\n<\/p>\n
Writer\/Director <\/span>Rian Johnson<\/span><\/strong> leaves behind the sunny beaches of <\/span>Glass Onion<\/span><\/em> for a locked room mystery in Benoit Blanc\u2019s third outing, <\/span>Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery<\/span><\/em><\/strong>. Johnson draws heavy inspiration from John Dickson Carr and Edgar Allan Poe for the latest whodunnit case, centered around a whole new ensemble. Though that does mean it leans into gothic atmosphere and imagery, Johnson maintains his streak for vibrant humor and intricate mystery plotting.<\/span><\/p>\n He doesn\u2019t know it yet, but Father Jud (<\/span>Josh O\u2019Connor<\/span><\/strong>) will find himself in dire need of the sleuthing services of Benoit Blanc (<\/span>Daniel Craig<\/span><\/strong>). The young priest finds himself at odds with Monsignor Wicks (<\/span>Josh Brolin<\/span><\/strong>) and his flock as the newly assigned second-in-command. Their church numbers are dwindling, and the remnants make for an eclectic and unwelcoming bunch. It doesn\u2019t help that Jud\u2019s past led to tragedy, further alienating him in his new station. That makes him the prime suspect when a dead body shows up during service.<\/span><\/p>\n Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery. Josh O\u2019Connor in Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery. Cr. Courtesy of Netflix \u00a9 2025<\/p>\n Wake Up Dead Man<\/span><\/em> is indeed the darkest entry yet, with Johnson unfurling dramatic gothic flashbacks lit in stark hues or ghastly death tableaus. The Neo-Gothic church serves as the primary setting. It is, as aforementioned, drawing heavily from the mysteries of Poe and Carr; the latter of whom\u2019s <\/span>The Hollow Man<\/span><\/em> gets mentioned frequently. It\u2019s also darker in the sense that it\u2019s grappling heavily with religion and its uglier facets.<\/span><\/p>\n It also leans just as much into its comforting warmth, thanks to <\/span>Dead Man\u2019s<\/span><\/em> benevolent lead, Father Jud, and the career-defining performance by O\u2019Connor. His pairing with Benoit Blanc makes for an entertaining yet tender odd couple; the full believer and the skeptic, both united by their moral compasses and kind hearts. It\u2019s through them, and another Murderer\u2019s Row of talent, that prevents <\/span>Dead Man<\/span><\/em> from veering too far into dark, gothic horror territory. <\/span><\/p>\n That is to say that Johnson is unwavering when it comes to this film series\u2019 commitment to delivering an entertaining ride filled with plenty of laughs, many from Craig\u2019s effervescent murder-solving theatrics. Assisting this time is scene stealer <\/span>Glenn Close<\/span><\/strong> as a devout and pious Mrs. Danvers-esque housekeeper. <\/span>Kerry Washington<\/span><\/strong> gets venomous as the bitter lawyer who feels trapped in this small town, with <\/span>Daryl McCormack<\/span><\/strong> as her adopted son. Rounding out the ensemble but less fleshed out are <\/span>Cailee Spaeny<\/span><\/strong>, <\/span>Andrew Scott<\/span><\/strong>, <\/span>Jeremy Renner<\/span><\/strong>, <\/span>Mila Kunis<\/span><\/strong>, and<\/span> Thomas Haden Church<\/span><\/strong>.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery. Josh Brolin in Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery. Cr. John Wilson\/Netflix \u00a9 2025<\/p>\n Each injects their characters with endless personality, but Johnson\u2019s latest whodunnit <\/span>is so intricately laid out<\/span> that its plotting tends to crowd out the characters. So much so that the suspect list feels smaller than usual, and some reveals can be deduced early. True to its influences, this mystery is prone to long-winded expositional monologues to help audiences stay on course; there\u2019s a lot of ground to cover in this complicated case. How Johnson manages to ultimately corral this beast of a mystery and navigate with precision only continues to impress. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n It\u2019s clear that everyone involved in these films is having an absolute blast, and it remains as infectious as ever, even as Johnson edges closer to darkness with this gothic whodunnit. Here\u2019s to hoping that Benoit Blanc keeps going, and that Johnson eventually leans further into the more overtly horror-coded mysteries.<\/span><\/p>\n Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery<\/em> received its world premiere at TIFF. It releases in select theaters November 26<\/strong>\u00a0and\u00a0Netflix December 12<\/strong>.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Writer\/Director Rian Johnson leaves behind the sunny beaches of Glass Onion for a locked room mystery in Benoit Blanc\u2019s third outing, Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery. Johnson draws heavy inspiration from John Dickson Carr and Edgar Allan Poe for the latest whodunnit case, centered around a whole new ensemble. Though that does […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":29267,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/bloody-disgusting.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/WUDM_20240619_03917_R-scaled.jpg?resize=1000%2C600&ssl=1","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[11617],"tags":[9239,19521,2203,4950,19527,15967,19522,19523,2171,19528,1065,19524,7477,18668,4794,19525,19526],"class_list":["post-29266","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-horror-global-news","tag-allan","tag-daniel-craig","tag-dead","tag-draws","tag-edgar","tag-gothic","tag-josh-oconnor","tag-knives-out","tag-man","tag-poe","tag-review","tag-rian-johnson","tag-tiff","tag-tiff-2025","tag-wake","tag-wake-up-dead-man-a-knives-out-mystery","tag-whodunnit"],"rttpg_featured_image_url":{"full":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/bloody-disgusting.