Wake Wood (2011)

**This Review contains spoilers**

Patrick (Aidan Gillen) and Louise (Eva Birthistle) are still grieving over the tragic death of their nine year old daughter, Alice (Ella Connolly). Alice was killed by a gruesome dog attack. Patrick and Louise want to move on, so they relocate to a quite little town called Wake Wood. This seems like a quiet little town, but one night, Louise accidentally witness a creepy ritual. After a while, Louise and Patrick learn more about the ritual. This ritual can bring people back from the dead, Patrick and Louise want to see their daughter again, so they decide to use the ritual to bring her back to life, but everything quickly takes a turn for the worst

This ritual can bring people back to life, but there a few major details about this ritual.

1. The person who is resurrected can only stay alive for three days. After that, they MUST return to the afterlife.

2. This ritual can only work properly, if this person has been dead for under a year.

3. The resurrected victim must remain in Wake Wood.

Well, Patrick and Louise want to see their daughter again, but Alice has been dead for over a year. They decide to lie to the man who can bring her back to life (Timothy Spall), and he agrees to perform the ritual. Everything is fine at first. Patrick and Louise enjoy the reunion with their resurrected daughter, but Alice doesn’t want to return to the afterlife, when her time comes. She wants to stay with her parents. She goes on a murderous rampage, as she begins to kill random residents in Wake Wood. Alice has been dead for over year, and the joyous reunion goes horribly wrong, when Alice turns into a killing machine.

Wake Wood starts out pretty slow, but this film does become a lot better as time goes on. There is a good amount of tension here, this film does have some gory moments, and Wake Wood can feel chilling at times. The acting in this film is very solid, and I really did enjoy the story here. I wanted to feel for the parents, because they wanted to see their daughter again. This story can be spooky, but this film can have this deep sadness at times.

Towards the end, Alice goes on a killing spree at the very end. She DOES NOT want to return to the afterlife. She wants to keep living, but Louise manages to trick her at the very end. Alice must stay within in the limits of Wake Wood for the ritual to work. She can not leave Wake Wood, because the fatal wounds that killed her will reappear. Well, Louise strays close to outskirts of Wake Wood, and she manages to trick Alice into a hug. Alice begins to approach her mother, but she comes too close to the outer limits of Wake Wood, the wounds reappear, and Alice finally dies…again.

Alice is dead, and her short time on Earth is up, so her mother must bury her. Louise buries her daughter, but as she cries on her husband’s shoulder, Alice pulls her into the ground! Louise and Alice disappear into the afterlife, and Patrick is all alone in the world. But Patrick refuses to give up. He finds a strand of Louise’s hair (a personal relic is needed for the ritual) and after another ritual, Louise is brought back to life. At the very end of the film, Patrick has a set of surgical tools with him, as he prepares to deliver a baby from the noticeably pregnant Louise ( Earlier in the film, Louise found out she was pregnant , when Alice told her). The ending for this film was filled with emotion and drama, and the return of a pregnant Louise was a nice twist. Louise didn’t want to kill her daughter, but she knew she had to do the right thing. This ending was very bittersweet and sad, because Patrick and Louise still didn’t get to say good-bye the proper way.

This horror film doesn’t go too over the top with the gore and violence, and there aren’t too many spook moments here, but I loved the story for this film, and Wake Wood was a nice little surprise for me.

Final Rating: 8/10