Wake Up Dead Man has all the ingredients of a Rian Johnson-directed Knives Out mystery — it has a locked-room murder, an ensemble cast, and Daniel Craig once again charming us with his Southern accent.

The added bonus this time is the gothic setting. But this Netflix film, streaming from 12 December, isn’t just a puzzle box about a murder. It quietly nudges you to examine your faith, and what belief looks like when the execution is done right or disastrously wrong.

Wake Up Dead Man unfolds almost entirely around a church. The victim, Monsignor Jefferson Wicks (Josh Brolin), is no man of God. He rules his shrinking congregation through fear and absolutism, preaching damnation while tightening his grip on everyone around him.

Enter Father Jud Duplenticy (Josh O’Connor), a former boxer who has surrendered himself to God. Sent to serve as assistant pastor to Wicks, his faith isn’t performative. It is rooted in service rather than authority. Where Wicks used religion to control, Jud uses it to listen, to help, to show up when people are at their lowest.

When Wicks turns up dead, stabbed during a service, the crime appears impossible even by Benoit Blanc’s standards.

Among the suspects is a congregation full of damaged souls: a right-wing writer trying to relaunch his career, a woman in a wheelchair who hopes to walk again, a doctor with a failed marriage, a lawyer with a troubled past. They are all followers too afraid to question authority.

Blanc, meanwhile, remains firmly and unapologetically atheist. Craig delivers some memorable monologues about the damage caused by the torchbearers of religion, and the film never pretends those criticisms are unfounded.

Logic and evidence remain Blanc’s guiding lights. What’s refreshing is that the movie doesn’t force a resolution to the ideological divide between Blanc and Jud. Blanc doesn’t find God. Jud doesn’t lose his faith. They simply learn to respect each other as men trying, in very different ways, to do what’s right. Their relationship is the film’s true hero.

The mystery matters, but it isn’t the point. Wake Up Dead Man is more interested in how power corrodes faith, and how belief can either trap people or free them.

One scene makes that clear. In the middle of a tense investigation, when Father Jud and Blanc are about to make a breakthrough discovery, the pastor suddenly receives a call from a woman whose mother is dying. The plot stops cold. Jud has a moment of epiphany when he discovers his true calling in helping people in distress, and not solving murders. This is the moment that defines the film. It’s a reminder of what spiritual leadership is meant to be: not influence or spectacle, but service.