The Wake

Saw 'The Wake', being fond of horror regardless of budget (even if not my favourite genre) and being intrigued somewhat by the idea. Being behind on my film watching and reviewing, with a long to watch and review list that keeps getting longer, it took me a while to get round to reviewing it.

Unfortunately, despite not reading any reviews purposefully before watching, am going to have to agree with all the reviewers who hated 'The Wake'. It doesn't even start off good, with an opening that doesn't really add or say much, and rapidly got even worse by a second half that makes one not want to keep watching. Never judge a film without seeing the whole thing and wanted to give 'The Wake', so gave it a fair chance.

Setting is spooky, but wasted by the cheapness of the rest of the production values.

However, so much brings 'The Wake' down. The cast struggle to do much with so little to do and the direction is so phoned in and pedestrian, one gets the sense that the director showed no interest in the film at all. Too much of the soundtrack is intrusive and ill-fitting, made worse by the excessive and obvious sound effects that just cheapens the mood. The film looks drab generally and like it was made in haste.

Where 'The Wake' most underwhelms is the writing and story. The writing is incredibly lazy and so cringe-worthy taking it seriously is impossible, it's awkward in dialogue, very confused as a result of not tying things up or going into full detail and doesn't feel complete. The story suffers from a very limp pace apparent early on and gets slower and slower until an interminably dragged out second half. It further suffers from feeling too much like a short film stretched out with a lot of useless padding. None of the characters are likeable, little is learnt about them and they are annoying, the inconsistent and illogical motivations bring them down further. The acting ranges from bad to downright terrible, a lot of sleepwalking and histrionics and that they don't seem to care about their situation let alone frightened of it is especially obvious.

For a film billed as a horror, there is very little interesting and nothing remotely scary. They are too few and are far too predictable, anaemic and weakly timed to make impact, with the dull pacing and obvious sound effects cheapening them significantly. 'The Wake' doesn't engage let alone thrill, and a lot of it is silly to unintentional hilarity and doesn't make sense with a fair few loose ends. No creative moments and a poorly used villain that lacks any kind of menace. The ending is a head-scratcher, both in confusion and how little it feels like an ending.

Overall, the potential was there but the execution far from was. Really awful, unless you're curious about seeing it it's best to avoid this. 1/10 Bethany Cox

The very first warning sign on some of these unknown budget films is that the moment it starts, an instant realization occurs that there is no 6-channel audio track with it.. so you get to listen to it in 1980's stereo format and bit rate. Great, I stepped in something stinky, I say to myself. The 2nd warning is the amateur lens shading/filtering technique, to make it look dark. So now we have a dismal looking film, with poor audio. Strike 3 is hokey dialogue and implausible actions/responses right away. So why did I give it a 2 instead of a 1? I'll be honest, it was an interesting concept, with at least good-looking actors, who were dressed well. I watched it longer than I should have just to see them all and check the attire. I gave it a star for that (which is really scraping for something redeemable), but the acting quality does not get a star. Unfortunately, this movie goes in the trash heap instead of my collection.

...yet another example of the fact that anyone can make a movie. Wow!! The stuff that gets produced nowadays is unbelievable.

The Wake tells the story of a group of friends attending the wake of a young boy. The boy in question was run over and killed by a drunk driver who is one of the friends and the family know and understand! Immediately I was overcome with disbelief, this concept immediately was ridiculous to me.

Anyway before you know it they are all waking up tied to chairs and fighting off masked intruders before the movie gradually builds to a rather surprising but not all that interesting finale.

I was actually enjoying it for the first 30 minutes odd, I was very curious to see where it was going but as soon as its direction became apparent my interest waned.

Not the worst horror out there, simply not very well done.

The Good:

Couple of nice ideas

The Bad:

A drunken driver child killer is the protagonist, really!?

Poorly written

Things I Learnt From This Movie:

If a drunk driver runs your child over it makes perfect sense to invite them to the wake

The best place to keep your spare car key is locked in your car

I hate having to review a film like 'The Wake' because I want so badly to like it, but have to be honest and admit that it is highly flawed. It's obvious that the people behind the camera are new to the industry and have a steep learning curve ahead of them. So some hopefully helpful advise I would give to them on this occasion would be:

1) Scrap the opening the credit sequence. I suspect it was only put there to pad the run time a little, which would be acceptable if you'd put some effort into it. Instead it may as well have been a black screen with names very slowly cropping up one by one. You certainly don't want to start your film on such a down-note as that created.

2) Review the dialogue you have written. As you are writing it ask yourself whether in that actual situation anyone would say anything remotely like that. If not, go with something else. A lot of the dialogue in this film was so cringe-worthy it made for a very uncomfortable viewing experience at times.

3) Make sure characters are reacting realistically to things. When there's a killer with a knife standing two metres away from a group of people, is it likely they would all just stand there calmly discussing their options? Of course not, and watching it happen in a film looks nothing short of ridiculous.

4) Try to show less characters actual moment of dying. It doesn't matter how good you are at film making, it is a very difficult thing to make look realistic. Even in the 'The Dark Knight Rises' there is a particular death scene (Google it if you don't know what I'm talking about) that looks unbearably fake, and that's Christopher Nolan who was responsible for that. Proof that it is a very hard thing to get right.

So there's just a few ideas to work on for the next project you endeavour yourself to. There were actually some elements of the script I kind of liked, and with just some simple (or perhaps not so) tweaks I can see you making a very enjoyable film to watch one day.