The dog that plays Hedricks is an Australian Cattle Dog named Jellybean. Jellybean was born in Reno Nevada. He holds three Guinness world records and is completely deaf.
Several semis are shown speeding down the road. This is a nod to the original film where a semi was the catalyst to the plot.
This marks the fifth appearance for Henry Thomas in a Stephen King adaptation after appearing in Desperation (2006), Nightmares & Dreamscapes: From the Stories of Stephen King (2006), Gerald's Game (2017), and Doctor Sleep (2019).
The character Donna wields a scalpel as a nod to the original Pet Sematary (1989), wherein Gage ends up wielding the same-style scalpel.
In a 2023 interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Lindsey Anderson Beer spoke about her film in relation to Pet Sematary (2019): "I was actually not trying to tailor it to the 2019 film. In my head, it's a prequel to the book. Jeff Buhler was the writer on Bloodlines before I came aboard, so I have no idea where conversations started with him and the producers. Perhaps they talked about it more specifically as a prequel to the 2019 movie, but in my mind, so much of the mythology is kind of rewritten. I was just trying to do my own thing, and the book, to me, is what was sacred. So I just treated that as my North Star."