Wake Wood (2009)

As a horror film, Wake Wood concerns itself mostly with the effect of tragedy on an initially quite happy and loving couple, and how their grief and inability to move on ultimately only cause further suffering for all those involved. Initially, its themes and characters are maturely handled, and its folk horror stylings well-realized, but by the time its climax arrives, it devolves into a simple slasher flick that fails to fully deliver on its very affecting premise. Ultimately though, the impeccable craftsmanship of its first half shines through, especially for those who enjoy the folksy side of horror.

Wake Wood sports a crackling premise: two parents, carrying more than their fair share of emotional baggage thanks to the tragic death of their young daughter, arrive at the town of Wake Wood to start fresh. Aiden Gillen plays the husband, a veterinarian who lands a sweet new gig caring for the local livestock, and Eva Birthistle plays the wife, a pharmacist whose grief knows no end, and who begins to notice strange behavior and flightiness from those she encounters in the town. The two soon will find themselves at the center of a local tradition that involves resurrecting the dead temporarily in order to aid the grieving process, but thanks to a small deception on the part of the couple, what is ultimately returned to them doesn't act much like their daughter at all.

The film is primarily focused on loss and the grief that comes with it. Our characters are easy to root for because we feel so sorry for them, and we buy into the fact that they will go to nightmarish extremes to get their daughter back. The community of Wake Wood is composed of similar individuals, so it goes without saying that many of them are similarly hard to hate, and, let me just say, it's nice to have the antagonistic, cult-like community act mostly in good faith towards the protagonists for a change. They're all quite reasonable. By the end, the characters we're rooting for the most are also the most culpable for events spiraling out of control, and thus it feels morally muddled in a satisfying way. Indeed, everything is on track for a perfect little horror film about saying goodbye and moving forward and then, suddenly: the third act happens.

*spoilers*

By the time the film's central ritual has come and gone, and things are steadily going from bad to worse, the film's quality, too, takes a bit of a hit. Alice, the young girl killed in the film's opening, returns, only now seemingly corrupted by her time spent in the void. She does a lot of things that are appropriately horrifying, but it feels like here the film begins to descend into cliche and never again rises to the level of its first forty-five minutes. Once the bodies begin to pile up, motivations get muddled in a not-so-satisfying way, and I begin to ask questions I never really get satisfying answers to. Worse though, the thematic ruminations of the film slowly disappear in lieu of taking its premise of literal rebirth to the absolute extreme. Some will probably find the ending loses them, but I found it a pretty sturdy way to tie up such a dark tale. I guess I wished it just had something to actually say.

*end of spoilers*

Despite all that, though, I'm still a sucker for anything that seeks to explore the human side of horror, and that combined with the film's folksy, earthen underpinning makes for something that's definitely worth any true horror fan's time.