| Author | Message | ||
     Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.131.110.85 |
This is in the shops not the pictures. Anyone seen? http://www.hammerfilms.com/productions/film/filmid/10/wake-wood I hope it's less choppy than these clips. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
Ah, so it does exist!! The fact it went straight to DVD when it was once being heralded as the glorious rebirth of Hammer Studios does not bode at all well... | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.131.110.85 |
A lot of good stuff going straight to dvd, though, you know. | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.131.110.85 |
Nope - it's getting a limited cinema release, too. | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.131.110.85 |
It actually looks good. http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2011/mar/24/wake-wood-review | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
Here's hoping... it has a great cast but the delays have me worried. This was made several years ago amid a blaze of publicity so I can't understand why it was held back until now. Usually that signifies dissatisfaction with the finished product and post-production tinkering... never a good thing. | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.37.199.45 |
If the film was any good, I can understand why the studio wanted to change that in order to ensure brand consistency. If they get any reaction other than "That's so utterly crap it's brilliant" they panic. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.166.117.210 |
I'm expecting the DVD any day now...several genre-literate people I know have said the film's very good. I'll let you know what I make of it. | ||
| Mick Curtis (Mick) Username: Mick Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.184.139.52 |
I have this and may watch later... | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.166.117.210 |
Mine arrived (just been home for a bit) - I'll be watching it this evening, after my writing session. | ||
| Mick Curtis (Mick) Username: Mick Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.184.139.52 |
I recall Mark Kermode mentioning this film on his video blog last week, saying it was released in the cinemas on friday and on DVD the following monday. | ||
| John Forth (John) Username: John Registered: 05-2008 Posted From: 217.20.16.180 |
Watched this last week. It's a decent effort, and harks back to a more 70s style of occult horror (there's a particularly interesting ritual about a third of the way in). Lovely setting too. But the acting is variable, and the main characters are a little on the foolish side. So, neither great nor a disaster. A solid, if unspectacular, start. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.96.253.77 |
Just watched "Wake Wood" and loved it. Not a perfect film by any means, but it has a lovely weird atmosphere, some nice performances, and solid themes. I didn't think the main characters were foolish, John - just driven to extremes by loss and guilt. | ||
| John Forth (John) Username: John Registered: 05-2008 Posted From: 82.24.1.217 |
Hard to get into without spoilers, Gary, but: **SPOILERS** Letting your recently resurrected kid who was mauled to death by a dog wander off in the woods alone on the first day you've got her back; and then letting her play in the garden, mostly unsupervised, with a recently traumatised dog, both seemed a bit daft. It was just little bits like that which made me go oh come on. Their overall motives were perfectly understandable. **SOILERS (sp) END** But there were loads of positives. They've made an effort to get strong lead actors in there (Timothy Spall played it very strangely, but I think it worked), and all in all showed a committment to a more earthy kind of horror than is popular these days. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.166.117.210 |
John - but she's already dead. I always think it's a bit unfair to question characters' actions in extraordinary situations like these - situations that would never happen anyway, so we really don't know how a person would act. It didn't even register with me, anyway. Like I said, not a perfect film, but more going for it than not. I thought Spall was superb - a laid back shaman in a trilby hat. :-) | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.166.117.210 |
She wasn't unsupervised playing in the garden - they rarely left her side (well, you wouldn't, would you?). She wandered off alone quite a bit, though, in the night. | ||
| John Forth (John) Username: John Registered: 05-2008 Posted From: 217.20.16.180 |
Horses for  What did you think of the resurrection ritual, Gary? That was a highlight for me. Just the right mix of the strange, the commonplace industry, and the outrageous. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.166.117.210 |
Yeah, I thought that scene was brilliant - a real stand-out. | ||
| Mick Curtis (Mick) Username: Mick Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.184.139.52 |
For me, the thing that topped that scene off was the use of the farm crane thingy amidst all the odd stuff. | ||
| Mick Curtis (Mick) Username: Mick Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.184.139.52 |
I agree with John's point - I thought it a bit daft when they only had three days, to let her go horse-riding whilst they had tea and cakes indoors. Logically they'd surely be spending every second with her they could. | ||
| John Llewellyn Probert (John_l_probert) Username: John_l_probert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.137.108.144 |
We've just seen it & I'm with John Forth on this one - there were some great scenes of 'country horror' - I suspect the director may have had a childhood similar to mine and he knows how to do cow-horror and farm-horror really well. Also all those shots of black birds were nice, and the ritual bit was an absolute standout. Unfortunately I did think the central characters needed either better writing or better acting to pull off the flaws in the plot which had me shaking my head a few times. I know that people might act that daft in real life but if you put it in a film it just damages suspension of disbelief. Not bad, then, but it reminded me more of an average episode of Brian Clemens' Thriller than anything else. Oh, and the music needed a boot up the arse as well and could have helped make certain scenes much better and the ritual scene absolutely terrifying. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.96.253.77 |
I thought it a bit daft when they only had three days, to let her go horse-riding whilst they had tea and cakes indoors The way I read that scene, they didn't really have much of a choice. They basically did what they were told, or else. There was a lot of subtle manipulation going on prior to that. JLP - I thought the music was great! That weird tinkly tune. I also liekd the total matter-of-fact quality to the scenes of overt horror. Then again, I always seem to like films for the exact reasons others dislike them.  | ||
| Ramsey Campbell (Ramsey) Username: Ramsey Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 92.8.27.53 |
I finally saw the film and I fear I found it ludicrously under-motivated (as others here did) in the central section. If you've got your child back from the dead for a limited period you wouldn't let her out of your sight. Nothing else makes sense to me, I'm afraid. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.25.3.116 |
>>>I know that people might act that daft in real life but if you put it in a film it just damages suspension of disbelief. This is true. To be accepted as realistic, fiction has to bear no resemblance to reality at all.  | ||
| John Llewellyn Probert (John_l_probert) Username: John_l_probert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.131.61.19 |
Or very little resemblance. But it has adhere very, very much to the reader / viewer's concept of reality. |