On the outset, Wake Wood is nothing short of unoriginal -- in fact, I'd warn anyone against reading the back of the Blu-ray case and learn its premise. It's likely one you've heard before: a husband and wife who recently suffered the loss of their young child move to a different town in hopes to start again, but find more than they bargained for: spooky things.
As with most movies about a husband and wife who have recently lost their child, the film opens on the death of the child, in this case, the daughter, that drove the father Patrick (Aiden Gillen) and mother Louise (Eva Birthistle) to relocate towns and start again. The scene of the daughter Alice (Ella Connolly) dying is probably as horrific as it could be, a scene involving a German Shepherd attacking and killing her. Make sure you have something soft nearby to throw at the TV, because the only reason she gets chewed to death is because she opens the growling dog's gate to feed it a piece of lunch meat. But the characters who inhabit the world of Wake Wood seem to do a whole lot of senseless things.
And it's that fact that makes Wake Wood a little different -- it's the movie's shameless pursuit of trying to have some fun. Movies that include an ordinary family coming into a tight-knit, creepy community with supernatural influences tend to be boring or super predictable. It strives to be a fun watch rather than make a flimsy attempt at leaving some indelible mark on you and cause sleepless nights. It's possible director David Keating didn't mean to make a movie that borders on silliness, but he has, and it's a good thing. He almost reaches a Sam Raimi-level of fun in this movie.
Once Patrick and Louise are settled in their new community, and even begin making friends, things get weird -- late at night, Louise accidentally stumbles upon a strange ritual happening in someone's back yard, what she later learns is some of the townsfolk essentially re-animating the dead. The process by which a person is brought back to life in Wake Wood is very involved, and a pretty large (and fun) chunk of the movie is dedicated to Patrick and Louise preparing to bring their daughter back. It's too much to type here, but it's one of the ways the movie indicates that it's attempting to take the genre a step further.
A price is paid, however, for some of the liberties the film takes in order to tell a fun story. In the movie Poltergeist, when all the crazy hoopla was going on in the house, the family remained grounded and rational in their responses, at least initially. With Wake Wood, you don't get that rational thought process from its two lead characters. The worst of this is the scene where the towns spiritual leader, Arthur (Timothy Spall), reveals the town's secret, and offers to bring back Patrick and Louise's daughter. The grieving couple accepts the fact that their daughter can be brought back to life about ten beats too fast, and simply accept it as a possibility with very little resistance. This little, tiny bit of dialogue destroys the integrity of their characters, and so instead of Patrick and Louise being our guide through the horror and mystery that engulfs the town of Wake Wood, we don't get a very good opportunity to latch on to the characters. In short, they're weirdos like the rest of Wake Wood.
But the movie is still enjoyable. The ending isn't anything terribly shocking, but what the ending implies isn't territory that's been seen in many horror movies. Even in the last shot, when Patrick gives a cheeky look at the audience and stares right at the camera, as if to say, "Oh yeah, we just went there," it's still forgivable if you consider how unoriginal most other cult-related movies are.
Extras:
There are some deleted scenes, as well as a trailer.
"Wake Wood" is on sale July 5, 2011 and is rated R. Horror. Directed by David Keating. Written by David Keating, Brendan McCarthy. Starring Aidan Gillen, Eva Birthistle, Timothy Spall.
