Featured Audience Ratings

• Emil K

  
  Here is a film that begins as a very good mystery thriller with supernatural overtones and ends up as an awful mess. I felt very disappointed because the first hour is truly quite effective to sit through. The often used jump scares are almost completely avoided and when director Nick… More
  Here is a film that begins as a very good mystery thriller with supernatural overtones and ends up as an awful mess. I felt very disappointed because the first hour is truly quite effective to sit through. The often used jump scares are almost completely avoided and when director Nick Murphy uses them he truly makes them effective. The Awakening has elegance, atmosphere and style which is quite absent in a films like this these days. All is well until the final third kicks in. Murphy's own screenplay does not lack certainly any ambition but too much ambition can kill you and it definetly does kill this film. It is seriously a damn shame to see so much potential wasted here. This could have been truly something special and even a minor gem if it would not aim to be one of those thrillers with a major twist in it's end. I personally don't have anything against twist endings. I personally loved M. Night Shyamalan's masterful The Village and the major twist it had. Recently i adored what Juan Carlos Fresnadillo did with his Intruders. I guess my point is that sometimes, when made with true skill, these twists can even make great films into masterpieces, but that is not the case here. Nick Murphy goes literally bonkers towards the end of this film and tries to shoot in every possible direction. He is like a man drowning into quicksand. Every revelation feels more sillier as it goes along and the final thirty minutes are just ridicilous and melodramatic nonsense. It is also a crime that Murphy turns film's main character Florence Cathcart, quite effective Rebecca Hall, from an elegant and sophisticated woman into a hysterical skeptic in a second. Transformation does not feel true even a moment. Overall i felt that somewhere beneath this story lies a good but bit cliched film. This could have been a good old ghost story but unfortunately it is not even a close.

• Carlos M

  
  Despite the promising beginning and the solid art direction, this conventional ghost story never rises above its clearly derivative narrative - which, among many deficiencies, tries to be clever with a lame (and unnecessary) twist but is only convoluted and obvious.

• Dead A

  
  Totally unexpected ending. Was scary and also entertaining.

• Dean !

  
  A decent British film that has plenty of creepy atmasphere, without ever really being scary. A good British cast with a lot of recognizable faces give a good performance collectively and the

• Crash E

  
  in the beginning of the movie really I didn't find it attractive, and during it there were alot of ups and downs, some were boring and make no sense, and other were a confusing nice tension, but in the last 30 min I figured all the things out,really it was an amazing end.

• familiar s

  
  With its own originality, it's a sort of The Sixth Sense meeting The Orphanage. Sort of. From action to direction, everything's smooth and fine. Quite watchable.

• Jeffrey M

  
  Old school, The Awakening is the sort of old fashioned horror thriller that has died out in recent times. It offers a pretty conventional story, that of a suspected haunted boarding school, and a skeptic bound to bust the myth of its haunting. As events unfold, that skepticism wears… More
  Old school, The Awakening is the sort of old fashioned horror thriller that has died out in recent times. It offers a pretty conventional story, that of a suspected haunted boarding school, and a skeptic bound to bust the myth of its haunting. As events unfold, that skepticism wears down. Yeah, it has been done before. What I will say about The Awakening is that it never ceases to engage with the audience because of how fast paced it is. The plot deficiencies are often masked by this, as we briskly go from one scene to another. The acting is also strong, with Rebecca Hall really elevating what could have otherwise been a pretty lame part, and Dominic West providing a good supporting role. Their dynamics are interesting, the period piece backdrop of the film gave it a strong atmospheric tone, combined with tense direction. The obvious negative of Awakening is the script, which is conventional and serviceable for most of the film, but quickly becomes a mess, with asinine plot turns, in the last act. This has, unfortunately, become the norm for these sort of films, always wanting to reach absurd heights to be memorable. Overall it does enough right to make it a good B thriller, nothing more. 3/5 Stars

