It is a Christmas tradition that we choose up to 10 films to watch in the lead up to and over Christmas; this year we seem to have ended up with 12. It isn’t that we have been saving them, it’s just that we haven’t seen them and several seem to be highly recommended, which is not something we can always say.

To start off Christmas 2025 we watched Wake Up Dead Man, the third in the Knives Out series. The previous two films have been colourful and full of frippery and designer clothes. This was a much darker film, both in the colours used in the filming and the themes. The clothes were also much quieter with a priest’s black uniform and Benoit Blanc’s slightly flared, three piece suit.

Daniel Craig is Benoit Blanc, a private detective who solves unsolvable cases and as we are told several times, the murder of Father Wicks, or as he likes to call himself Monsignor Wicks, is impossible. To back this up our attention is drawn to Agatha Christie novels amongst others and the idea of a ‘locked room’ murder.

The real star of the show is Josh O’Connor who plays the priest sent to the church to see what is happening. It is his first priesthood and he is a man who has been saved by God. As a young boxer he killed a man and did so with ‘hate in his heart’. What he finds is a dictator of a priest who has reduced his congregation to a few who are all individuals with a need and it is discovered, a motive to kill. They are quirky and some of them are more important in relation to the killing than others.

Unlike Agatha Christie novels, we do not get a big reveal with everyone gathered to witness it. Slowly, the story is uncovered, a story of greed, vengence and hate and in the end only the priest is necessary for redemption.

I couldn’t help thinking that there was a great deal of commentary on our world today, with one of the characters constantly filming everything to share online, capturing half-truths and private moments. There is a fabulour moment near the start where Blanc and the priest Jud meet, where Blanc is asked to say how he feels about being in a church. Few would have provided the corruscating response Blanc did

The idea of charismatic leaders is front and centre in the film but because this is a story there is a rough justice as Wicks peddles his form of christianity that excludes, that names and shames and divides society. You are either in or you are out. This is a very real battle in the Church of England at present and in America in general.

What I took from the film was the human need for hope.

This is a classic gothic film with a lot of night time action, dark colours and an imbalance in power between the monsignor and his congregation. The narrative is driven by actions from the past, actions which have very real consequences for the characters in the present day. Some of the women are portrayed as weak or vulnerable, although that too could be applied to the male characters.

See the trailer here.

This film was an 8/10 from both of us.