Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery (2025)
Directed by Rian Johnson
When young priest Jud Duplenticy is sent to assist charismatic firebrand Monsignor Jefferson Wicks, it’s clear that all is not well in the pews. After a sudden and seemingly impossible murder rocks the town, the lack of an obvious suspect prompts local police chief Geraldine Scott to join forces with renowned detective Benoit Blanc to unravel a mystery that defies all logic.
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What critics say influenced Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery
Director
Rian Johnson
Critics compare Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery to 2 of Johnson’s own films.
The film’s pacing is nice and the usage of gothic themes makes Wake Up Dead Man stand out from Knives Out and Glass Onion.
Rian Johnson opts for a more grounded tone in line with Knives Out.
Knives Out turns on the heroine being a good and caring nurse; that Fr. Jud is a good and caring priest is even more important here.
…themes such as greed and classism (reminiscent of the previous Knives Out films)…
As with the previous Knives Out films, the characters are not, in fact, equally important and equally capable of murder.
Wake Up Dead Man misses the sharp specificity of Knives Out…
…a gothic tale with inspiration from Edgar Allen Poe and John Dickson Carr, the stormier dark to Glass Onion’s sunshiney light.
Visually, Wake Up Dead Man marks a stark departure from Glass Onion‘s Mediterranean sheen of sun-drenched elegance.
If Glass Onion worked as a sharp criticism of how stupid and destructive extreme wealth can be, Wake Up Dead Man digs deeper into how institutions fail and how personal charm can corrupt.
Where Knives Out was all sharp interiors and Glass Onion basked in sunlit decadence…
…the sequel (Glass Onion) indulged in its vacation villainy…
When combined with themes such as greed and classism (reminiscent of the previous Knives Out films)…
Director
Kenneth Branagh
Critics invoke Branagh by name, and compare Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery to 3 of Branagh’s films.
Visuals
On Branagh, rather than any one film
…something Branagh has often done with his Christie adaptations…
This isn’t the A Haunting In Venice to Kenneth Branagh’s Death On The Nile…
The Agatha Christie adaptation continued with "Death on the Nile" and "A Haunting in Venice."
Without beating around the bush, A Haunting In Venice was a better third installment between the two franchises.
At first, Wake Up Dead Man seems like it might go the route of Kenneth Branagh’s A Haunting in Venice, and explore ways faith and science clash with one another…
I appreciate a lot of it, in terms of Johnson’s maneuvering into more of a horror leaning entry, much like Kenneth Branagh did with A Haunting In Venice.
In parallel with A Haunting in Venice (2023), the third of Branagh’s Poirot pictures, Wake Up Dead Man forces its sleuth to ponder a spiritual side of life…
This isn’t the A Haunting In Venice to Kenneth Branagh’s Death On The Nile…
The Agatha Christie adaptation continued with "Death on the Nile" and "A Haunting in Venice."
…his Agatha Christie series starting in 2017 with Murder on the Orient Express…
Until Kenneth Branagh re-animated Hercule Poirot as a feature-film hero in 2017’s Murder on the Orient Express, we perhaps hadn’t realized how much we’d missed this sort of amiable mystery in which a big-shot detective holds forth in a room full of guest stars listening nervously.
Surely the first murder-mystery to pay active homage to Scooby-Doo…
As one character put is, “There’s obviously some Scooby-Doo sh*t going on round here.”
Johnson leans heavily on long-winded, Scooby-Doo-style unmasking monologues…
…the best of which is a particularly well-timed “Scooby-dooby-doo”…
It also has fun with other references, from Scooby Doo…
Johnson even drops in overt references to Scooby-Doo!
…sneaking in several cheeky references to things like Star Wars…
(That elbow-to-the-ribs line gets followed by a good “Star Wars” joke for fans who misread Johnson’s marvelous 2017 “The Last Jedi.”)
The first “Star Wars” trilogy (Episodes IV to VI) had different directors.
…including a Star Wars nod that brought the house down…
…there are fewer big laughs (although the laughs still hit home, especially if you’re a Star Wars fan for one joke)…
…his Star Wars movie is a total failure narratively, but it at least looks like a Star Wars movie…
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Director
Alfred Hitchcock
Critics invoke Hitchcock by name, and compare Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery to 2 of Hitchcock’s films.
Visuals
On Hitchcock, rather than any one film
While Hitchcock thrillers are intended to keep you at the edge of your seat…
Glenn Close, offering a chill of self-righteous superiority reminiscent of Judith Anderson’s Mrs. Danvers in Hitchcock’s Rebecca…
…popping up out of nowhere like the devious housekeeper in Hitchcock's Rebecca…
Glenn Close is delightfully unhinged as the housekeeper Martha, channelling Mrs. Danvers in Rebecca…
…creepy Martha Delacroix, a Mrs Danvers–type impeccably played by Glenn Close…
…a horribly wasted Vertigo shot — there’s no interest whatsoever in real visual storytelling here…
The script says as much about the church’s treatment of women as “Conclave” does.
Taking a leaf out of Conclave’s book, Wake Up Dead Man has fun smuggling all sorts of one-upmanship and sneakiness under its religious vestments.
…a welcome recent trend, alongside the likes of the twisty thriller "Conclave"…
Like Conclave, it’s post-religion: it stoops Christianity — an institution worthy of criticism, no doubt — to the low, easy target of electoral politics…
…from the breezy theatricality of Clue to classic noir novel templates and literary inspirations…
True to form, Knives Out always feels like playing a game of Clue with one eye fixed on Twitter.
While feverishly trying to solve the mystery like a game of Clue is a large draw for the Knives Out trilogy…
…you’d be better off binging a few episodes of classic Columbo than giving his latest a try.
…making it feel more like an episode of Columbo or Johnson’s recently canceled Peacock series, Poker Face…
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…giving us everything from Exorcist-style drama at the altar…
…shades of Jason Miller’s Father Karras in The Exorcist, another flawed man of the cloth who battered the heavy bag in between encounters with Pazuzu.
…audiences ate up mysteries such as Chinatown, Basic Instinct, Gosford Park, The Gift, and In the Heat of the Night…
The first film gave our heroes a knotty case to solve; this one gives them Chinatown.