Dead is bedduh in the trailer for Paramount Plus’ Pet Sematary prequel

In the 1989 Pet Sematary movie, there’s an iconic scene where Fred Gwynne’s Jud Crandall tells new neighbor and friend Louis Creed about the real insidious nature of the nearby “pet sematary” that has the magical ability to bring dead things back to life—because it doesn’t just bring them back, it brings them back different. He explains that, back in the day, a local man buried his dead son in that ground and he came back as a violent zombie, terrifying the townsfolk and driving them to kill both the zombie and his farmer, which prompts Jud to quote that, “sometimes, dead is better.”

Now, how would you like to see that story play out over the course of an entire new movie rather than a couple of minutes in an existing movie? Well, Paramount+ has answered your calls in the form of Pet Sematary: Bloodlines, an upcoming prequel movie about young Jud encountering the pet sematary for the first time, and you can see a trailer for it right here:

Obviously there’s an odd catch to all of this, and it’s that star Jackson White isn’t even trying to do a comically exaggerated Maine accent like Gwynne did in the original film, which spoils a bit of the fun. Do you really want to hear Jud Crandall say “sometimes, dead is better” like some kind of Californian when you could hear him say “sometimes, dead is bedduh” like a proper middle-of-nowhere Mainer the way Stephen King intended? It wouldn’t even necessarily be as notable if this trailer didn’t build up to that big moment, with everyone waiting on the edge of their seat to hear how he says the famous line.

That aside, there are some interesting things here, like the cool animal masks, and we’ll never turn down an opportunity to see Pam Grier or David Duchovny—though, spoiler alert, Duchovny’s character might not make it out of this thing unscathed. Luckily, we know just the place to take him if he doesn’t survive. Anything would be better than having to mourn the death of a loved one…