"Wake Up Dead Man" — Read The Screenplay by Rian Johnson
Southern secrets. Sweet tea. One dead man. Benoit Blanc is back.
Rian Johnson returns with another sharp-witted mystery -- this time in the American outh, where faith, money, grief, and gossip move faster than the truth. "Wake Up Dead Man" plays slower, darker, and more intimate than Knives Out, trading spectacle for rot-under-floorboards tension. Blanc isn’t just solving a case -- he’s peeling back a community’s carefully manicured smile.
A prestige whodunnit with bite. Less fireworks -- more knives hidden under bibles.
"Wake Up Dead Man" — Educator Resources & Study Guide
Mystery Writing Isn’t About Clues — It’s About Motive.
The "Wake Up Dead Man" screenplay is a masterclass in character-driven mystery. Conversations become chess matches, politeness becomes armor, and every witness is lying in a slightly different key. It’s a fantastic text for screenwriters studying subtext, modern whodunnit pacing, Southern-Gothic atmosphere, and how humour can maintain tension instead of breaking it.
Download the full Educator Breakdown (PDF) below for Tone Breakdown, Lessons, Critical Lens, and a classroom exercise.
Wake Up Dead Man (2025) — Classroom Study
"Wake Up Dead Man" is a lesson in modern whodunnit craft -- mystery tension through character motive, conversational traps, and the quiet art of letting the audience think they know what’s happening. It’s proof that detectives aren't puzzle-solvers -- they’re human lie detectors with patience. This script is witty without winking, stylish without vanity, and sharp enough to draw blood if you lean on it wrong.
- How to modernize a classic whodunnit voice.
- Why mystery pacing depends on withholding.
- The role of class, community, and faith in truth.
- Detectives as character-catalysts instead of protagonists.
- Southern Gothic tension -- beauty vs rot.
- How humour can intensify suspense.
- Reliability of witness memory.
- Why whodunnits must satisfy thematically, not just logically.
"Wake Up Dead Man" One Sheet & Script Intel
Detective Benoit Blanc teams up with an earnest young priest to investigate a perfectly impossible crime at a small-town church with a dark history. Netflix
| Type | ... |
FYC
|
| Version | ... | FinalPink Rev. |
| Date | ... | 06.16.2024 |
| Pages | ... | 123 |
| Genres | ... | Comedy Crime Drama |
| Screenplay | ... | Rian Johnson |
| IMDb ID | ... | 14364480 |
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