Wake Wood movie review (2011)

Wake Wood (2011)

Brief review: After some fantastic low-budget horror flicks like "Isolation" and "Dorothy Mills", Ireland offers yet another decent entry into the horror genre, aptly titled "Wake Wood". Why aptly? Because everything in this movie revolves around woods and awakening... awakening from death. The shocking and utterly bloody opening sequence draws you quickly into the story, and makes you hungry for more. The film moves at a rather slow pace, but it offers plenty of thrills and chills along the way, as well as plenty of graphic gore and some nasty scenes. "Wake Wood" obviously lacks a big budget, and the Irish scenery is typically flat, but David Keating compensates with skillful direction, gloomy settings and an atmospheric cinematography that fits the mood of the film quite well. Ella Connolly is cute as a button, but since her character is a pure evil, you just can't help but being scared of her. Eva Birthistle does a fantastic job as Alice's grieving mother, though her character is may be a bit too deluded and naive at times. Aidan Gillen plays the most interesting character of all - he's believable and likable, but at the same time there's something enigmatic about him... something you just can't figure out, well, until the very final scene.

Overall summary: Far from scary, and often predictable, yet somewhat original, pretty creepy and thoroughly effective, "Wake Wood" is bizarrely entertaining little gem of a horror movie, that proves Irish horror directors are a film-making force to be reckoned with.