I was pretty lucky to see the latest film to be released by the resurrected Hammer Films before Christmas last year. It is a haunting and harrowing film. It’s set in a village where the recently deceased can be brought back for three days. It’s very, very good and out in the UK on the 25th of March. It’s name is Wake Wood.

Wake Wood is directed and co-written by David Keating and I recently gave him a gentle and friendly grilling. We chatted about the incorrectly preconceived notion of Timothy Spall, creating a realistic dog attack and Audrey Hepburn in wellies. David was super nice to talk to and made me want to go watch Wake Wood again. This is why.

Hiya David, I’m Alan. I got to see Wake Wood last year and really enjoyed it.

Keating: Well thanks! At this stage I’m usually sick of projects, but Wake Wood I’m still very fond of.

How did Wake Wood come to be? Was it always intended to be a Hammer film or did they come in and pick it up later?

I came across a very early draft of the script, written by a very old friend – Brendan McCarthy. We worked on the next draft together and we were already attaching finance and so on when we were introduced to the Hammer guys. It was creatively a very good match because what we and they liked about the film was that it was contemporary, but with a very 70′s sensibility.

Were they also quite into some of the Hammer-esque elements?

There are traditional Hammer elements, sure, but it’s also about grief and how much we love our kids.

Are you a Hammer fan and how did it feel to release something under their banner?

I wouldn’t describe myself as a die hard Hammer fan, I am a big horror fan, but the horror I like best of all is the Polanski horror films and films like The Exorcist, The Omen… they would be the films that moved me more. But, I am aware of the importance of the Hammer banner to an awful lot of people.

Did Hammer coming on board have any effect on the film, did you feel under pressure to change anything?

Initially I kind of thought about that and then I realised I was just going to have to forget about it. Because we couldn’t second guess how people were going to interpret it the film, based on the brand. It was better that we just make the best film that we possibly could, and make it for ourselves really. Brendan and myself set out to make the kind of film that we would like to see and didn’t worry too much about the Hammer brand. I think they’re already stretching their preconceptions with films like Let Me In and The Resident.

Timothy Spall was fantastic in the film. How did he get involved and what was it like working with him?

He came quite late onto the project and one of the reasons for that was that his name had come up and, I have to confess, I had kind of a preconception of Timothy Spall and it was totally wrong and totally out of date. I kept thinking of him in films like Life Is Sweet going “Orthopaedic, three hundred quid” (we both laugh). You know, this kind of wide boy – he was so brilliant doing that and I couldn’t quite get over that. The idea that he would play a rural vet… took me a while to get my head around. The thing was, as soon as I spoke to him, then I absolutely understood that it could work. He’s an extremely good actor and able to think his way into characters which are way beyond what he would be himself. We got on great and I had a wonderful time with him – he’s a very nice man.

How did you go about creating the magic and ritual used in the film?

In story terms, we knew that we had to bring people back from the dead. The original idea was that you used a recent corpse to bring somebody back, that had been dead for less than a year. Initially we had a version… that was very… CGI I suppose. It was more like flesh creeping onto bones, like plants weaving ’round. I spent some years on a farm growing up and my dad, and Brendan’s dad, were both qualified veterinary surgeons. So instead of using a potion or a spell book, we wanted the process to be like what farmers and farriers and vets do. So it was a developmental process between Brendan and I and our Art Department. We were trying to evolve a culture that we could imagine there being in a small town, where there’s lots of farms and farm yards.

I loved how real the village itself felt. Was it a combination of locations or one village and was anything shot in a studio?

Wake Wood is really the town of Pettigo, in County Donegal. It had a big influence on the film because the people of Pettigo were incredibly helpful to us. As much as Wake Wood is an invention, we did base it on the town and the people of the town appear as extras and let us use their houses as locations. It was really grounded in this particular area.

I also enjoyed the pacing of the film and the gradual feeling of dread that builds up. It was a nice change from having a jump scare every ten minutes. Was that a reaction to the laziness of a lot of current horror stuff, or just how it turned out?

We were just trying to tell the story as well as we could. We had a lot of different versions of the film, some of which didn’t include the death of the girl at the beginning. It was just through exploring, that we found a way that felt right. I think what you’re referring to may have been perceived as a little bit of a barrier, when we were trying to make the film. Not by us, but by potential partners, because it was a little unusual. That wasn’t intentional on our part – we just wanted to tell it how it seemed… best.

You mention the dog attack, which is shocking and brutal, how did you go about approaching that scene and making it as nasty as it is?

Well, we shot it in Dublin, using a real dog and a dog head, which was sort of a model, like a big glove puppet. We had to be a little careful because Ella, who was playing Alice, is an extremely bright girl, but she was a little fearful of being near a dog and the blood and guts. Ultimately, we didn’t feel that we’d shot that scene as well as we’d wanted, so we always had a plan to go to Sweden for a few days – because we had some money from Sweden, we had to go spend some money in Sweden. So over there we did some initial shots with a Police dog. The dog that we used was a dog used for tracking people who are lost. It was actually a really friendly dog, but when it barked it was pretty damn scary! So that opening attack is actually a combination of Dublin and Sweden.

What are you doing next? Will you be returning to horror?

Yeah, Brendan and I have a couple of other horror ideas that we are kicking around but what I am actually doing at the moment is shooting some stuff for a documentary about the relationship between a knife thrower and his assistant.

If you were to go to Wake Wood and could bring anyone at all, in the whole, wide, world back for three days, who would you choose and why?

I’d like to bring back Audrey Hepburn, to see how she deals with cow shit and welly boots in Wake Wood. She could sing Moon River in a farmyard.

If you could make a dream Hammer film, an original idea, or a remake, what would that be and who would you cast?

I’d like to do a Hammer remake of Cat People with Imogen Poots.

And on that gorgeous bombshell (*goes on IMDB to make sure she’s not jail bait, before referring to her as “gorgeous”*), time was up and I bid David a fond fare-de-well. I know I have a habit of saying this about everyone I interview (one day I’m sure I’ll get someone horrible) but he was an absolute pleasure to chat to. He was friendly and straight shooting and I look forward to a re-watch of Wake Wood, as well as whatever horrors spill forth from his sleeve in the future.

Remember to check out my review and then go see Wake Wood on the 25th March or buy it on Blu-ray/DVD from 28th March