Wake Up Dead Man: Benoit Blanc’s back with his Knives Out

He’s cracked open the case of a sweater-wearing murderer in a chilly New England mansion. He solved a Greek island tech mogul’s murder while rocking a linen bathing suit. But now, detective Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig) is about to face his toughest case yet in Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery. And this time, it’s personal!

Also read: Zakir Naik in headlines again: does he have AIDS now?

In this new mind-bending mystery from director Rian Johnson, Blanc heads to a small, eerie church in upstate New York, where a twist of fate lands him in the midst of a gruesome murder. The victim? A beloved local priest, Jud Duplenticy (Josh O’Connor), who was sent to help out the church’s enigmatic Monsignor Jefferson Wicks (Josh Brolin).

The parish is full of quirky, suspicious characters who quickly find themselves embroiled in a tangled web of lies and secrets. There’s the mysterious Martha Delacroix (Glenn Close), the cryptic groundskeeper Samson Holt (Thomas Haden Church), the jittery lawyer Vera Draven (Kerry Washington), and a whole cast of other oddballs, including an aspiring politician, a doctor, and a bestselling author. But when the unthinkable happens, another murder, the congregation’s carefully constructed lives start to unravel.

Local police chief Geraldine Scott (Mila Kunis) is stumped, so who do they call? Benoit Blanc!

In a case that defies logic and challenges everything he knows about crime-solving, Blanc is forced to dive deep into his own psyche while trying to unravel the twisted mystery. “This is his most personal journey yet,” Johnson teases. “He has to confront both the case and himself in ways he’s never had to before.”

But here’s the real kicker. Wake Up Dead Man takes the whodunit genre to a whole new level. Drawing inspiration from detective fiction legends like John Dickson Carr and GK Chesterton, this film tackles the age-old locked-room mystery, where a corpse is found in a locked space with no way in or out. Think a deadly game of chess, but with human lives on the line.

Also read: Prince Hisahito might be last emperor of Japan, unless…

“The whole vibe of the movie – guilt, mystery, morality, humanity – just fits perfectly with a church setting,” Johnson explains. “Father Brown is a huge influence for me here.”

Wake Up Dead Man will be premiering at the Toronto International Film Festival, and later at the BFI London Film Festival on October 8. The film hits select theaters on November 26, before streaming on Netflix on December 12.