BIFFF 2011 review: Wake Wood, a film by David Keating

I just got back from the BIFFF where I caught the international premiere of Wake Wood, one of the latest additions to the legendary Hammer Film Productions, which has been brought back to life from over two decades of hibernation.
I'll get back to the film more thoroughly tomorrow, as I'm meeting director David Keating and actor Timothy Spall, a Mike Leigh regular who plays here a friendly but menacing local vet.
The film is uneven as a whole, not least because it is too explicit both conceptually and visually at times, which detracts from the credibility of the unsettling premise, but it is still a more than interesting contemporary update of some of the best thrillers of the 1970's, most notably the cult classics The Wicker Man, from which it takes the subject of pagan rituals in a small, isolated community, and Don't look now, to which it owes not only the central couple grieving the loss of a young daughter but, more importantly, a certain colour or look (that film sensitivity of the 1970's), maybe the most interesting element of the film.