“Pet Sematary: Bloodlines” tells the backstory fromStephen King’s1983 novel that’s only been alluded to in previous incarnations.

It’s a better horror movie than the2019 remake, but like Mary Lambert’s 1989 production, it still feels unnecessary. Cool as the concept of a magic graveyard that brings beloved pets and, later, not so lovely people back from the dead may be, this remains second-rate King movie material.

Set in 1969, this story is the blood baptism of Jud Crandall, played as a much older character by Fred Gwynne in ’89 and John Lithgow in 2019. Jackson White (“Tell Me Lies”) is a hunky, otherwise uninteresting young Jud about to leave Ludlow, Maine — something no resident has done for good since colonial times, we’re told — to join the Peace Corps. But a busted windshield and dog-bit girlfriend delay his exit.

Jud’s childhood pal Timmy (Jack Mulhern, “Mare of Easttown”) is just back from Vietnam after his disastrous exit from Ludlow. The traumatized veteran is virtually (or literally?) a ghost of his former self, and both he and his father Bill (David Duchovny) sneer at unsuspecting Jud for getting a phony medical deferment.

“What was it, bone spurs?” Jud angrily asks his father, Dan (Henry Thomas), who indeed conspired with a local doctor to keep his son out of the military draft. Dan and other town elders — who include the always welcome but underused Pam Grier — have kept the secret of Ludlow’s reanimating evil spirit from the young’uns, and Dan had hoped to get Jud safely away from there before he had to deal with it.

Fat chance of that happening now, as Timmy lopes around confronting his former friends with knowledge of their deepest fears, then drags their loved ones off into icky tunnels. Another ex-buddy of Jud and Timmy’s, Manny (Forrest Goodluck, “The Revenant”), hears voices from the woods and sees dead sunflowers dripping blood.

It’s never really explained why Jud, Manny and Timmy fell out. That, coupled with some abrupt transitions and awkwardly edited sequences, gives the impression that “Bloodlines” was recut by someone who thought (wrongly) they could make it better.

太糟糕了,因为第一次导演林赛还多son Beer and co-adapter Jeff Buhler have some nice ideas that never quite gel. Moving the time frame two decades forward from the reference in King’s book enhances the piece’s anti-war themes and enables some fun hippie-era touches. The indigenous Mi’kmaqs’ first encounters with New England settlers are suspensefully dramatized. Manny and his sister Donna (Isabella Star LeBlanc in the film’s best performance) explore aspects of their Native heritage while their parents are off occupying Alcatraz.

Bree-Anna Lehto’s special makeup effects give off powerful decrepit vibes. And Beer knows how to stage scary action when she’s allowed to. The stalking sequence in a white-walled hospital is the film’s horror high point, visceral and dreamlike in equal measure. A couple more like that and “Pet Sematary: Bloodlines” would’ve been a resurrection worth doing. If you’re looking for a real franchise reanimator, though, go see “Saw X.”

Bob Strauss is a freelance writer.