WAKE WOOD comes out of the new wave of Hammer Horror films after LET ME IN and THE RESIDENT. Much like all the classic UK horror films it deals with rural, pagan villages that conduct ungodly rituals, much in the vein of THE WICKER MAN and BLOOD ON SATAN’S CLAW.
One year after the death of their daughter, Alice, Louise (Eva Birthistle/BREAKFAST ON PLUTO) and Patrick (Aidan Gillen/THE WIRE) move to the small town of Wake Wood. Patrick acts as the town’s new veterinary, taking over from the town’s patriarchal figure of Timothy Spall (DAMNED UNITED) while Louise runs the local pharmacy. One night Louise stumbles across a bizarre ritual which looked to be the birth of a full grown man. What it actually was is the townsfolk have the ability to resurrect a person one year to the day of their death too say a final goodbye. There are a few conditions, the person will only be back for three days before having to return to the other side and it can only happen if someone has just died to act as a surrogate. When Louise and Patrick learn of this they do everything they can to bring their daughter back. In doing so they break nearly every rule and because of this Alice comes back wrong.
The film in it’s premise is not a particularly unique one in British or Irish horror films but it’s execution is. Normally the pagan worshipping town are the evil ones but in this they are peacefully and do the ritual as a form of accepting death and overcoming grief. Timothy Spall plays the head of Wake Wood perfectly with an air of creepiness to begin with but later is a sympathetic character who is being targeted by the ‘devil child’, Alice, even with his abysmal Irish accent. Patrick and Louis are believable as the grief and desperate stricken parents, willing to do anything for another day with their dead child. Alice on the other hand does not have the acting chops to pull off the little, murderous scamp and this is where the film falls down. WAKE WOOD’s whole story hinges on the believability and scary factor of the kid and it just isn’t there with her only providing one scary scene but that is primarily down to the acting of her victim, Ruth McCabe.
The film has some nice gruesome scenes with the mauling of Alice by a dog and then the flaying of another dog. Also the end brings a nice sense of dread and disgust which is a satisfying surprise. As a very low budget horror feature from director/writer David Keating and Brendan McCarthy it is a good start even if it doesn’t live up to it’s fulliest potential. As a horror film it does defy a lot of genre conventions and for just that it is worth viewing but as previously stated it does suffer from a major fault in the acting of Ella Connolly as Alice.
WAKE WOOD is out as of this Friday.
