Old school British horror is alive and well in this unsettling, occult nightmare about how far people will go to deal with the loss of a loved one.

The latest feature from the newly resurrected Hammer studios, it opens with a vet’s young daughter being savagely killed by a dog. Mourning her demise, he and his wife move to the tiny Irish village of Wake Wood, where they become embroiled in Pagan ways after discovering the locals can raise the dead. Unfortunately, their kid’s consequent return results in a supernatural helter-skelter ride that culminates in gory chaos.

In his first foray into horror, director David Keating (who also co-wrote the screenplay) opts for tension over cheap shocks: slowly and confidently crawling under the skin thanks to his blend of atmosphere and emotion.

Events ooze unease, as shadowy lighting and a muted colour palette combine with an eerie soundtrack to breathe life into the sinister village and its ritual-governed inhabitants. Meanwhile, the measured pacing allows greater character development than usual for genre movies, increasing viewer empathy for the plight of the grief-stricken parents (Queer As Folk’s Aidan Gillen and The Children’s Eva Birthistle).

Cracking support comes courtesy of Timothy Spall, in his most creepy role to date. But the flick’s trump card is newcomer Ella Connolly, who is haunting and terrifying as the living dead girl. For sheer nerve-racking intensity, Wake Wood is right up there with cult classic The Wicker Man (1973), which is high praise indeed.

Words: Billy Chainsaw

VERDICT: More terrifying than being stranded at a crusty forest festival with The Corrs playing on loop

DIRECTOR Q&A: DAVIND KEATING (director/co-writer)

Did you research Paganism for the film?

We don’t think that Wake Wood has a Pagan aspect, although I can see with hindsight how people might use that word. Co-writer/producer Brendan McCarthy and myself both had a sense of what the world of vets, farmers and blacksmiths is like because our fathers were both qualified veterinary surgeons, so we looked at what it’d be like if that culture was extended into a practical ritual that could bring back the dead. We ended up with the film’s messy, gooey sequence. It was mystical, in a practical, rural kind of way.

Do you believe in the supernatural?

It’s a tough concept for me because I’m pretty sure that there’s much weirder shit out there than you or I could ever imagine. I think we need to expand our view of what’s ‘natural’ before we question the supernatural – and when I say expand, I mean explode it into tiny pieces.

Did anything weird happen while you were shooting the film?

One day, when we were shooting the awakening scene, we were holed up in an old farmhouse that had been empty for years. We were upstairs in a dim, candlelit room as it started to get dark outside, and when we came to the end of a take, there was a moment of silence and then… the whole floor shook – like the old house disapproved and was saying, “No, don’t do it”. It was chilling and people started yelling.