Sound the church bells, a thriller is afoot!
Rian Johnson, the acclaimed author/director of Knives Out and its splashy COVID-lockdown-set sequel The Glass Onion, is again with contemporary blood in Wake Up Lifeless Man. Followers of Daniel Craig’s smooth-as-bourbon Southern detective Benoit Blanc have motive to rejoice, as this third installment is tenaciously twisty, deliciously deranged, and a hell of time.
As followers of this franchise will undoubtedly need the prospect to crack the case with out spoilers, the next assessment will likely be spoiler-free, revealing little that may’t be gleaned from the movie’s teaser trailer.
However earlier than even plot particulars are shared under, belief me on this: See Wake Up Lifeless Man in theaters when you’re in a position.
Sure, sure, it is coming to Netflix this fall. However watching this film in a theater, full of followers desperate to see what darkish secrets and techniques and malicious motivations Blanc will unearth, is an expertise to treasure. I can affirm this, having witnessed the movie at its world premiere on the Toronto Worldwide Movie Pageant, the place the viewers laughed, gasped, and cheered just like the sacred neighborhood of cinephiles we’re.
Wake Up Lifeless Man slyly pulls from John Dickson Carr.
Johnson’s first Knives Out movie performed deliciously into the Agatha Christie tales that featured a clutch of eccentric suspects trapped along with the genius detective decided to out the assassin of their midst. His second, The Glass Onion, leaned extra into fashionable greed, pulling away from the antique-filled household residence of a thriller novelist and towards shiny, tech-bro opulence. Wake Up Lifeless Man shuns the trimmings of each these worlds with a story set in a stone church, scarred by greed and desecration.
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Within the quaint New York city of Chimney Rock sits Our Woman of Perpetual Fortitude. On this church, an idealistic younger priest named Jud Duplenticy (Challengers‘ Josh O’Connor) finds himself within the crosshairs of Monsignor Wicks (Josh Brolin), a fire-and-brimstone preacher who is alleged to be “a couple of beads shy of a rosary.” And but, his flock is devoted… or appears to be, till he is murdered in the course of mass.
As revealed within the teaser trailer, Wicks’ loss of life happens in a “sealed concrete field” simply off the altar, that means this homicide is a locked-room thriller. Thus, Johnson not solely alludes to John Dickson Carr’s 1935 seminal locked-room thriller novel The Hole Man, however full on options the suspects studying the e book, flashing its cowl to the digicam, and referencing it repeatedly.
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With such a weird case, the native police welcome in famend gentleman detective Benoit Blanc (Craig), who’s earnest to analyze the younger rival priest and his parishioners, performed by Glenn Shut, Jeremy Renner, Kerry Washington, Andrew Scott, Cailee Spaeny, Daryl McCormack, and Thomas Haden Church. In fact, true to components, Blanc will want an assistant who’s arguably too near the case. And right here, he chooses Father Duplenticy.
Daniel Craig and Josh O’Connor make a wonderful comedic duo.
Credit score: John Wilson / Netflix
Benoit and Jud are an amusing research in contrasts. Draped in customized fits with dandy prospers — courtesy of Oscar–profitable costume designer Jenny Eagan — Benoit is a sublime, unruffled determine of intelligence, sophistication, and well-earned swagger. For him, homicide is horrible, positive, but in addition fascinating, presenting a puzzle he’s easily giddy to resolve.
Jud, alternatively, is an furiously ruffled clown, with none of Benoit’s cool or calm. He wears the common-or-garden black uniform and unflattering matching footwear of a priest, his white collar the shiniest bit about him. As to his character, Jud’s impulses lead him to violent outbursts and comically uncool proclamations, like that he and “Benoit Freakin’ Blanc” will discover the killer.
As soon as extra, Craig appears easy in embodying the charismatic investigator, bringing a cheeky pleasure to macabre discoveries (like how bouncy a corpse may be). O’Connor, nevertheless, is an exciting shock, proving good because the goofy however earnest sidekick. He’s frenzied and humorous, whether or not embarrassing himself in entrance of his sneering parishioners or pulling off pratfalls. As heartbreaking as O’Connor may be in dramas, this outing has me craving for him to lean into extra comedies. He is acquired a terrific ability for banter and a disarming appeal that is completely enchanting.
Rian Johnson brews temper by pulling in influences from Edgar Allan Poe… and the Bible.
Credit score: John Wilson / Netflix
Wake Up Lifeless Man evokes the Gothic horror of Edgar Allen Poe’s works. Just like the eponymous Home of Usher, the stone church on the movie’s middle is a spot of rot, secrets and techniques, and violence. As one inconceivable crime results in one other, Johnson teases his viewers that there may very well be a contact of the supernatural in Benoit’s world of rigorous rationale. How else to clarify as a physique finally ends up the place it ought not?
Between the detective and priest, questions of religion in God, in man, and in miracles change into essential to the central thriller but in addition its emotional decision. But, the movie refuses to fall into preachiness. As he has previously movies, Johnson peppers in acrid parts of American tradition, like conspiracy theories, opportunistic politics of on-line influencers, and the perversion of non secular doctrine to capitalistic ends.
A couple of watch could be required to correctly probe all Johnson has to say on these topics by means of their illustration right here. However on a primary watch, these matters play into not solely exhibiting what this squad of sinners seeks within the church, but in addition how religion alone would not make one righteous. As Wake Up Lifeless Man leans into its curious title with a sensational third act, audiences will certainly be pulled to the sting of their seats, questioning not solely how this thriller resolves however what its reply will imply for the ever-questioning Benoit Blanc.
Alongside the best way, a crackling solid brings exuberance, whether or not enjoying wrath, shock, reduction, or deep, snarling resentment. Shut and Brolin are standouts, portraying characters bigger than life, but in addition — by this deeply lapsed Catholic’s estimation — fairly acquainted to those that’ve spent enough time close to a church altar or its whispering rectory.
In the end, just like the Benoit Blanc mysteries that got here earlier than it, Wake Up Lifeless Man is sharply written, passionately delivered to life, and thoughtfully constructed, with allusions galore in its costumes, characters, novels, lore, and extra. It is a thrilling movie that is a pleasure to see with an viewers who’s likewise enthusiastic to collect collectively to expertise one thing unusual and divine. And it is a film I already crave to see once more, desperate to catch what clues or particulars I might need missed the primary time round. It isn’t all in regards to the thriller, and even the message. Quite, it is that Johnson makes these films with such ardour for visible storytelling that every thing from background props, to staging, cinematography, and costumes feels ardently intentional. It is cinema, match for the plenty and for ardent reflection — and what a terrific miracle of the fashionable age that may be!
Wake Up Lifeless Man: A Knives Out Thriller debuts on Netflix Dec. 12.
UPDATE: Dec. 10, 2025, 3:13 p.m. This assessment was first revealed on Sept. 9, 2025, out of the movie’s world premiere on the Toronto Worldwide Movie Pageant. It has been up to date for the movie’s Netflix launch.
