The Awakening (2011) or, Sad English Orphanage Horror!

11/27/2016

The Awakening (2011) or, Sad English Orphanage Horror!

♥♥♥

Something seems creepily amiss on this poster for Nick Murphy's The Awakening

In 1921, England's leading supernatural debunker gets hired by a countryside orphanage, which is possibly haunted by a boy who passed away years ago ...

The Awakening slowly builds up its story with relatively few and simple scare effects. It features good acting from Rebecca Hall (The Gift (2015)), Dominic West (300 (2006)) and Imelda Staunton (Another Year (2010)) as well as deft camerawork (by cinematographer Eduard Grau (Buried (2010))) in which everything is held in cool, desaturated tones. It produces chills and goosebumps more than once, SPOILER in particular in the scenes with the dollhouse.

On the downside, The Awakening is a bit overlong, which makes our attention with it at times a bit strained. SPOILER It all culminates as one of the saddest, most tragic ghost stories that I can recall.

The film is written by Stephen Volk (Octane (2003)) and co-writer-director Nick Murphy (Blood (2012)). It is a fair ghost horror although a few steps under a film like The Orphanage/El Orfanato (2007), which it clearly aspires towards.

Watch a trailer for the film here

Cost: Reportedly 3 mil. £, equal to approximately 3.7 mil. $

Box office: Reportedly 4.4 mil. $

= Big flop

[The Awakening was released November 11 (the UK) and runs 107 minutes. Filming took place in England and Scotland from July 2010. The film opened #41 in 70 theaters to a paltry 95k $ first weekend in North America, where it grossed 209k $ (4.8 % of the total gross). The film did better in its native UK, although its other country grosses are not reported online. The Awakening is fresh at 61 % with a 5.7 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of The Awakening?

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Film Excess - Free Ukraine - Stop Putin - End the war NOW!!

Eagerly anticipating this week ... (5-24)

11/27/2016