Wake Wood: Return Of The Indie Brit Flick

9th October, 2014.

You know, I don’t get much cash: I really don’t.

You’ve possibly realised that, haven’t you?   After all, I’ve made secret of the fact I'm job-hunting at the moment: and receiving benefits.

Frankly … ?

Well, frankly, life is survivable.

That doesn’t mean it’s bad, just that resources are scarce.   And that the little cash I do get … ?

Gets juggled.

Frequently.

Something I AM glad of … ?   Is that I occasionally have enough cash to — once in a blue moon — buy an iTunes gift card.

That iTunes store credit — with the kit I’ve got — can be turned into all sorts things: games, songs … 

Movies rentals … 

It’s movie rentals I’m meaning to tell you, about, to be frank.

You see, being very aware there’s little on TV I’d any interest in watching, tonight, and having some iTunes credit, meant one thing to me.

Renting a movie.

It has to be said, there was only one film that caught my eye.

The 2011, David Keating directed horror flick that is Wake Wood.

It’s not a stunner, Wake Wood.

It’s interesting, though … 

~≈◊≈~

10th October, 2014.

Wake Wood sees Aiden Gillen and Eva Birthistle as Patrick and Louise: a young couple who’ve moved to the sleepy rural village of Wake Wood, after the death of their daughter, Alice: played by Ella Connelly.

The couple are, understandable, distraught: with Louise wanting a divorce, and Patrick refusing.

Louise’s emotional state isn’t helped by strange events in town: including what looks like a strange ritual the house of neighbour — and Patrick’s employer — Arthur (Timothy Spall.)

It’s only after a conversation with one of the odder residents, Mary, that Louise and Patrick realise there’s hope they can see Alice, again.

It turn’s out Arthur knows how to make that happen.

Knows they need a fresh corpse: like the one of a local farmer, crushed by a bull.   Knows they need to steal some jewellery from their daughter’s dead body.

And know, that Alice can’t have been dead for more than a year.

That’s  before Patrick and Louise get near the ritual that revives Alice.

Once she’s up and about … ?

Patrick and Louise only have three more days with their daughter.

That’s if they ignore the fact one or two neighbours are telling them something’s gone wrong … 

~≈◊≈~

Now … was I stunned … ?

Was I left with a jaw-bone hitting the floor, in shock and awe at a film both profound, sublime and redolent with humanity’s capacity for good and evil?

Well, no.

But … ?

But it is IS a piece that speaks to us of the sort of Faustian deal that ANY of us would happily make in that kind of situation.

After all, who wouldn’t — however wrong it could conceivably be — want to bring back a lost loved one: especially a lost child?

Who wouldn’t want to keep that loved one around for as long as possible?   Who wouldn’t make any pact — with any demon, genie or wizard — from something on these lines.

None of us, I think.

I have to say, I think Wake Wood shows us exactly what happens when desperation meets magic … 

ONE of them has to lose.

For all it’s low budget sensibilities, for all it only too £1,251 in its only weekend on theatrical release, Wake Wood show us this.

And in very unnervingly watchable style.

It’s a Hammer Production.

Need we say more?

Wake Wood
★★☆☆