WAKEWOOD(2011)*** out of **** Written & Directed by David Keating. Starring Aiden Gillen, Eva Birthistle, Timothy Spall, Ella Connolly, Ruth McCabe, Amelia Crowley. Rated R, 90 minutes Released by Hammer Films and Dark Sky Home Video
This week,I went to a free preview film screening here in NYC sponsored by Fangoria Magazine of the new independent Irish horror film, WAKEWOOD produced by the new Hammer Films which recently has produced such films as THE RESIDENT(2010) with Hillary Swank & Christopher Lee, LET ME IN the remake of the Swedish vampire film LET THE RIGHT ONE IN(2008) and BEYOND THE RAVE (2009).The story about a young veterinerian Patrick and his wife,pharmacist Louise mourning the brutal death of their 10 year old only daughter Alice by a crazed dog. They decide to move a year later to a little country Irish village named Wakewood to start a new life but the couple discovers that the residents of the small town practice a strange pagan ritual to revive the recently dead. The couple finds out that the townspeople of Wakewood perform a ritual in which a deceased townmember can come back from the dead but only for three days in order to pass a final time on Earth with their loved ones. Then Patrick and Louise try to convince the town's mayor played by Timothy Spall of the Harry Potter film series, to agree to the resusitation of the dead daughter thru the pagan ritual but is warned by the mayor that the couple's daughter must return to the grave within three days of coming back to life and that the couple must not withold any important information about their daughter Alice to the townspeople or they will pay a terrible price in doing so. Once Alice comes back to life,Patrick and Louise are happy with her the first two days but then strange and terrible things happen to the couple and the townspeople when Alice's third day arrives with disastrous results for all.
I thoroughly enjoyed this old fashioned horror film that depends more on characterization and scary atmosphere than on the usual gory CGI or 3-D and computer horror effects that appear in current American horror films in the last ten years.The plot is similar to the famous horror story The Monkey's Paw in which a grieving couple uses witchcraft and a monkey's paw talisman to bring their dead son back to life but to disastrous and terrifying results.The acting by the two leads Aiden Gillen and Eva Birthistle as the grieving parents Patrick and Louise are superb as well as Timonthy Spall as the friendly but somewhat very sinister townsleader.There are a couple of well crafted scary shock sequences in the film that made audiences jump in their seats and the film has a very sustained suspense and tension filled mode right to the surprising climax. The film will come out here on home video on DVD thru Dark Sky Home Video on Tuesday, July 5, 2011 with a trailer,a featurette on the making of the film and interviews with film's director and his cast. I really recommend this nice little horror film to undiscriminating horror fans and Hammer horror movie fans as well.
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