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Wake Up Dead Man

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Wake Up Dead Man is a 2025 mystery film that is the third installment in the Knives Out film series.

Directed and written by Rian Johnson.
A Rian Johnson Whodunit.

Jud

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  • So, that's how I came to Chimney Rock. Daniel in the lion's den. David facing off Goliath. Young, dumb and full of Christ. Ready for anything.
  • Wicks kept his core group tight. And the seductive power of his charisma was undeniable. But his method...every week, he would pick someone out, a newcomer usually, and he would attack. [...] This is not the true Church. You ask even the most hardcore of those in the pews, and they'll say, of course this is not what they believe. This is Wicks being Wicks, pushing it too far. But what he's pushing for every time, is a walk-out. Why does he do this? Because when that person walks out, everyone watches. And even if in the light of day it's indefensible, deep down in the dark it scratches an itch. And by staying put in that pew, a side is taken. Wick's side. Testing tolerances. Tapping deep poisoned wells. Hardening, binding with complicity. So I tried to offer a counterbalance.

Blanc

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  • What I see is not a guilty man in torment, but an innocent man tormented by guilt.
  • This might get unpleasant... or more unpleasant.

Dialogue

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Wicks: I've masturbated, um, four times this week. Four or five, generally, in... What'd I say, six weeks? Well, let's say 30 times, masturbated. Uh, this week, in my bed, in the morning once. Once in the shower, standing up, which was convenient. Just use a bath gel. Oh, once in the middle of the night, after a dream about…
Jud: That’s all right.
Wicks: Oh, one of those Japanese cat cafés.
Jud: Okay.
Wicks: You know, I read this article, but the cats were girls, and, you know, so… And I hadn’t prepared, so I had to finish into a copy of Catholic Chronicle magazine, just what was on the end table, which is probably its own kind of sin. I don’t know, maybe not, but… Not good.
Cy: I came this close. I was the GOP golden boy. The great hope. I've got connections, ins and outs. I was on the cusp, but I just couldn't engage voters. It didn't have that "cult of personality" thing, I guess.
Jud: It's hard connecting with people in a genuine way.
Cy: I know. I tried everything, believe me. I mean, I hammered the race thing. I hammered the gender thing. The trans thing, the border thing, the homeless thing, the war thing, the election thing, the abortion thing, the climate thing. The thing about induction stoves, Israel, library books, vaccines, pronouns, AK-47's, socialism. BLM, CRT, the CDC, DEI, 5G, everything! All of it I did. Nobody, just nothing... People are just numb these days. I don't know why.
Jud: Well..maybe we need to get back to fundamentals. You know, basic building blocks on how to genuinely inspire people.
Cy: The basics. You mean like, show them something they hate, and then make them afraid it's gonna take away something they love?
Jud: Well...no...
Martha: Yes, the harlot whore. That was Wicks' mother.
Jud: Okay, so what's the deal with that?
Martha: She was a harlot and a whore.
Jud: Okay...
Wicks: Anger! Anger lets us fight back, take back the ground we've lost! And we've lost so much ground. And now you're afraid. Look at those bare-knuckle instincts coming back! Good! You're afraid I'm gonna come at you again, but you're protecting yourself. Because the world wants to destroy us. Your version of love and forgiveness is a sop. It's going along to get along, with modernity, not wanting to offend this garbage world. Meanwhile, they destroy us. Feminists, Marxists, whores..bit by bit, they do. But I carry my burden. I hold the line. And you? You simpering child from Albany? Are you gonna get angry and fight?
Jud: You're poisoning this Church. And I'll do whatever it takes to save it. To cut you out like a cancer.
Jud: I take it you're not a Catholic
Blanc: Ah, no. Proud heretic. I kneel at the altar of the rational.
Jud: How does all this make you feel?
Blanc: How does it make me feel? Truthfully?
Jud: Sure.
