Wake Wood - TV Review

'animal entrails, copious blood spurting from victims' eyes and mouths and a bought of death-by-cow are all present and correct'

There are low budget films and then there are films that look like they were shot on a Blackberry. Wake Wood, an Irish horror from writer/director David Keating, falls into the latter of these categories.

Aside from looking ominously bad, Keating's film is that very specific type of horror that, devoid of scares, has to resort to cheap gore tricks to ensure it falls into the right genre. Animal entrails, copious blood spurting from victims' eyes and mouths and a bought of death-by-cow are all present and correct.

Nominally, the film moves in the 'grieving parents do bad things' genre, as the distraught Aidan Gillen and Eva Birthistle indulge in a touch of Pagan re-incarnation to bring their dead daughter (Ella Connolly) home for the weekend. On occasion, it looks like Keating is attempting to nod to (or even wholly rip-off) Don't Look Now, stopping short of aping the 'red mack' motif only by opting to have his little child wear yellow instead.

That's as close as he gets to Nicolas Roeg's film though. Wake Wood never achieves the claustrophobic village feel it wants to attain and once the blood starts flowing in the final act all manner of creepiness is forgotten about. Like the climate of the titular village this is damp at best and downright sodden at worst.

Wake Wood is currently playing on Sky Movies.

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'creepy enough and with the surprisingly smart and sincere way it handles its premise, which easily could have been done wrong or ridiculously, the film is one that you won’t be quick to forget' - Hot Dogs In The Dark, 3.5/5