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Films

Wake Up Dead Man (spoilers, probably)

39 replies

CrossPurposes · 28/11/2025 15:45

I thought this was thoroughly enjoyable with two outstanding performances from Josh O'Connor and Glenn Close.

I was a little distracted by the English locations for a film set in New York state.

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ExpressiveDecorations · 28/11/2025 15:46

Going tonight so marking my place. Is it better than the second one? Which was nowhere near as good as the first one IMO.

Beedeeoh · 28/11/2025 15:49

Was it English locations? I thought it looked like it was! I found it quite jarring in general that it was supposed to be American as it felt very English to me - not just the location but the feel of it, the clear (sometimes explicit) Agatha Christie influences, half the cast being British and so on. Enjoyable though and a couple of genuine jump scares.

TorroFerney · 28/11/2025 15:55

Saw it yesterday, said to husband I’m sure the young priest is British, he just looked British. I thought it was better than the glass onion, more Agatha Christie. Husband said he much prefers Daniel Craig as Blanc rather than Bond. I took all the English and Irish actors and the British church as a good nod to how loved Agatha Christie is.

CrossPurposes · 28/11/2025 15:59

ExpressiveDecorations · 28/11/2025 15:46

Going tonight so marking my place. Is it better than the second one? Which was nowhere near as good as the first one IMO.

I'd say it was better than Glass Onion (though I did like that as well).

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CrossPurposes · 28/11/2025 15:59

Beedeeoh · 28/11/2025 15:49

Was it English locations? I thought it looked like it was! I found it quite jarring in general that it was supposed to be American as it felt very English to me - not just the location but the feel of it, the clear (sometimes explicit) Agatha Christie influences, half the cast being British and so on. Enjoyable though and a couple of genuine jump scares.

Yes, the church is Holy Innocents in Epping Forest.

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Britpopbaby · 30/11/2025 14:46

I loved that at the end we got a Bond reunion of sorts as Jeffrey Wright was Felix in the Bond movies and appeared in Craig’s last outing as Bond I believe.

I thought it was a pretty intense film, excellent, but intense.

LighthouseLED · 06/12/2025 20:21

I would have preferred it set in England, I think. Daniel Craig’s accent was quite distracting.

I also guessed the ending fairly early on, but perhaps that’s because I read a lot of old mystery novels!

YisRexposherthanfreddie · 12/12/2025 23:12

Watched it tonight. Were they all supposed to be Catholic priests?

RampantIvy · 12/12/2025 23:30

It was too long.

FenceBooksCycle · 13/12/2025 19:52

YisRexposherthanfreddie · 12/12/2025 23:12

Watched it tonight. Were they all supposed to be Catholic priests?

Only 3 of them.

PollyPlumPeach · 13/12/2025 19:58

Ending was disappointing and didn't really make much sense - why go to all that effort. But it was entertaining, definitely worth seeing in the cinema given the gorgeous visuals

Meredusoleil · 13/12/2025 23:09

Watched this today. Found it quite disappointing tbh. Also didn't like the mix of accents and the very obviously English setting. Far too much focus on religion and the Catholic Church in particular. Too long and slow moving for me. My favourite of the 3 is Glass Onion as loved the island setting!

FenceBooksCycle · 13/12/2025 23:10

PollyPlumPeach · 13/12/2025 19:58

Ending was disappointing and didn't really make much sense - why go to all that effort. But it was entertaining, definitely worth seeing in the cinema given the gorgeous visuals

Erm. Were you paying attention? It was spelled out very clearly why each person went to all that effort.

PollyPlumPeach · 14/12/2025 07:12

FenceBooksCycle · 13/12/2025 23:10

Erm. Were you paying attention? It was spelled out very clearly why each person went to all that effort.

It was spelled out but still didn't make sense, there would have been far easier ways to get the diamond and to kill the guy than to stage a murder in front of an audience and then arrange his resurrection, nor would it have likely brought good attention to the church

YisRexposherthanfreddie · 14/12/2025 08:50

FenceBooksCycle · 13/12/2025 19:52

Only 3 of them.

But the daughter? ?

YisRexposherthanfreddie · 14/12/2025 08:51

Can we post massive spoilers?

FenceBooksCycle · 14/12/2025 08:57

YisRexposherthanfreddie · 14/12/2025 08:50

But the daughter? ?

No she wasn't a catholic priest.

Oh you mean how come a priest had a daughter? It's because not all catholic priests are very good at keeping their vows. Or in some cases men become priests after having been married and widowed but I think the various offspring of priests in the movie were conceived due to lack-of-celibacy. It happens.

FenceBooksCycle · 14/12/2025 09:43

PollyPlumPeach · 14/12/2025 07:12

It was spelled out but still didn't make sense, there would have been far easier ways to get the diamond and to kill the guy than to stage a murder in front of an audience and then arrange his resurrection, nor would it have likely brought good attention to the church

I thought it made sense.

spoilers spoilers

Do not read beyond this point if you don't want to see spoilers

More than one parishioner wanted to kill him because he had declared he would ruin them all and go off to enjoy political and worldly fame success and fortune, which would be kicked off on Easter Sunday (2 days after the murder) with a massive public denouncement of all their sins. He was planning to do this having retrieved the diamond (which he didn't get to do due to being murdered).

The doctor who actually did the murder conceived of the plan in order to execute it in a way where he had the perfect alibi (because he was just part of the congregation during the apparent death - the initial collapse not being the actual death) and in a way to put suspicion on the young priest. The doctor actually stabbed the Monsignor a couple of minutes later when apparently being "helpful" having told the young priest to step away from the body (not actually dead yet) in typical preserving-the-scene pretence. The remote-control burst merely spilled some fake blood at the fake wound site so that it would appear that the stabbing took place earlier than it did.

