The Wake tells the story of a group of friends attending the wake of a young boy. The boy in question was run over and killed by a drunk driver who is one of the friends and the family know and understand! Immediately I was overcome with disbelief, this concept immediately was ridiculous to me.

Anyway before you know it they are all waking up tied to chairs and fighting off masked intruders before the movie gradually builds to a rather surprising but not all that interesting finale.

I was actually enjoying it for the first 30 minutes odd, I was very curious to see where it was going but as soon as its direction became apparent my interest waned.

Not the worst horror out there, simply not very well done.

The Good:

Couple of nice ideas

The Bad:

A drunken driver child killer is the protagonist, really!?

Poorly written

Things I Learnt From This Movie:

If a drunk driver runs your child over it makes perfect sense to invite them to the wake

The best place to keep your spare car key is locked in your car

The film opens by letting us know Casey (Allie Rivera) is going to be the final girl by showing us the end clip. Her boyfriend Tyler (Bryan Brewer-writer/director/producer) had committed vehicular homicide while drunk and they are going to the kid's wake. Now why the boy was out late at night and how he was hit when he lives high up on a hill on an isolated road was not explained.

While at the wake, which consists of Tyler, his friends and three family members and no one else, they get tied up with a killer in the house.

Now why Tyler was not in jail was explained later that the family didn't want to press charges...which is not how that works for drunk driving involving a death. Also the wake of a stranger I killed would not be where I would be going with my friends. They did managed to find a one fingered person who could play a child's piano to do the sound track. The acting, plot and dialogue were all bad, thank you Bryan Brewer for nothing. Scary stuff consisted of the proverbial burlap masks, a blue light, and doors opening and shutting by themselves. I even saw the mother thing coming at the end. The killer was liked Batman. Once caught, it took forever to get his mask off. The build up was more comical than suspenseful.

The story itself had potential: If Allie Rivera had a nose job and acting lessons, if Bryan Brewer would stay behind the camera, if they fixed the plot holes, and created some dialogue.

Phone companies have batteries in their lines so if you lose power you have plenty of time to call in a power outage. You don't lose phone service right away. Just saying. Close to being "so bad it is good." F-word, No sex or nudity.

THE WAKE is another familiar-looking slice of indie horror set in a single location. Five friends hook up to attend the wake of a local kid who died mysteriously. There's plenty of atmosphere building here but as you'd expect, very little in the way of actual content, at least until the climax. The plot is fairly predictable even though the actors do their best to sell it, but at least this is a little more convincing than most.