• Luke C

  
  An eerie ghost story with intrigue and suspense but can drag on in it's below average runniing time. As my previous statement said the film's length is around 90minutes and it sometimes feels like a 2 hour film that gets boring now and again. The main problem with ghost… More
  An eerie ghost story with intrigue and suspense but can drag on in it's below average runniing time. As my previous statement said the film's length is around 90minutes and it sometimes feels like a 2 hour film that gets boring now and again. The main problem with ghost movies is the ending and in the average ghost flick the ending is sometimes unsatisfying and it spends the whole film building up to it. And sometimes this film feels like that but it takes it play by play and the ednign is actually good and satisfying. The tension and suspense worked quite well and kept you on edge throughout. The setting of 1921 was a clever and unexpected choice but everything that was featured felt like it fit the time well and suited the context. The acting was really good with rebecca hall ass the lead role playing a very complex character and Dominic West was very welcome playing a likeable teacher. Overall this was an unsettling and suprising ghost story that sometimes becomes a bit too slow and periodic.

• Theta S

  
  1921 and scientist Florence Cathcart (Rebecca Hall) works as a civilian consultant debunking hoaxes regarding the paranormal. When schoolteacher Robert Mallory (Dominic West)asks for her assistance to investigate a death following the sighting of an apparition at his school in… More
  1921 and scientist Florence Cathcart (Rebecca Hall) works as a civilian consultant debunking hoaxes regarding the paranormal. When schoolteacher Robert Mallory (Dominic West)asks for her assistance to investigate a death following the sighting of an apparition at his school in Cumbria, Cathcart is confronted with a situation which is otherworldly... or has more of a human influence to it. This drama is very much in the style of The Turn Of The Screw or the forthcoming The Woman In Black as the lead character of Florence is required to investigate supernatural goings on in a remote location. The film uses very little in the way of camera trickery and goes more for a slowly building tension as the story progresses. Rebecca Hall delivers an excellent performance in the role of Florence. At first she is sure of the nature of the world seeing the supernatural as fodder for charlatans and tricksters. However, as the film progresses the character loses this sense of her reality as she investigates the supposed hauntings at the school. Hall is ably supported by Dominic West in the role of Mallory which calls for the character to move from a confrontational posture of disliking Florence's work to thst of an ally and Imelda Staunton who portrays the role of the school's matron, and fan of Cathcart's work, Maud. The cinematography and direction is beautiful supporting and building on the menace throughout the film. The script is cleverly written as red herrings are exposed and clues are hidden very much in plain sight. So, why only 70%? Well, to be honest this film isn't really suitable for the big screen and it misses the market that it is aimed at. This film is more suitable for the quiet confines of a dark room in autumn with a coal fire burning in the hearth and the viewer being scared from the comfort of their armchair. My advice... wait for this one when it comes out on home viewing where you may get more benefit from the scares.

• Daniel P

  
  M'eh. An excellent performance from Rebecca Hall, some great design and nicely pervading sense of atmosphere. But it's all undone by such a horribly derivative story, and, especially, bleedingly obvious 'twist'. Nothing here that wasn't done twice as better in… More
  M'eh. An excellent performance from Rebecca Hall, some great design and nicely pervading sense of atmosphere. But it's all undone by such a horribly derivative story, and, especially, bleedingly obvious 'twist'. Nothing here that wasn't done twice as better in The Others.

• Alec B

  
  Yeah, the twist is a bit too much but at least there's an attempt to make it more of an emotional payoff rather than a scary one . . . and that fits thematically with the rest of the film, which is a quiet, eerie mystery.

• Christopher H

  
  Rebecca Hall delivers one of her greatest performances yet, in this spooky, period piece horror film about a young boy's ghost that haunts a boarding school. Although "The Awakening" loses steam with its eventual, all-cards-on-the-table twist, the fact that multiple… More
  Rebecca Hall delivers one of her greatest performances yet, in this spooky, period piece horror film about a young boy's ghost that haunts a boarding school. Although "The Awakening" loses steam with its eventual, all-cards-on-the-table twist, the fact that multiple viewings are required from this reveal means the writers did something right. The film is very reminiscent of several films in its genre, including "The Woman In Black" and "The Others", but it fails to expand much deeper on the material than its predecessors.

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