The resurrection plan, using the cooperation of the grounds-keeper (who didn't know he was cooperating with murderers and didn't know he would get murdered) was for two reasons - firstly for retrieving the diamond - the grounds-keeper thought this was all he was helping with. It was explained earlier in the film that the tomb was built equipped with Lazarus Device - common in Victorian times, where it could be opened quickly and easily from the inside in case you were accidentally buried alive (also common before modern medical techniques) but was very difficult to open from the outside. So by burying the grounds-keeper alive, disguised as the corpse of the Monignor, they were able to get the diamond without anyone else knowing. The secondary reason was because Cy, the illegitimate son of the Monsignor, recognised the extraordinary potential for a very lucrative cult-of-personality megachurch he could profit from with the right story, and footage of the Monsignor rising from the grave (and subsequently conveniently ascending into heaven leaving His Disciples to spread the Word) would be massively helpful with that. So they were planning to dissolve the actual corpse of the Monsignor in acid to support the myth of his bodily disappearance.

Martha cooperated with the murder to save the Monsignor's soul - she had been inspired by the young priest to confess (but to the Monsignor) that she did know where the diamond was. She was horrified to see that his reaction was to grasp at that worldly greed, and thought that she was helping with a plan that would just stop him from doing that and thus would not spiral into the sins of greed and avarice. She did not know that the co-conspirators were planning to keep and use the diamond. When she found out, she became dangerous to the doctor so he tried to kill her, but she realised what was happening so killed him - then took poison herself and confessed all before dying.

end of spoilers

The complexity of the plan was because each conspirator had different motives and priorities and they were each manipulating each other to gain their cooperation in a plan without sharing those motives with eachother. Simpler ways to achieve each step wouldn't have worked because they wouldn't have had the cooperation they needed if they were open about their motives.

Meredusoleil · 14/12/2025 10:13

I actually thought the murder and resurrection were Martha's idea and she got Dr. Nat on board to help.

CrossPurposes · 14/12/2025 10:19

Meredusoleil · 14/12/2025 10:13

I actually thought the murder and resurrection were Martha's idea and she got Dr. Nat on board to help.

I think this is correct. He got greedy and tried to murder her.

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ExpressiveDecorations · 14/12/2025 10:53

I got to the end and thought “I need to see that again to go through all the twists and turns”. I’m not great at attention/keeping up with film and video (much better reading) and my mind wanders a bit sometimes. I did enjoy it so that won’t be a hardship.

HeadyLamarr · 14/12/2025 11:02

I thought it was a cracking film!

I thought it was very funny, and enjoyed playing with audience expectations. Really audacious to have to have Andrew Scott say "you have my sword" and Jeremy Renner, most famous for playing an archer, not say "and my bow." I loved the labyrinthine murder plot, and I thought Josh was just superb as the young priest.

Up there with Knives Out, and definitely deserves a second viewing.

Ddakji · 14/12/2025 11:03

I’m glad I didn’t know that the church was in Essex when I watched it.

I really enjoyed it. Much better than the second one.

FenceBooksCycle · 14/12/2025 12:43

HeadyLamarr · 14/12/2025 11:02

I thought it was a cracking film!

I thought it was very funny, and enjoyed playing with audience expectations. Really audacious to have to have Andrew Scott say "you have my sword" and Jeremy Renner, most famous for playing an archer, not say "and my bow." I loved the labyrinthine murder plot, and I thought Josh was just superb as the young priest.

Up there with Knives Out, and definitely deserves a second viewing.

Ah I found a transcript which I think clarifies a couple of things.

@YisRexposherthanfreddie It is actually specified that Prentice (Wicks's grandfather) was widowed with a daughter when he became a priest. The man she became pregnant by was not a priest. So it was only J Wicks who wasn't so good at the celibacy)

Looking through I think actually Martha wasn't in on the murder. She possibly thought she was only helping with a fake death and resurrection to help Wicks's own cult of personality, she was convinced that Wicks would rise from the dead himself as she thought all that happened was the strong tranquiliser that she helped administer. She knew that there was a plan to retrieve the diamond but she didn't need to do anything for that part and she thought the plan was then to destroy it/cast it into the ocean or similar. It's possible that Wicks himself was also in on the fake-death part, I'm not sure about that - but he ordered the burial equipment to be used for his burial himself, before he died. It would be really important for a burial to take place quickly for a fake resurrection to work, and he'd definitely be keen on bigging up his own cult following. He might not have known exactly when/how though as a deliberate means to ensure it looked natural. If that was the case, it happening in public during the Good Friday service would have been an obvious choice. But it might be that he didn't know about the fake death plan and just wanted to order the equipment in order to retrieve the diamond directly.

@HeadyLamarr thanks for the LOTR note - I'd noticed the incongruity of "You have my sword" but hadn't made the connection. There were also some sneakily hidden quotes from scripture (aside from the obvious ones like David & Goliath, Eve's Apple, Damascus Moments and Lazarus) which I noticed while watching. (This post was originally going to just be about this, which is why your post is quoted. It grew)

At one point someone says "What is Truth" which is what Pilate says when condemning Jesus to death in John's gospel. There's also an "It is Accomplished" which were Jesus's last words on the Cross. I'm not sure whether "Someone who knew with great certainty when their day and hour would come" is close enough to Matthew 24:36 to count as a 3rd.

HeadyLamarr · 14/12/2025 13:21

"It is accomplished" made me laugh as well. Such audacity in the script, it's great.

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