Blanc: Well, the architecture, that interests me. I feel the grandeur, the… the mystery, the intended emotional effect... And it’s like someone has shone a story at me that I do not believe. It’s built upon the empty promise of a child’s fairy tale filled with malevolence and misogyny and homophobia and its justified untold acts of violence and cruelty while all the while, and still, hiding its own shameful acts. So like an ornery mule kicking back, I want to pick it apart and pop its perfidious bubble of belief and get to a truth I can swallow without choking... The rafter details are very fine, though. It’s… Listen… you want to kick me out, you go right ahead.
Jud: No, no. You’re being honest, it’s good.
Blanc: The truth can be a bitter herb. I suspect you can't always be honest with your parishioners.
Jud: You can always be honest by not saying the un-honest part. And you're right, it's storytelling. And this Church, it's not Medieval. We're in New York. It's Neo-Gothic, 19th Century. It has more in common with Disneyland than Notre-Dame. And the rites, the rituals, the costumes...all of it, it's storytelling. You're right. I guess the question is, do these stories convince us of a lie? Or do they resonate with something deep inside us that's profoundly true? That we can't express any other way, except storytelling?
Blance: Touche, Padre.
Lee: He's a PINO.
Jud: A PINO?
Lee: Priest in Name Only. Helping Benoit Blanc crack the mystery of evil, evil church and then some libtard will make a podcast about all of this and before you know it, the idiot versions of all of us will end up on Netflix.
Vera: Oh, the idiot version. God forbid.
Wicks: All right. Very dramatic, Vera. You've got your audience. What's this about?
Vera: I've been thinking about your mom. I never knew her, but growing up in this church, I knew the story of the harlot whore. And I've been thinking about what her life must have been like to be trapped in a house with her father and her son. Closing rank, shaming her and teaching us all to shame her. That poor girl. Yesterday, I got a call from a family law colleague in Brooklyn. He wanted to double-check contact details for Monsignor Jefferson Wicks, my client, because my client had filed an AOP with him. In Brooklyn. So I would not know.
Lee: What's an AOP? [takes the document Vera hands him] Acknowledgement of parentage. "Affirmation that I, Jefferson Wicks, am the biological father of Cyrus Draven."
Vera: No shame for you, right? Who was the mother? Does it even matter? No. No! No, she came back and dropped this poor kid in your lap. And then she went and had a life. And my faithful father came to the rescue. Once again, the boys club closed ranks and there I was, the loyal little idiot. Trapped. And I obeyed, and I honored and raised your son while you sat on your pulpit, shameless. You hypocritical son of a bitch!
Nat: Cy? Did you know?
Cy: Not until Vera told me this morning.
Wicks: Yes. Cy is my son. From a loose woman of no importance, who I knew for one night and haven't seen in thirty years. Vera's father and I kept this secret. But no longer. He is my heir. My son. Now the world is going to know it. So, rats, flee the sinking ship.
Cy: Vera, did he ever tell you anything?
Vera: Even if he did, I would go to my grave before giving it to you.
Cy: Yeah. You'd have done anything to keep the prodigal son from getting the fortune. It burns you up. You bitter hag.
Vera: That money is one psalm in the Bible of my bitterness, you fucking child.
Jud: Why do you think I became a priest? No bullshit. Really. Why?
Blanc: You felt guilt. For taking a life. And the church, it offered you a place to hide and a clear method to give you a sense of absolution.
Jud: The guy I killed in the ring, I hated him. I remember, I knew he was in trouble and I kept going and going until I felt him break. It wasn’t an accident. I killed him with hate in my heart. There’s no hiding from that, there’s no solving it. God didn’t hide me or fix me. He loves me when I’m guilty. That’s what I should be doing for these people. Not this whodunnit game.
Chief Geraldine Scott: What the hell was that?
Blanc: Road to Damascus. Scales fell from my eyes.
Chief Scott: So what? Facts, schmacts? You believe in God and all this mishegoss is real?
Blanc: No, no. God is a fiction. My revelation came from…from Father Jud. His example to have grace. Grace for my enemy. Grace for the broken. Grace for those who…deserve it the least, but who need it the most. For the guilty.
Jud: Uh, my first Mass is coming up if… if you wanna stick around.
Blanc: Um… That’s so nice of you. There is, uh… nothing I would rather not do. Toodleoo.

Cast

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