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/WUDM_20240619_03917_R-scaled.jpg?resize=1000%2C600&ssl=1",0,0,false],"landscape":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/bloody-disgusting.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/WUDM_20240619_03917_R-scaled.jpg?resize=1000%2C600&ssl=1",0,0,false],"portraits":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/bloody-disgusting.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/WUDM_20240619_03917_R-scaled.jpg?resize=1000%2C600&ssl=1",0,0,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/bloody-disgusting.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/WUDM_20240619_03917_R-scaled.jpg?resize=1000%2C600&ssl=1",150,150,false],"medium":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/bloody-disgusting.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/WUDM_20240619_03917_R-scaled.jpg?resize=1000%2C600&ssl=1",300,300,false],"large":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/bloody-disgusting.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/WUDM_20240619_03917_R-scaled.jpg?resize=1000%2C600&ssl=1",1024,1024,false],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/bloody-disgusting.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/WUDM_20240619_03917_R-scaled.jpg?resize=1000%2C600&ssl=1",1536,1536,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/bloody-disgusting.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/WUDM_20240619_03917_R-scaled.jpg?resize=1000%2C600&ssl=1",2048,2048,false],"post-thumbnail":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/bloody-disgusting.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/WUDM_20240619_03917_R-scaled.jpg?resize=1000%2C600&ssl=1",370,265,false],"kava-thumb-s":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/bloody-disgusting.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/WUDM_20240619_03917_R-scaled.jpg?resize=1000%2C600&ssl=1",150,85,false],"kava-thumb-s-2":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/bloody-disgusting.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/WUDM_20240619_03917_R-scaled.jpg?resize=1000%2C600&ssl=1",230,230,false],"kava-thumb-m":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/bloody-disgusting.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/WUDM_20240619_03917_R-scaled.jpg?resize=1000%2C600&ssl=1",400,400,false],"kava-thumb-m-vertical":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/bloody-disgusting.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/WUDM_20240619_03917_R-scaled.jpg?resize=1000%2C600&ssl=1",370,500,false],"kava-thumb-m-2":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/bloody-disgusting.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/WUDM_20240619_03917_R-scaled.jpg?resize=1000%2C600&ssl=1",570,450,false],"kava-thumb-l":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/bloody-disgusting.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/WUDM_20240619_03917_R-scaled.jpg?resize=1000%2C600&ssl=1",1170,650,false],"kava-thumb-xl":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/bloody-disgusting.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/WUDM_20240619_03917_R-scaled.jpg?resize=1000%2C600&ssl=1",1920,1080,false],"kava-thumb-masonry":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/bloody-disgusting.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/WUDM_20240619_03917_R-scaled.jpg?resize=1000%2C600&ssl=1",600,999,false],"kava-thumb-justify":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/bloody-disgusting.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/WUDM_20240619_03917_R-scaled.jpg?resize=1000%2C600&ssl=1",640,640,false],"kava-thumb-justify-2":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/bloody-disgusting.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/WUDM_20240619_03917_R-scaled.jpg?resize=1000%2C600&ssl=1",1280,640,false]},"rttpg_author":{"display_name":"#RiseCelestialStudios","author_link":"https:\/\/design-providers.com\/rise\/author\/ralph-c\/"},"rttpg_comment":0,"rttpg_category":"HORROR GLOBAL NEWS<\/a>","rttpg_excerpt":"Writer\/Director Rian Johnson leaves behind the sunny beaches of Glass Onion for a locked room mystery in Benoit Blanc\u2019s third outing, Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery. Johnson draws heavy inspiration from John Dickson Carr and Edgar Allan Poe for the latest whodunnit case, centered around a whole new ensemble. Though that does…","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/design-providers.com\/rise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29266","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/design-providers.com\/rise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/design-providers.com\/rise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/design-providers.com\/rise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/design-providers.com\/rise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29266"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/design-providers.com\/rise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29266\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29268,"href":"https:\/\/design-providers.com\/rise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29266\/revisions\/29268"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/design-providers.com\/rise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29267"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/design-providers.com\/rise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29266"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/design-providers.com\/rise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29266"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/design-providers.com\/rise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29266"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}