Wake Wood

Got the DVD for this latest Hammer epic this weekend. Surprisingly good, and with some unexpected twists - and a toe-curling end that I did not anticipate at all, but which makes horrifying sense. Some good performances, particularly from Ella Connolly, who plays the little girl, and TV stalwart Timoth Spall. This is a true Folk Horror in the tradition of The Wicker Man, though it owes nothing to that earlier film and has an original storyline all of its own. Some quite gruesome - and exceedingly realistic - scenes which would certainly never have been allowed past the censor during Hammer's heyday in the sixties, but are far from gratuitous. In a way, they help to build up what it really means to live and work in the countryside, away from the sentimentality of townlife. Well worth watching.