The filmmaking trio collectively known as RKSS (François Simard, Anouk Whissell, and Yoann-Karl Whissell) put their stamp on the slasher subgenre with the brutal Wake Up, which made its World Premiere last week at Fantastic Fest (our review) before heading to Sitges this week.

Bloody Disgusting spoke with RKSS after the debut about their slasher with a severe mean streak.

Wake Up is written by Alberto Marini (SLEEP TIGHT), based on an original idea by Martin Soudan, and stars Benny O.Arthur (Sky and Canal + Django series), Jacqueline Moré (THE ANARCHIST’S DREAM), Charlotte Stoiber (DOWNFALL), Kyle Scudder (Netflix’s upcoming In Love All Over Again), and newcomers Alessia Yoko Fontana and Tom Gould along with celebrated Irish film and television actors Turlough Convery (Black Mirror, Killing Eve) and Aidan O’Hare (MY SAILOR, MY LOVE).

The setup is simple: Gen Z activists sneak into a big box furniture store after hours and find themselves instead fighting for their lives against a deranged security guard.

With RKSS at the helm, a simple slasher setup transforms into a lean, mean horror feature filled with gnarly kills. Yet, the deaths are gnarly in a different way; the brutality comes from the dark, serious tone and an attention to grim details. Of course, that’s by design.

Yoann-Karl Whissell tells Bloody Disgusting that the slasher, like its title, draws from the current social climate fueled by rage. “Yeah, it’s mean-spirited,” the filmmaker tells us. “And it reflects something about our world right now, the bleakness of it, and where we’re going as a species and how much we need to change. We need to change now. We need to change yesterday. But we keep advancing and not changing any of our habits. Just full steam ahead to Doomville.”

While Wake Up may take its cues from the current socio-political landscape, don’t expect the trio to get didactic with it. With this trio, horror is the priority.

Anouk Whissell explains, “While there’s a message, we found that it was also entertaining. There was also all that concept of the empty store, which meant a really weird atmosphere because it’s big, but still, in the darkness, it becomes claustrophobic. Also, all the visuals of the masks. I know that when we read the script, we could all envision it right away as well. So, it’s this whole package that got us very passionate about this project.”

“We love slashers, we love horror movies, and the concept was very original, very refreshing,” Yoann-Karl Whissell adds, then details how they updated the formula. “The fact that you have the concept of the animals being hunted by the psychopath hunter, the fact that the kids are not just there to party, drink booze, and get laid. They are on a mission, so they’re very active, which I liked a lot. As well as other details, like those who wear masks are the victims and not the killer. The jock is not the leader; he’s actually a coward. Stuff like that that plays with the genre.”

Wake Up surprises in how mean it gets because that mean streak doesn’t equate with bloodletting. RKSS found inventive ways to induce sympathy pain without resorting to gore, a request that came from the top.

“Funny fact, if I can add,” François Simard shares, “Our producers know how much we like gory stuff, and they were like, ‘It needs to be closer to a PG-13, so please don’t go too hard on the gore.’ So that’s why it’s not very gory, but it’s so brutal. It needed to be mean. It needed to be angry and mean. And again, it comes back to what we’re doing to ourselves. It needed to be angry, needed to be mean, needed to be uncomfortable.”

They succeeded in making the pain inflicted in the movie uncomfortable, and that extended to the editing process. 

“Oh my God. I had to take breaks, oof. That’s heavy stuff,” Yoann-Karl Whissell described of his time in the editing booth with editor Joris Laquittant.

Wake Up continues its festival run later this week at Sitges. Stay tuned for additional news on this slasher, as well as more from RKSS’ other festival feature, We Are Zombies, soon.