Wake Wood - the Hammer strikes back

HAMMER FILMS are back with their first movie production (excluding the online movie, Beyond the Rave) in decades. In fact it's been more than thirty years since a film entered the cinema with the Hammer Films logo.

Patrick and Louise are a young couple who have been through hell - their daughter was killed by a savage dog. Thinking that a move would help them to come to terms with their grief they settle in the small Irish village of Wakewood. Soon afterwards they stumble upon a group of locals, led by a very sinister Timothy Spall performing a bizarre pagan ritual in which the recently deceased are brought back to life. They are told their daughter can be brought back to life but only for three days, during which they will be able to properly say their goodbyes.



As expected things go wrong and become very gory as their daughter, Alice, now a teeny psychopath goes on the rampage. It's a genuinely creepy movie which takes the horror aspects seriously,  even the pagan mumbo jumbo is presented in a straight forward style which may make the film seem slow by modern genre standards, but that's not to say it's a bad movie because it isn't - it reminded me of horror classic The Wicker Man and seems to be paced in a similar fashion.

I don't really enjoy modern horror films, preferring the classic monsters over the latest slasher of the week, and I found myself glued to the screen for the admittedly short duration of this movie - 88 mins including titles.It is refreshing to see a horror movie aimed at adults, where suspense is much more important than cheap shocks .