I only heard about this movie last week when I stumbled on a trailer for it on YouTube. From the trailer I couldn't really tell what the movie was supposed to be about, but from what I could tell, it was produced by the legendary Hammer Films, seemed to have a definite cult vibe, and there were people covered in blood. So I gave it a go.
Wake Wood is the story of Patrick and Louise, who, after the recent death of their young daughter, Alice, move to the small town of Wake Wood to try and start over. But there's something mysterious going on in this rural town whose inhabitants share a strange secret. After witnessing a bizarre ritual one night at the home of Patrick's employer - played by Timothy Spall, the only person I recognized in this film - the couple soon discover that the townsfolk have the ability to return the dead to life. But there are rules:
1. Once resurrected, the person must stay within the boundary of the town.
2. They can only remain alive for three days.
And perhaps most importantly,
3. The person in question cannot have been dead for more than one year.
Give the opportunity to bring Alice back, the couple jump at the chance. But in bringing their daughter back from dead they've told a lie and already broken one of the rules. Alice isn't back long before things begin to go wrong. Animals are being discovered, mutilated. Soon people are too. When Alice came back she didn't come back right, now they'll have to get her back in the ground.
This was a pretty fun movie. I really enjoyed the overall tone of the film. And who isn't a fan of kids being scary? Put simply, Wake Wood is a nice amalgam of Pet Sematary and The Wicker Man, with maybe a tough of The Bad Seed. There's a bit of a surprise to the ending as well which I appreciated. There were a few things I didn't like though. The thing that bothered me most were the killings we witness. Though there isn't anything really wrong with them, they just felt very boring and unimaginative to me; maybe I'm just tainted. This seemed like it might have been fixed had these scenes been filmed a bit differently so as to add a bit intensity and savagery to them, to make the audience feel it; I'm seeing a Rob Zombie-esque death scene in my head. Also, this is clearly a fairly low budget movie, and while most of the time this is a nonissue, there are a few moments in the film where there seemed a slight drop in quality. Neither of these are really major issues though.
This film is much more character driven rather than being driven by action so you shouldn't go into this expecting big scares and gore. The horror factor here is definitely more of the creeping, eerie style more than anything else. Overall I would definitely suggest Wake Wood. Though I wouldn't recommend watching with children nearby.
Day 30 = Dark Night of the Scarecrow (1981).
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