‘Wake Up’ (Literally) Skewers Antifa-like Radicals
Horror movies slice and dice a good portion of their casts. Audiences expect nothing less.
Some victims are so annoying, childish or arrogant that crowds cheer on their fate. It’s not cruel, just cathartic. Heck, it’s just a movie.
“Wake Up” leans into that trope, and then some. Like “The Green Inferno” before it, the victims here are rock-ribbed progressives who are far from sympathetic.
It’s hard to know who to root for in this intermittently sharp horror satire, and that’s part of the fun.
Six self-important radicals infiltrate an IKEA-style superstore at closing time. They wear animal masks and hope to damage as much property as possible before dawn.
The chain exploits animals, the rainforest and probably much more, they claim. Their rhetoric is far from streamlined. It’s more about Fighting the Man
than a coherent strategy.
And if their antics go viral, even better!
They’re immature but savvy, but they never expected one of the store’s security guards to be on the edge of madness. That’s Kevin (Turlough Convery), whose volatile nature nearly gets him fired as the story opens. Now, he and his older brother Jack (Aidan O’Hare) are all that stand between the store and millions of dollars in damages.
Things could get ugly. And when a confrontation takes a deadly turn, it does.
Anouk Whissell and Yoann-Karl Whissell, part of the collective known as RKSS, make the most of the unusual setting. The chain store offers fascinating backdrops, impromptu weapons and enough space for Kevin to lurk virtually unnoticed.
And, to the delight of the Mystery Machine’s Fred, there will be traps.
The six radicals are far from heroic, and some are downright cruel. Yet a food fight sequence shows they’re just kids cosplaying activism.
It’s the closest the film comes to humanizing them, and it’s a necessary addition.
“Wake Up” never fleshes out the six radicals, but we get a better sense of Jack and Kevin. That gives the kills a whiff of authenticity. That’s more than enough to push the story forward.
The film’s midsection delivers all the B-movie goods. RKSS stage the kills with precision, and there’s little in the way of storytelling fat to get in the way. Convery’s intense performance elevates the material. He’s relentless, and while he might have been a reasonable soul in another setting he’s lost all sense of decency once the action kicks in.
That’s just how genre fans like it.
162_Wake up•RKSS
(2023) pic.twitter.com/6W1VdEmRq5— TFAB
(@toy_1O) November 24, 2024
The film’s third act isn’t as strong, even though the sense of desperation becomes palpable for the remaining activists.
The screenplay doesn’t go wobbly on either side of the battle. The radicals cling to their beliefs while Kevin’s lust for revenge remains white hot.
The subject matter suggests either a heavy-handed takedown of activists or Capitalism 101. For all the gore and thrills RKSS never takes the bait. That discipline makes “Wake Up” a cut above your average slasher film.
HiT or Miss: “Wake Up” takes a stab at Antifa-like radicals but refuses to lecture horror hounds.
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