‘Wake Up Dead Man:’ A Puzzle You Can’t Put Down

Everything comes in threes for the “Knives Out” films. Three entries, three years between each of them, three central murders to solve, and three identical births on the first Saturday of the Toronto International Film Festival at the Princess of Wales theatre. It’s like clockwork, with writer/director Rian Johnson continually proving his dominance over a genre filled with so many imitators.

But Johnson doesn’t think of his work in the shape of a clock. “The film should be a rollercoaster, not a crossword puzzle,” he said during the Q&A for “Wake Up Dead Man,” the currently announced final film in the series. It’s a strategy he’s only made tougher for himself with each successive film, the audience getting increasingly better trained at sniffing out each twist, striking out the red herrings, and picking up on the tiniest of clues. Every noun has importance, every opinion has a second side, and every innocent act has a much darker meaning lurking underneath.

“Wake Up Dead Man” finds itself embracing the darkness, combining the trademark characteristics of Agatha Christie with the work of Edgar Allan Poe. After a COVID-19-imposed detour to a private Greek island in “Glass Onion,” the series returns to America, specifically upstate New York. “Young, dumb, and full of Christ” preacher Jud Duplentis (Josh O’Connor) has been shipped there to revitalize a flailing parish under the dogmatic eye of Msgr. Jefferson Micks (Josh Brolin). 

Years of messages full of fire and brimstone, along with general antagonistic behavior, have transformed his ornate house of worship into a hollow Gothic tomb. The only members left in the congregation are those who are ceaselessly devoted to Wicks and his teachings: administrator Martha (Glenn Close), groundskeeper Samson (Thomas Haden Church), town doctor Nat (Jeremy Renner), redpilled author Lee (Andrew Scott), the sickly former cellist Simone (Cailee Spaeny), lawyer Vera (Kerry Washington), and her forcibly adopted son Cy (Daryl McCormack).

As you assumed, one of these characters is murdered, and the fingers are all pointing at Jud, thanks to his differing views on the role of the church and his violent past, which includes killing one of his opponents in the boxing ring. And as you also assumed, the Kentucky fried detective Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig) is here to uncover the real culprit and explain this seemingly impossible mystery.

O’Connor is ostensibly the film’s lead, taking an ever larger role as the audience’s guide than Ana de Armas and Janelle Monáe did in their respective films. He’s sad, funny, and conflicted, wanting to put down his fists and open up his arms to the world. But the world we currently live in is not equipped for such compassion, trading in gossip and rumor rather than a heart-to-heart conversation. This could be lightly defined as Johnson’s version of “Eddington,” taking down both sides of the aisle with the groan-worthy buzzwords (MAGA, DOGE, etc.) and the kind of fanaticism that only breeds hatred for anything that seems unfamiliar. 

But while Ari Aster specializes in pushing our faces closer to the ugly mirror, Johnson prefers that everything be kept light and fun. The snappy editing, coupled with the long zoom-ins and heightened images by regular Director of Photography Steve Yedlin, keeps the intrigue chugging along on this slightly elongated 144-minute track. The surrounding forest is besieged by fog, and the moon is blood red, and the eyes of the gargoyles are piercing down on each of the suspects.

Craig falls deeper into his Foghorn Leghorn routine, upping his comedic prowess as the proudly rational detective must come face-to-face with the realization that all the clues point to this murder being a miracle. With so much time devoted to O’Connor, the rest of the herd of cats run loose a little more than before. I’d like to say who gets better served than others, but that would get us flirting with spoiler territory.

While Johnson would prefer we don’t think of these films as a puzzle, it’s still endlessly entertaining to see him lay out all the pieces and then rearrange them. His delicate sleight of hand will have you exclaiming that you knew a certain thing would happen all along, or that you never would have guessed that in a million years. Either way, the game is afoot for (supposedly) one last time, and the board is full of saints and sinners.

Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery had its World Premiere at the 2025 Toronto International Film Festival. Netflix will release it in theaters on November 26, followed by its streaming premiere on December 12.