Movies
Rian Johnson on the Gothic Horror Mystery Influences Behind ‘Wake Up Dead Man’
Whipsmart detective Benoit Blanc embarks on his darkest case yet when Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery arrives in theaters later next week.
The locked room murder-mystery, which opens in select theaters on November 26 before streaming on Netflix December 12, draws inspiration from the darker literary corners of the mystery world.
“[Edgar Allan] Poe is actually widely regarded as being one of the real originators of the classic mystery with Murders in the Rue Morgue,” writer/director Rian Johnson says of his key influences at a press conference. “But then, more than that, tonally, John Dickson Carr. I mean, we’ve mentioned him like 38 times in the movies. He’s a big influence in the movie, and he tonally used Poe as a launching pad.”
Johnson expands on why he dialed in on Carr’s works specifically. “He writes these kinds of puzzle-like impossible crimes. More than that, he always veers to the edge of the supernatural in terms of you thinking how they could’ve been done. He plays with horror. He plays with tone. He has just a delicious, just richness to his writing that is very evocative of Poe.”
Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery. Josh O’Connor in Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery. Cr. Courtesy of Netflix © 2025
The filmmaker emphasizes that while Wake Up Dead Man is dark for a Benoit Blanc film, don’t expect full horror despite Johnon’s influences. “But also, I mean, there’s elements of it in Agatha Christie, too,” Johnson points out. “I think Christie’s best book for me is And Then There Were None, which is basically a horror novel, and takes place on this incredibly atmospheric, craggy island. It’s really a slasher film, where everyone is just getting killed off one by one, and that’s a very, very creepy book. So I think that tone is something that has been in the roots of the genre since the very start, so it felt like it’d be fun to play with.”
“It doesn’t usually even really start with the mechanics of the murder,” Johnson says of Wake Up Dead Man‘s origins. “It starts, usually, more with tone, with theme. In this case, it really got started because I wanted to write something about religion. When I started getting into John Dickson Carr and reading more impossible crime novels and lock-door mysteries, the notion of those two things fitting together like two gears and working in tandem, that is kind of what got me started on it.”
Daniel Craig is back on the case as Benoit Blanc, investigating an upstate New York parish when one of their own inexplicably dies before their eyes.
Josh O’Connor (Challengers), Glenn Close (Fatal Attraction), Josh Brolin (Avengers: Endgame), Mila Kunis (Black Swan), Jeremy Renner (The Avengers), Kerry Washington (Django Unchained), Andrew Scott (“Sherlock”), Cailee Spaeny (Alien: Romulus), Daryl McCormack (Twisters), and Thomas Haden Church (Spider-Man 3) also star.
In case you missed it: Catch up on the trailer here.
It was almost one year ago that Warner Bros. brought the entire original A Nightmare on Elm Street franchise to 4K in one massive 7-movie collection, with the limited edition SteelBook version of the set quickly selling out and becoming highly sought after. But we’re happy to report tonight that the SteelBook set is currently back in stock over on Amazon!
While supplies last, grab the Elm Street SteelBook collection for $154.99 right now!!
Orders placed for this re-release are scheduled to begin shipping out September 15, 2026.
[Related] Freddy’s Back: New ‘A Nightmare on Elm Street’ Movie in the Works at Paramount
From New Line Cinema, the collection includes the original seven films – A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984), A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge (1985), A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (1987), A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master (1988), A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child (1989), Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare (1991), and Wes Craven’s New Nightmare (1994) – along with the uncut versions of A Nightmare on Elm Street and The Dream Child.
Two BRAND NEW SPECIAL FEATURES for this set include:
- Boiler Room Confessional: The king of slashers, Robert Englund, takes us on a journey through the dream world, sharing what inspired Freddy Krueger, his rise as a cultural icon, and the legacy of A Nightmare on Elm Street, plus his favorite kills, scenes, and more.
- Freddy’s Footnotes: Robert Englund and original A Nightmare on Elm Street filmmakers revisit iconic scenes, revealing the movie magic and chaos behind our favorite nightmares. Pull back the curtain and relive epic moments through the eyes of those who made them.
Here’s the full breakdown of included Special Features for each movie…
A Nightmare on Elm Street
· Ready Freddy Focus Points
· Commentary with Wes Craven, Robert Englund, Heather Langenkamp, Ronee Blakley, Robert Shaye, and Sara Risher
· Commentary with Wes Craven, Heather Langenkamp, John Saxon, and Jacques Haitkin
· Alternate Endings – Scary Ending, Happy Ending, Freddy Ending
· The House that Freddy Built: The Legacy of New Line Horror
· Never Sleep Again: The Making of A Nightmare on Elm Street
· Night Terrors: The Origins of Wes Craven’s Nightmares
A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge
· Freddy on 8th Street
· Heroes and Villains
· The Male Witch
· Psychosexual Circus
A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors
· Behind the Story: Burnout
· Behind the Story: Fan Mail
· Behind the Story: The House that Freddy Built
· Behind the Story: Onward Christian Soldiers
· Behind the Story: Snakes and Ladders
· Behind the Story: That’s Showbiz
· Behind the Story: Trading 8’s
· Dokken Dream Warriors Music Video
A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master
· The Finnish Line
· Krueger, Freddy Krueger
· Hopeless Chest
· Let’s Makeup
A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child
· Behind the Story: Womb Raiders
· Behind the Story: The Sticky Floor
· Behind the Story: Take the Stairs
· Behind the Story: Hopkins Directs
· Behind the Story: A Slight Miscalculation
Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare
· 86’D
· Hellraiser
· Rachel’s Dream
· 3D Demise
Wes Craven’s New Nightmare
· Commentary with Wes Craven
· NEW – Boiler Room Confessional
· NEW – Freddy’s Footnotes
· Becoming a Filmmaker
· Filmmaker
· An Insane Troupe
· The Problem with Sequels
· Two Worlds
· Welcome to Prime Time: It Really Happened
· Welcome to Prime Time: A Childhood Memory
· Welcome to Prime Time: Sometime in the Early 80s
· Welcome to Prime Time: So It Began
· Welcome to Prime Time: Beauty and the Beast
· Welcome to Prime Time: Making the Glove
· Welcome to Prime Time: Shapeshifter
· Welcome to Prime Time: The Shoot
· Welcome to Prime Time: The Revolving Room
· Welcome to Prime Time: All’s Well that Ends Well
· Welcome to Prime Time: Talalay’s Tally
· Welcome to Prime Time: It Couldn’t Have Happened
· Welcome to Prime Time: Alternate Ending Version
· Conclusion: Where Gothic Plots Come From
· Conclusion: Why We Like Gothic
· Conclusion: Sadomasochism
· Conclusion: Freddy vs. Pinhead
· Conclusion: Freddy’s Manic Energy
· Conclusion: Creating Lasting Characters in Horror
· Conclusion: No More Magic Tricks
· Conclusion: Monster with Personality
· Conclusion: Freddy as Sex Machine
· Conclusion: Campfire Stories
The Elm Street collection is available in this collectible SteelBook packaging (exclusive to Amazon) and as a standard 4K collection that’s also available now over on Amazon.
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