A few unkind words about my opinion of horror films. They are product, lowest common denominator films made for a quick buck. The genre doesn’t have to be like that, but that’s how it has panned out. It’s not too far from the Adult Movie genre. Films popped out on a conveyer built with laughable scripts, cardboard characters and the appropriate amount of ‘money shots’. Horror films that also work as ‘proper’ films are few and far between.
It’s not particularly badly made, and above average for the genre, but Wake Wood similarly has very lowly ambitions. Firstly, the film is very obviously a Frankenstein’s Monster, a patchwork of three other horror films – Pet Semetary, The Wicker Man and Don’t Look Now. And the characters are barely two dimensional. Much has been made in the publicity that this is a ‘Hammer’ horror film. It has no significance all these years later. It amounts to nothing more than a sticker on the box.
On the plus side, the cast have a solid pedigree. Aiden Gillen is such a rising star of stage and screen that I’m surprised he said yes to this. I’ve seen him do Mamet in London and Pinter in New York (and oddly enough sat next to him in the audience somewhere else altogether for a one-man play about Richard Burton). He made his name on the British version of Queer As Folk. That series caught some flak for casting three hetero actors as the gay leads. Which is absolutely ridiculous, of course. Of the three, it was Gillen I was mostly surprised about, given he nailed every single gay mannerism without resorting to anything remotely resembling ‘camp’. That’s what I thought at the time, anyway. But his character here – straight and married – has some of the same ticks. Shoulders pulled way back as he walks, etc, so maybe that was just luck. Like most Celtic actors, he’ll also happily do an American accent but will avoid doing English at almost any cost. Cast Gillen, Peter Mullan or Ewan McGregor in anything English set, and they’ll try to keep their own accent, even if it makes little sense. Cast Gabriel Byrne as an Eskimo, and he’ll argue that his particular Eskimo grew up with a video cassette of The Commitments and somehow has developed an Irish Accent. At least here, Gillen’s supposed to be Irish.
Timothy Spall is simply one of the UK’s finest actors, although has been known to ham it up occasionally. Most famous for his collaborations with Mike Leigh (and in the UK for his single most spectacular turn in Auf Wiedersehen, Pet), he doesn’t even attempt the Oirish accent. Instead he gives a highly restrained performance that seems to be channelling Richard Attenborough of all people. Eva Birthwhistle was an actress I wasn’t familiar with. Again, she has little to work with, but acquits herself just fine. And thankfully the kid – who predictably becomes a demon child from hell – is good and doesn’t destroy the picture (The Omen remake didn’t survive the kid, and Birth was fatally hampered by an unconvincing Cameron Bright).
It’s also been blatantly filmed on digital cameras which don’t do it any favours, especially for a film that has to thrive on atmosphere. Digital looks cheap, pure and simple, except when used on the most expensive Hollywood blockbusters. I can only hope that the money saved here was what allowed them to hire Michael Convertino for the score.
Wake Wood isn’t a total disaster (helped in large part by Convertino himself), but it’s too blatantly derivative to be noteworthy. It’s hard to believe, but it even recycles the hand-from-the-grave template from Carrie, the most overused scene in horror. Even the final ‘twist’ isn’t well handled, with Gillen breaking the fourth wall to look at the audience. Not sure why he does it, and I’m not sure he is either.
This film was viewed on the UK DVD. It is also available on a Region 1 DVD and USA Blu-ray with identical extras. The extras - interviews and deleted scenes - have no Convertino content.
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