THE AWAKENING

by Mark'd Commode

6.5 out of 10

Release Date: 11th November 2011

Director: Nick Murphy (Save Me (TV) / The Mist (TV) / Blood (2013))

Cast: Rebecca Hall, Dominic West, Imelda Staunton, Isaac Hempstead Wright, Joseph Mawle, Shaun Dooley and Cal MacAnninch

Writer: Nick Murphy & Stephen Volk

Trailer: THE AWAKENING

An old school ghost story that sadly feels the need to over-explain its sleight of hand.  Everybody knows that if you over complicate the mechanics of a ghost story you are at risk of confusing the audience and a confused audience is not a scared audience.  The Awakening is still a few pages ahead of the pack though in that it is very good at leading you up the spooky garden path.  The boarding school setting is perfect for the atmospheric chills on offer.

Rebecca Hall (LAY THE FAVOURITE) plays Florence Cathcart, a professional de-bunker of the super natural (what’s the professional title for one of these, anyone? An anti-Medium?). She attends seances exposing the money making charlatans.   Around the turn of the Twentieth Century and particularly after the First World War, when The Awakening is set, there were a lot of fakes out to exploit those who had lost loved ones.   Florence has her very own personal reasons for disproving such practices as we’re to find out when she is summoned to a boarding school by Dominic West‘s headmaster.  A ghost has been seen prowling the corridors and the boys are scared stiff.  As it’s the end of school year, Florence and a skeleton crew of staff can have the school to themselves to oust the joker, or is the spectre all too real…?

If ghost stories were marked on atmosphere and location, The Awakening would score a true ten.  Unfortunately, ghost stories are as much about the destination as the journey and when we arrive at it’s over complicated ending we only feel short changed.  We may not have been here before in recent memory but its a disappointment all the same.  Dominic West (JOHNNY ENGLISH 2) has rarely been better and Rebecca Hall proves to be an excellent leading actress.  We are as petrified as her when facing down blown lights, slamming doors and a spectral dolls house (in a boys’ school?)  Some threats are very real with a disturbed and shell shocked gardner (JOSEPH MAWLE – HEARTLESS) on the payroll, tipping winks and being generally scooby-doo-ish.  Imelda Staunton (PETER’S FRIENDS) is also on hand as the head matron, who’s on-hand to dispel any ghostly goings on too, or is she hiding something.  Well such a high-profile actress has to be in here for a reason.  Or is she just an expensive red herring? Muhahaha.

6.5 out of 10 – Great journey, disappointing destination.  The Awakening acts as if it has answers and theories on the afterlife. But then offers the same old unknowable conclusion. An over-explained sleight of hand also undoes a fair proportion of all that has gone into building this well-acted and presented old-school ghost story.

WHAT HAVE I SEEN THAT PERSON IN BEFORE?

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