returning from the grave, stressing that ‘sometimes dead is better.’ In this movie we get to see Crandall’s involvement in full, which is a lot more involved than the previous movies suggested.

You see, Crandall is related to one of the town’s elders and is doomed to suffer the curse of those who established the town by foul means – hence the bloodlines of the title. In fairness, this is keeping with King’s oft-used theme of a town hosting evil, as seen in IT’s Derry, Children of the Corn’s Gatlin and ’Salem’s Lot’s eponymous location.

It’s not a bad film per se, the young leads acquitting themselves well against genre favourites like David Duchovny, Pam Grier and Henry Thomas. It’s just that it plays out by numbers, with no suspense and an obvious inevitability about how it’s all going to wrap up.

Verdict: A unnecessary prequel that not only fails to add anything to the overarching story but muddies our understanding what has already been established. 4/10

Nick Joy