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Indie movie, Dead Before They Wake is from star, writer and director, Nathan Shepka. We had an email from Shepka a wile back about reviewing this new movie and I put it on the list, but then forgot about it.
We get a lot of screeners and a fair amount of the time, they are ‘movies’ that should be going straight to audio. He emailed us again about a review, as the Dead Before Then Wake, is out on VOD in a week.
I watched the trailer that was sent with it and decided to give the movie a chance and I’m glad I did.
Dead Before They Wake stars Shepka, Grace Cordell, Manjot Sumal, Kareem Nasif, Laua Hardie, Kyle McGuinness, Patrick Bergin and Sylvester McCoy. Shepka is writer-director, with Andy Crane as co-director.
The Story
Based on true events, the official story is:
Nightclub bouncer Alex is tasked with tracking down a young girl snared by a sex trafficking network.
A young girl sits at a bus stop waiting for the last bus home. A kind taxi driver said the last bus had gone and he’d give her a lift. As soon as she’s in the car, she knows something off but manages to escape.
The guys run a sex trafficking ring, where they kidnap young girls, drug them and sell them for sex. A few girls have gone missing and it seems like the police aren’t doing as much as they should be.
Alex (Shepka) is bouncer but is approached by Evan (McCoy) about a missing girl. Alex is the kind of guy that can find people that are hidden on the streets. The rest of the movie is Taken, but with all the Hollywood fakery taken away. There isn’t some guy who knows what region of a foreign state a guy is from via his accent.
I won’t spoil the rest of the story, but it’s gripping. A little too gripping in fact, there are some scenes that are pretty upsetting, it’s not for the fair of heart and it doesn’t pull any punches about how this kind of thing goes on.
The Cast
The entire cast are very good in this, I think it’s because it’s set in Glasgow and there are no heirs or graces about it. When you seen a American movie, with a British guy playing an American, it’s usually good, but at the same time wrong.
None of the cast here are faking any kind of accent. Although, having been to Glasgow a few times, a few people could use subtitles, and I mention a few good friends in there.
Shepka carries the movie well, including some good fight scenes and well-done action. Alex is a nice guy, but don’t get on the wrong side of him. He plays the ‘hard man’ just as well as Neeson in Taken.
It was nice to see both McCoy and Bergin in Dead Before They Wake as well. Both are extremely good actors, and they aren’t in here long, but they do a damn good while on the screen. I can’t be the only person that gets Bergin confused with Kevin Kline?
Who Needs Budget?
On the IMDb, it says the estimated budget of Dead Before They Wake is about £200,000. The overall production is excellent and, I’ll be honest here, way better than something from Disney that costs 1,000 times this budget.
It made me think about buying from a supermarket and buying from a local shop. When you subscribe to Disney, not much of that money goes back to the hard workers who actually make the movie and do all the special effects. You’re helping Bob Iger give himself a $25 million bonus for the year.
When you buy from a local shop, run by a small family, you’re helping that family put food on the table, football boots on the feet of the young lad and presents under the tree at Christmas.
Watching Dead Before They Wake made me feel the same as the latter. It probably took a while to scrape that £200k together, but every penny of it went on the production and wasn’t wasted. Man, we should have more indie movies.
Overall
Dead Before They Wake is a solid action movie. As I said, it’s not for the faint of heart, but it tells some home truths that I think are glossed over by the media. Sex trafficking does happen and it affects a lot of people.
I loved how this movie didn’t have all that Hollywood sheen all over it, it was real, it was gritty and it didn’t pull any punches. It’s got more heart, than say Kraven: The Hunter that I had to review the other day.
Will I watch it again? I would say no, as it’s pretty hard-hitting, even for me. It is worth a watch as it’s a well-told story, with good action in places and is overall gripping. I will say it was a little too long for my liking, but as we all know I have the attention span of a goldfish.
Dead Before They Wake is a solid movie and worth watching. It’s good to support these indie movies. It will be on VoD on the 7th Jan.
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