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Wake Wood is the latest offering from the recently resurrected HAMMER FILMS.
Imagine a subtle blend of Pet Semetary, the Stephen King penned tale of Indian burial grounds and zombie household pets and classic British pagan nightmare, The Wicker Man, set it in an English village setting steeped in nostalgia but hiding a bloodstained history of Old Magick that carries on into the modern age and you get the idea.
You can read more about the pagan influences in Wake Wood in last weeks blog, IN PRAISE OF THE PAGAN but then take a moment to consider the film’s place in the Hammer Films cannon. Since returning to production, the company has had a hand in the rather well executed remake of Let the Right One in and presented a high-gloss woman-in-peril picture in the form The Resident but, even though Let Me In is a vampire movie and Hammer made their name in the 50s on the back of bringing the prince of darkness Dracula to the screen in dripping Technicolor, the closest film to original spirit of the studio and thus the one that’s most of interest to retro-obsessed cult flick fiends is Wake wood.
Not that the film is an irony drenched homage to flickering candles, Carpathian castles and Kitsch-Gothic sets but Wakewood does share its idylic English country setting with many of the original films (lets face it, even when a 60s Hammer movie was set in Transyvania, the village nearest the castle still appeared to be somewhere in the West Country). The downbeat and realistic shooting style also places the film alongside the more psychological films the studio made in the early seventies such as Straight on Til Morning and Demons of the Minds.
READ THE FULL WAKE WOOD PRESS RELEASE HERE
CAST LINKS
TIMOTHY SPALL plays Arthur, the patriarch of Wake Wood, a man with his hand in all the occult goings on. Will his magic be a blessing or a curse for Patrick and Louise?
AIDEN GILLEN plays Patrick, the new vet. He and his wife, Louise, came to Wake Wood for a fresh start and instead lost a daughter... But for how long?
EVA BIRTHISTLE plays Louise, married to Patrick and thrown into a pit of mourning & despair by the untimely & tragic death of her child. Will the grief consume her?
