Review of The Awakening (2010) by Jay D — 13 Feb 2013

The Awakening was another flick that came to me completely out of the blue; recommended to me by a fellow horror buff in my stomping ground. I had no idea what to expect when I threw this on but am so happy I did.

I really gotta start listening more to my friends as they seem to 'get' my taste in flicks! The Awakening was an old fashioned ghost story (plenty of homages to other classics... I caught whiffs of The Changeling and The Shining mainly) with a unique twist in the guise of its main character being a 'ghost debunker.

' People looking for a rollicking 'House on Haunted Hill remake' type of flick should look elsewhere. The Awakening was focused on its characters first and the fear scenarios secondly. A lot of build up and relationships were the key elements that made this work for me.

The actors at hand, of course, all doing very admirable at it. Rebecca Hall has the role I will forever remember her for. I fell in love with Florence, felt for her, wanted to comfort her in more ways than one.

Rebecca Hall emoted her character's hidden, inner pain perfectly. Excellent performance. Dominic West backed Hall up like a champ as the equally-torn Mallory. Imelda Staunton rocked as the maid with a heart of gold.

Joseph Mawle did well with what he was given. Nick Murphy convinced with his imagery. The flick was atmospheric,dreadful while eerily gorgeous (cinematography=amazing) and a sense of sadness throughout the whole picture.

The movie wasn't so scary as it was 'eerie' and Murphy nailed that aspect itself with focus on a lot of ambiguous objects (secret passages were nuts!). Speaking of objects, the neat ghost traps were a unique idea.

Can't say I saw that in an 'old fashioned' style of ghost story before! Add to this some plot twists that totally surprised me, a love story with some deeper themes than the norm (loneliness and all the good tragic ingredients here), and child actors that didn't annoy the hell out of me and you get one ghost flick to be reckoned with.

On the half-assed; sleepy side of things (I tried... don't hate), Joseph Mawle's character was completely useless to the movie. He did well with the material, but the character brought nothing to the story except to look like a perv in one scene.

That's it. The plot wasn't affected in any way as a result of his presence. Why bother? I must also say that it took me a few minutes to really 'figure out' the mystery in the last act once it was finally solved.

Either the editing was a bit off there or I'm a moron. My vote is for the latter half of that. Finally, the ending didn't work on me. I'm all for open endings but in the case of this movie, it didn't fit.

I needed more closure here, dammit! You may love it for all you can muster, though... who knows? Me, for the amount of intrigue I had with it, was looking for me. In all though, this movie was definitely worth the time and is one of those flicks that will receive a second watch for me soon.

A baffling mystery, drawn-out characters and a good storyline makes up for a great adult thriller. Dig in.