Wake Wood is a 2011

2011 in film

The year 2011 is notable for containing the release of the most film sequels in a single year, at 27 sequels. The following tables list films that are in production or have completed production and will be released in the United States and Canada at some point in 2011.- Highest-grossing films :...

 horror film

Horror film

Horror films seek to elicit a negative emotional reaction from viewers by playing on the audience's most primal fears. They often feature scenes that startle the viewer through the means of macabre and the supernatural, thus frequently overlapping with the fantasy and science fiction genres...

. A UK and Irish co-production by Hammer Films, Wake Wood is directed by Ireland's David Keating. It stars Timothy Spall

Timothy Spall

Timothy Leonard Spall, OBE is an English character actor and occasional presenter.-Early life:Spall, the third of four sons, was born in Battersea, London. His mother, Sylvia R. , was a hairdresser, and his father, Joseph L. Spall, was a postal worker...

, Eva Birthistle

Eva Birthistle

Eva Birthistle is an Irish actress, best known for her role in Ae Fond Kiss. She won the London Film Critics Circle British Actress of the Year award in 2004 and has twice won the IFTA Best Actress in a Leading Role award.-Biography:...

, Dan Gordon

Dan Gordon (actor)

Dan Gordon is a Northern Irish actor, director and playwright.Gordon was born in Belfast and is best known in Northern Ireland for his portrayal of Red Hand Luke in the BBC Northern Ireland sitcom Give My Head Peace. He starred in the Marie Jones monodrama A Night in November in the tricycle...

 and Aidan Gillen

Aidan Gillen

Aidan Gillen is an Irish stage and screen actor and television presenter. He is known in Ireland for his role in Love/Hate, in the UK for his role in Queer as Folk and in the US for his role in HBO's television series The Wire in which he plays Tommy Carcetti and for his role in Game of Thrones as...

.

Plot

Still grieving the death of nine-year-old Alice – their only child – at the jaws of a crazed dog, vet Patrick and pharmacist Louise relocate to the remote town of Wake Wood where they learn of a pagan ritual that will allow them three more days with Alice. The couple find the idea disturbing and exciting in equal measure, but once they agree terms with Arthur, the village’s leader, a far bigger question looms – what will they do when it is time for Alice to go back?

Cast

• Timothy Spall
  Timothy Spall
  Timothy Leonard Spall, OBE is an English character actor and occasional presenter.-Early life:Spall, the third of four sons, was born in Battersea, London. His mother, Sylvia R. , was a hairdresser, and his father, Joseph L. Spall, was a postal worker...
  
   as Arthur
• Aidan Gillen
  Aidan Gillen
  Aidan Gillen is an Irish stage and screen actor and television presenter. He is known in Ireland for his role in Love/Hate, in the UK for his role in Queer as Folk and in the US for his role in HBO's television series The Wire in which he plays Tommy Carcetti and for his role in Game of Thrones as...
  
   as Patrick
• Eva Birthistle
  Eva Birthistle
  Eva Birthistle is an Irish actress, best known for her role in Ae Fond Kiss. She won the London Film Critics Circle British Actress of the Year award in 2004 and has twice won the IFTA Best Actress in a Leading Role award.-Biography:...
  
   as Louise
• Ruth McCabe as Peggy O'Shea
• Briain Gleeson as Martin O'Shea
• Amelia Crowley as Mary Brogan
• Dan Gordon
  Dan Gordon (actor)
  Dan Gordon is a Northern Irish actor, director and playwright.Gordon was born in Belfast and is best known in Northern Ireland for his portrayal of Red Hand Luke in the BBC Northern Ireland sitcom Give My Head Peace. He starred in the Marie Jones monodrama A Night in November in the tricycle...
  
   as Mick O'Shea
• Ella Connolly as Alice

Production

Wake Wood was filmed in County Donegal

County Donegal

County Donegal is a county in Ireland. It is part of the Border Region and is also located in the province of Ulster. It is named after the town of Donegal. Donegal County Council is the local authority for the county...

, Ireland

Ireland

Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...

, and in Österlen

Österlen

Österlen is the southeastern part of the Swedish province of Scania. The name derives from its location 'east of the route' ; 'Öster om len' . The principal town of Österlen is Simrishamn...

, Scania

Scania

Scania is the southernmost of the 25 traditional non-administrative provinces of Sweden, constituting a peninsula on the southern tip of the Scandinavian peninsula, and some adjacent islands. The modern administrative subdivision Skåne County is almost, but not totally, congruent with the...

, Sweden

Sweden

Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....

. It was the first feature from genre production company Hammer Films in thirty years. The film premiered at the 2009 Lund International Fantastic Film Festival in Sweden. It was released theatrically in UK cinemas on 25 March 2011 and it was released three days later on DVD in the UK on 28 March.

Reception

Rotten Tomatoes

Rotten Tomatoes

Rotten Tomatoes is a website devoted to reviews, information, and news of films—widely known as a film review aggregator. Its name derives from the cliché of audiences throwing tomatoes and other vegetables at a poor stage performance...

 aggregates reviews and gave it an 84% rating.

Peter Bradshaw

Peter Bradshaw

Peter Bradshaw is a British writer and film critic. He was educated at Cambridge University, where he was President of Footlights.Bradshaw is a film critic for The Guardian...

 reviewed the film for The Guardian

The Guardian

The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...

and gives it 4 stars out of five, suggesting the film is "in the tradition of Don't Look Now

Don't Look Now

Don't Look Now is a 1973 thriller film directed by Nicolas Roeg. Julie Christie and Donald Sutherland star as a married couple whose lives become complicated after meeting two elderly sisters in Venice, one of whom claims to be clairvoyant and informs them that their recently deceased daughter is...

, The Wicker Man and the communal nightmares of Ira Levin

Ira Levin

Ira Levin was an American author, dramatist and songwriter.-Professional life:Levin attended Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa...

; it's a low-budget film that entertainingly takes its audience to the brink of pure absurdity. But it also riffs nastily and effectively on ideas of taboo, on our perennial yearning for ceremony and ritual to alleviate the sadness of life, and on Larkin

Philip Larkin

Philip Arthur Larkin, CH, CBE, FRSL is widely regarded as one of the great English poets of the latter half of the twentieth century...

's idea that what's truly scary is not dying but being dead."