The_Dead_See It was interesting reading one of the other reviews on here that hits on how fraudulent Elrod seems in the first half of this documentary. I felt exactly the same way - that Elrod is a guy who either lives in a fantasy prone world or is outright hoaxing to make a quick buck. In fact I felt this way so much that after the first 30 minutes or so I kind of quit watching and started surfing the net on my computer instead while the documentary kept playing to itself in the background.I'm glad I didn't turn it off.Around the hour mark the documentary takes a turn, with Elrod heading out on a sort of spiritual quest, and gradually it caught my attention again. All talk of what he purportedly experiences goes away and instead he's just shown exploring a variety of spiritual groups from a new age mind control retreat, to a Buddhist center and finally a Native American vision quest in the forest.Ultimately the film becomes a message that all spiritual pursuits are probably just stumbling attempts pointing towards a single truth of the human condition. Elrod doesn't purport to comprehend this truth (he just calls it God) but he seems joyful enough to have come to the realization that it can't help but make the viewer feel a little uplifted with him.I should note that I'm agnostic bordering on atheism and I take vehement offense at any film that tries to preach to me. "Wake Up" did not, so even though the Christian concept of God is discussed through the first half of the film as Elrod's primary belief system, this is not a documentary that proselytizes in any way... so all you atheists out there are safe. So if you watch the documentary to the end, the question of whether Elrod is hoaxing or not kind of becomes moot. It becomes apparent that this is a film about human nature, inclusion and interconnectedness instead. It's about a journey away from organized religion and towards personal spirituality. Elrod may be a fictional protagonist heading towards this conclusion or he may legitimately believe in his experiences but it doesn't really matter because it still makes for a fairly engaging quest.

everdaboyz My daughter, who has a Masters in Psychology and is a shamanic practitioner, told me to watch this. For some reason I haven't figured out, i had to try and watch it three times (getting past the first twenty minutes was just so uncomfortable). It was worth the effort of breaking through that wall. I felt his journey was honest - including his discomfort in front of the camera and his slow learning that being vulnerable is not as awful as the fear of being vulnerable. The folks he contacted were very interesting and appeared genuine. There were many 'touching' moments. The 'ah-ha' moments were my favorites however - just love witnessing openings. Watch it with an open mind and heart - then see what you think after.

Clarence Freebish Like another reviewer here, I have to question the veracity of Elrod's claim that he sees people (and colors, and other things) that others cannot see. For someone who woke up one day to experience these phenomena, he seems remarkably incurious as to why it is occurring. Although the documentary purports to take us along on Elrod's journey to do just that, it ends up sidetracked in a morass of new-age spirituality that has little to do with the specific phenomena that occur to Elrod. As a viewer, it's frustrating to watch Elrod avoid the simple and most obvious questions that would arise by placing oneself in his shoes.For example, Elrod (early in the film) speaks to a therapist (psychiatrist? Not sure as I don't believe the gentleman was identified). He tells the therapist that he (Elrod) can see a woman standing behind him (the therapist). He seems troubled, which is understandable. Yet we never see Elrod wonder what that woman's presence indicates. Does she want to tell him something? Is she in pain? Is she threatening? The viewer is only left to wonder, because that's one of the last times Elrod addresses a specific instance.For the balance of the documentary, we see Elrod visit a series of spiritual guides, who offer him little in the way of answering what or why this is happening to him. They offer platitudes about embracing the change in his life but it does little to resolve the question about what is happening to him or what the phenomena are.As a viewer, I don't expect necessarily to get to the bottom of Elrod's experience, but I expect him to at least engage the obvious questions. At the end, Elrod seems happy but nothing along the way occurs to him that would logically explain his transformation from the muttering, troubled person at the beginning of the film. Perhaps Elrod preferred not to end on a down-note or at least not at the same place he started three years prior, but it seemed like a ham-handed attempt to appear cheerful after his journey, rather than as logically confused as he leaves his viewer.

timmyhollywood I'm surprised there are no other reviews on here. I'll be brief. This film did not impress, and the subject matter struck me as a fakery almost right away.As far as the craft of making a documentary film, there is very little here. Docs need skilled hands just like narratives do. Shooting things on a camcorder and cutting it together does not automatically a documentary film make.As far as the subject matter is concerned, if someone is making claims to be able to see the supernatural (angels, demons, ghosts, etc.) then that person should not be the director of the film. Don't ya think? That's a little bit of a conflict of interest.An even-handed approach to this would have been nice; an objective point of view from a third party filmmaker may have made this watchable. Instead, viewing the subject / director, Jonas, turn the camera on himself as he sits in front of the psychiatrist with this self-deprecating, dismissive schtick about seeing spirits only seemed like a performance.I believe Jonas is lying, and that this is a hoax. But even "hoax" is too big of a word. This is just a guy pretending. The giveaway, for me, is in his put-on cavalier attitude. He continually downplays what is happening to him, acting as though it is embarrassing. He is a very subdued character, shuffling around and mumbling about how he feels goofy burning sage because it is "new age." The film takes a chance and tries to show the viewers something like Jonas is claiming to see. These are CGI "spirits" which float around some people on a New York City street. They look like colored paper underwater, or like the teleporter characters in the X men movies. This could have been a nice touch in a better film, but here, it's only a reminder that we're not actually going to be able to see anything Jonas claims to see, because it doesn't exist. At least, not for him.I give Jonas a little credit for putting this into place with a back story about "how it all happened" - he basically planted seeds for a while before making the doc. This is the only crafty thing I found about his synthetic story.And I have one admission: I didn't make it through the whole film. I got maybe halfway. So maybe in the second half I would have become a believer. I would have stuck around had the crafting of the film been better.