🕵️Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery — Benoit Blanc Faces His Darkest, Most Impossible Case Yet

“This goes way beyond normal police work. This is something even I have not experienced.” — Benoit Blanc

The world’s favorite detective is stepping into a case unlike anything he’s faced before — one rooted in faith, superstition, and a community teetering on the edge of collapse. Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery, arriving in select theaters on November 26 and on Netflix December 12, dives headfirst into a world where the truth is buried beneath church pews, whispered prayers, and secrets that refuse to stay dead.

This time, Rian Johnson plunges Benoit Blanc into a community defined by devotion and fractured by fear, and the result is a whodunit soaked in dread, sorrow, and theological tension. It’s not just the third chapter — it’s the darkest turn in the saga, and Daniel Craig seems more haunted, more human, and more vulnerable than we’ve ever seen him.

And with a cast that reads like a Hollywood summit — Josh O’Connor, Glenn Close, Josh Brolin, Mila Kunis, Jeremy Renner, Kerry Washington, Andrew Scott, Cailee Spaeny, Daryl McCormack, Thomas Haden Church — the drama simmers long before the murder even happens.

⛪ A Quiet Parish, A Public Death — and a Mystery That Shouldn’t Be Possible

Before the chaos, this small upstate church was already fraying. Monsignor Jefferson Wicks (Josh Brolin) leads a congregation fighting its own quiet demons, while the newly arrived priest, Jud Duplenticy (Josh O’Connor), senses that something in this parish is fundamentally wrong.

But then it happens — a death witnessed by the entire congregation, a moment that defies logic and reason. No hidden rooms. No access points. No earthly way the crime could have been committed.

Yet someone did it.

And that’s when the local police chief, played by Mila Kunis, makes the call no one wants to make.

She brings in Benoit Blanc.

That first moment Blanc enters the church — the echoing silence, the uneasy stares, the faint smell of incense hanging like guilt in the air — sets the tone for everything that follows. This isn’t a mansion or a millionaire’s island. This is a place where people come seeking salvation, not slaughter.

But salvation won’t come until Blanc finds the truth.

🎭 The Flock — Every Parishioner Has a Secret

Rian Johnson builds this ensemble like a stained-glass window — fractured pieces that only make sense when illuminated. Glenn Close plays Martha Delacroix, a devout church matriarch whose faith borders on something sharper. Thomas Haden Church lurks at the edges as Samson Holt, a groundskeeper who knows far more about the church’s past than he admits.

Kerry Washington and Daryl McCormack form the brittle Draven siblings — a lawyer and a rising politician bound by ambition, fear, and a family history they’ve worked to bury. Jeremy Renner arrives as the town doctor whose calm demeanor hides fractures of his own, while Cailee Spaeny gives the story emotional resonance as a cellist whose music becomes an unexpected key to the mystery.

And then there’s Andrew Scott — quiet, observant, unsettling. His character, reclusive author Lee Ross, seems to be watching the mystery rather than part of it… which, of course, makes him a suspect from the moment he appears.

Every actor feels like they’re carrying a confession just under the surface.

And Benoit Blanc? He sees it too.

🐺 A Trailer Full of Shadows, Wolves, and Warnings

The first trailer paints a picture of a mystery that grows darker the deeper Blanc digs. Wolves stalk the edges of the story — literal and metaphorical — as Blanc moves through a town where the truth has been buried under layers of faith and fear.

“How lucky am I?” Craig jokes in the trailer, but even he sounds unconvinced. This case isn’t luck. It feels like fate — the kind that sends shivers through the audience before a single clue is uncovered.

Rian Johnson himself admits this was “the hardest script” of his career. And you can feel it. This is not a puzzle built just for cleverness — it’s a story about belief, grief, faith, deception, and the ways communities break long before violence ever touches them.

🔎 The Crime That Should Be Impossible —

And the Detective Who Can’t Walk Away

After the initial shock, the town begins to splinter. Elders turn on outsiders. The police question their own conclusions. The clergy grow guarded. The community fractures into whispers, rumors, and accusations.

Yet the crime remains impossible.

No suspects could have done it.

No method makes sense.

No motive holds up.

And that’s exactly why Benoit Blanc can’t leave.

This is the donut hole… inside the donut hole.

Blanc is driven not by curiosity this time, but by something deeper — almost fear. A sense that if he doesn’t pull this puzzle apart, the town will collapse in on itself. You can feel in Craig’s performance that this case will leave a mark.

🕰️ The Countdown Begins

Wake Up Dead Man arrives:

🎥 In select theaters — November 26

📺 On Netflix — December 12

And with the tone, cast, and spiritual weight this movie carries, it’s already shaping up to be the most haunting, emotionally charged entry in the Knives Out trilogy.

This time, the truth isn’t just hidden — it’s protected.

And the wolves are already circling.

🕯️ Final Verdict — Benoit Blanc Has Never Faced Anything Like This

What makes Wake Up Dead Man stand out isn’t just the impossible crime or the stunning cast — it’s the darkness beneath the surface. The parish setting, the crisis of faith, the weight of belief and betrayal… these elements create a mystery that feels mythic, almost biblical.

And as Blanc steps into that church, lantern in hand, you feel the tension of a man walking into the unknown.

The case will break something.

In the town.

In the parish.Maybe even in Blanc himself.

On December 12, we’ll finally see what rises from the ashes.