Wake the Dead

This film begins one night in 1924 with a man forcibly abducting a woman who is walking on a city sidewalk all alone. He then takes her to his house and begins torturing her. The scene then shifts to the present day with a young man by the name of "Dom" (Ryan Ford) buying that same house from a real estate agent and then surprising his fiancé "Kristin" (Nadia Gillespie) with it. That night, although Dom is romantically inclined, Kristen falls fast asleep and leaves him a bit frustrated. The next morning, Dom suggests that she stop taking both anti-depressants and sleeping pills as they might cause hallucinations. However, she firmly rejects his advice and immediately ends the conversation. Not long afterward, five members of Kristen's family arrive to visit and that's when Kristen begins to experience more than just mere hallucinations. Now, rather than reveal any more, I will just say that I thought this film started off really well. Unfortunately, the plot seemed to take a bad turn after about 30 minutes or so and veered completely off the tracks from that point on. It totally crashed and burned. That being said, while it's certainly not the worst ghost film I have ever seen, I would have a hard time recommending this film to other viewers and I have rated it accordingly. Below average.

This independent horror film has a lot going for it. It strikes a nice balance of serious spooky, while still acknowledging and embracing some of the silliness that we all love in horror films. Much of the acting was good, especially the supporting cast! Would love to see more from the filmmaker!

Quirky, fun, low budget horror film! I found this movie to be a fun, suspenseful watch.

It did a good job mixing comedy and horror in a way that is disarming and keeps the story moving well. I thought that the performances were all believable, the visual style was nicely done too.

I won't spoil anything, but I especially liked the "evil" in the film. It's the iconic type that's creepy enough to see further explored in a sequel or possibly a prequel.

I highly suggest watching this film.

Have said more than once about me not having any bias against anything low budget. It may seem like that when critical about low budget monster films and horror especially, but that is not the case in case anybody is wondering. Am not one of those that thinks that anything modest or less budget is immediately terrible, have never tried to be that close-minded and am aware that a lot goes into making a film and that it's difficult.

There are films though that actually do well with limited resources and manage to be above average or more. So in my eyes, saying a film is low budget shouldn't be that much of an excuse for the overall quality in any film etc. to be bad. There are certainly far worse films than 'Wake the Dead' as there was a little degree of effort seen here which has not been the case with a lot of low budget films seen recently. That degree of effort is still pretty small in a film that had a decent if familiar concept but never really gets off the ground.

'Wake the Dead's' best asset, or should that be least bad asset, is the acting. Actually though the actors did acceptably considering what they were given. They at least had presence and nobody was obnoxious, inexperience inevitably shows but have been infinitely worse acting recently.

Some nice eerie scenery here and there and there are sporadic moments of creepiness.

Aside from all that, there is not much else to recommend 'Wake the Dead'. Aside from the scenery, the film looks very amateurish, with afterthought-like effects and dreary and chaotic photography that indicated inexperience and indecisiveness (that may not be the case, it just came across that way to me). The audio overbears, does not add to or enhance anything (jars if anything) and is used too obviously. The direction is characterless and fais to generate much out of the horror elements, which contributes to why that aspect lacks a lot and why the film overall is as bland as it is.

From beginning to end, 'Wake the Dead' is burdened by a clunky and badly underdeveloped script that never flows and by the characters never being worth investing in or particularly interesting. Even more so by a story that has no tension or suspense and on top of that is quite dully paced and has very little freshness. The horror never really horrify or unsettle, because again it's bland and it looks cheap.

Not a complete waste but is lacking in many areas. 3/10

Without spoiling anything, Wake The Dead definitely moved forward at a nice pace that built to a good ending! I liked the acting, and that it had good female characters. It is Horror, but could also be funny at times. It also played with a couple of old conventions and brought an offbeat humor to them. I got involved with the characters and it was scary, there was also a hint of Fantasy-Horror, especially with one of the characters. It played with the idea of what's reality and what isn't, and it worked.

All in all I liked this film, much better than most that I've seen at this budget level.