Wake Up

An entertaing and gory low-budget film with large doses of scares, gory scenes and terrifying set pieces . Ordinary slasher flick from Canada including coproduction by France/Spain, containing a lot of grisly killings and unknown cast at a mall. In an attempt to draw attention to the environmental crisis, young activists (Benny O. Arthur, Jacqueline Moré, Tom Gould, Alessia Yoko Fontana, Kyle Scudder, Charlotte Stoibe) decide to invade and vandalize a furniture store called . Then things go wrong, the protest quickly turns into a massacre when they find themselves trapped with a hunting-obsessed night guard. A merciless , brutal killer goes bersek, terrorizing the group of friends. . Fun getting in !. Hell getting out !. Terror never felt so real !. The night of dreams quickly turns into a true nightmare !.

A bone-chilling and gory horror flick with a devasting and threatening series killer executing astonishing crimes. The Canadian film-making trio RKSS behind the cult classic Turbo Kid direct this crazy, ultraviolent survival slasher, presented at the 2023 Sitges Film Festival. It stars a group of environmental friends, environmental activists who raid House Idea, a furniture shopping centre, at night to protest the deforestation of the rainforest. What they don't expect, however, is to run into a psychopathic and bloodthirsty security guard who loves primitive art and is eager to play cat and mouse. An out-of-control villain, hunters being hunted, and lots of blood and gore are the keys to this film, which produces more tension than trying to put a wardrobe together piece by piece.

The premise of the film is as macabre as it is simple: a foolish group of young people enter a shopping mall resulting in terrible consequences. The Thrill is the relentless hunt carried put by a heinous and sinister hunter/murderer against some unfortunate trespassers. The chilling plot is simple and plain, an ordinary screenplay of hundreds of Slashers , a serial murderer turns a mall into his own personal playground, and the essential twisted issue results to be that the killer on the loose undertakes a criminal spree while the victims flee desperately. A typical criminal spree in which some teenagers begin a night in which fun turns into a nightmare when they realize that they are relentlessly pursued .Wake Up(2023) follows the style of the recent Karusell (2023) by Simon Sandquist , ¨Hell Fest¨ (2018) by Gregory Plotkin and ¨Haunt¨ (2019) by Scott Beck and Bryan Woods ,also dealing with a psycho-killer going bersek at in a public and closed establishment, in these cases amusement parks. Al the same time, all of them bear remarkable resemblance to the classic ¨Tobe Hooper's The Funhouse (1981)¨ about four teenagers spending a night at a carnival funhose, who become next on the list of victims.

It contains dark and sinister cinematography, in fact the camera often assumes a pointedly aggressive stance, as well as screeching and eerie musical score by Arnau Bataller . This short-budget film was made by directors François Simard, Anouk Whissell and Yoann-Karl Whissell (RKSS) . They direct professionally but nothing special this disturbing survival story full of horrror, chiller and chases inside a mall. They're working interchangeably for television or cinema. Their debut feature was ¨Turbo Kid¨ it is a post-apocalyptic film made in 2015, an anti-prophetic story with a lot of gore, which adds an eighties science fiction aesthetic and shows a past that has not come to fruition. Rating: average 5/10. The flick will appeal to horror fans, although we had already seen the plot and the situations portrayed before and better filmed .

Trying to raise awareness for the cause, a group of activists decide to sneak into a shopping mall after hours to spread awareness for their cause, but when they realize that they're being hunted by a deranged security guard looking to eliminate trespassers putting them in his path and must get away.

This was a fairly fun and enjoyable enough genre effort. One of the better aspects here is a strongly topical political commentary throughout the storyline that makes for an intriguing time. The idea of the kids as radical as they are taking to outright vandalism for their protests which works well at explaining their take on the radicalized march for action they think they're taking that emboldens them to go through the act of breaking into the store after hours and begin spray-painting slogans and symbols all over the place. Even getting the conversation points about why they're there to help protect animals and using their anger at the corporate greed to allow it to continue helps to spur their reaction further. Realizing that the deranged hunter has a similar setup involving the background given to him about his trying mental state and desire for fulfilling that aspect he has, there's a fun storyline in play for this one. That gives the film a strong background for the series of strong and overall effective stalking scenes within the building, featuring some impressive moments of the killer guard stalking after the group. Using the hunting skills he claims he has, the ability to set traps for the group, make them feel off and unbalanced while stuck inside the darkened building, and get taken out with ruthless force and intensity makes for a generally fun time. The kills are generally kept to a more simplified nature, yet make up for it with a more brutal execution, making for a fun time here and enough to overcome the few lacking elements on display. The simple characterization drawn up for everyone barely makes much of an impression on who they are, which causes the group to get muddled quite easily, so the effective build-up of their protests starts to lose weight the longer they're stuck inside. Likewise, the continuing irritation of characters popping back up after what should've been death blows for the sake of a surprise grows tiresome when it's repeated constantly, making for enough to hold this one down.

Rated Unrated/R: Graphic Violence and Graphic Language.

Quick review: One of my favourite things in a well crafted movie is when you can relate to (and perhaps even side with) the villain or antagonist. In 'Wake Up', for the majority of the film, I wasn't even sure which side or character was supposed to be the antagonist. By the end it seemed slightly more clear which side the filmmakers were intending, however I can assure you I was on the other side. It was a well done film in that respect.

I love that this feels like a film where no one is safe and nothing is off limits. Anything can and will happen by the end of the film. The final scene was just the beautiful icing on the cake. I enjoyed this one. 7/10.

If you just went to the Ikea store and you feel you still didn't get enough of it you can give this movie a go as it looks like it's been shot there. I guess they had to remove all Björks and Knutts to replace them by something similar, but it's clearly inspired by the Ikea franchise. Nothing wrong with that if it was a good movie, which it isn't by the way, unless you don't mind a guy getting his head bashed in, losing liters of blood and apparently not being dead as he pops up a bit later in the story without a single drop of blood spatter. Or another kid getting speared by a kitchen knife in the spine but still able to walk around like nothing happened. It's just too ridiculous for me. A bit of slashing, I can live with that, even enjoy it, but dead is dead to me, so when they are still functioning normally after being slashed I'm losing interest.

... well not to party, but to demolish stuff ... for the greater good (?) ... in any case: no pun intended as always. You may be surprised to see the makers of this ... well quite serious movie ... especially considering the stuff they did before ... be it Turbo Kid or We are Zombies ... both had violence in them, no doubt about that ... but they were also made with a lot of humor ... more light so to speak! This affair right here, has quite the different tone.

The main villain is or rather should not be left unsupervised in society ... but not just that ... he also has a job that has him to deal with customers ... well at first. His boss moves him or his shift to night, when there is no one who will complain about him ... or is there? Well wouldn't be a movie if it were too easy, right? Rhetorical question of course.

So if you don't mind the violence and the tone (or maybe you even cherish that those kids who always know it better will get theirs ... I do not agree with that sentiment, just saying) ... the movie will serve you well ... and be entertaining enough ... including one scene at the start of the end credits ... not for the faint hearted indeed.