Pluskylang Great Film overall

Casey Duggan It’s sentimental, ridiculously long and only occasionally funny

Ariella Broughton It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.

Guillelmina The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

bryan-vlaar-1992 The Awakening is as many horror movies these days, it just isn't excellent. The interaction between the characters is strange and the little character development there is, feels forced upon the viewer and very unnatural. Which is my biggest point of critique.I like how the ending gives room for questions. But I dislike how it transitioned from "haunted mansion" to the setting build in the final few scenes.There were a few moments in the film that I thought were clever, which made it enjoyable to watch.Therefore I rate it 4/10. I do not recommend it, but it is somewhat enjoyable if your not to hard to please.

TragicBloom I feel numb after watching this on netflix, and I'm just blown away by reading all the positive reviews afterwards. It seems it's no longer possible to make a good movie, and it's pretty clear the reason why is that the majority of us no longer remember what a good movie is! I'm 35 for Christ sake, not 80.This movie started out great; everything was going good. It had a certain direction, and I was eager to see where it would lead. Then about midway through everything is flushed down the crapper. This is well before the twist at the end too, which itself was utter crap. I'm incapable of going into anymore detail, because that would require more time than this movie deserves. What little mind I have left just won't allow it.

view_and_review 1920's England, Florence Cathcart (Rebecca Hall) is a ghost hunter that doesn't believe in ghosts so she goes around exposing fraudulent ghost stories. She met her match when she visited a boys school that had a specter problem.This pretentious film was so full of it. It was rife with ambiguous dialog about the past, about feelings and other things. There was love, there was loss, there was longing, there was lust and a lot of other useless gibberish. In its effort to be deep and complex it fell flat. The acting was so over the top as was the script. The story, though not entirely predictable, was lame and took a page right out of "The 6th Sense" and "The Others" book.What were they going for? If they were going for the foreign, artsy, abstruse feel, then they got it--but that's not an automatic recipe for success. And what really sucks is that the movie started off so well. I thought it had a real chance to be something good but it completely fizzled out.

Spikeopath The Awakening is directed by Nick Murphy and Murphy co-writes the screenplay with Stephen Volk. It stars Rebecca Hall, Dominic West, Imelda Staunton, Isaac Hempstead Wright, Shaun Dooley and Joseph Mawle. Music is by Daniel Pemberton and cinematography by Eduard Grau.Britain, post World War 1, and Florence Cathcart (Hall) makes a living as an exposer of charlatan spiritualists, a debunker of ghost sightings. When she receives a request from school master Robert Mallory (West) to investigate the supernatural events at a remote boarding school for boys, she is suitably intrigued to take on the assignment...It comes as no surprise to find that numerous reviews for The Awakening make reference to ghost story films that were made previously. The Woman in Black released a year later would suffer the same fate, charges of it not bringing nothing new to the table etc. A ghost story set in a big mansion or remote educational/correctional establishment is what it is, and will continue to be so, all fans of such spooky fare ask is that it does it well and maybe add some adult themes into the bargain. The Awakening does these in spades.The concept of a disbeliever in ghosts having their belief system tested to the full is not new, but it's a great concept and one with longevity assured. Here, boosted by a terrific performance from Hall, the screenplay consistently keeps you guessing. The possibilities of real or faked are constant as the director pumps up the creep factor, whilst he simultaneously crafts a number of genuine shock sequences - including one of the best doll house scenes put to film! This really has all the requisite jolts and atmospheric creeps for a period spooker.It's not until the final quarter when the screenplay begins to unravel its mystery, a finale that has proved both ambiguous and divisive. The ambiguity factor is a little baffling since everything is made clear in a nicely staged scene, and this is something which the director has gone on record to state as well. As for the divisive side of things? That's a blight for this sub-genre of horror. It's convoluted! Contrived! It has been done before they cry! These are true to be sure, and without doubt there's a leap of faith required to not get annoyed, but it garners a reaction and has done its ghost story essence very well indeed.Beautifully photographed, scored and performed by the leads to boot, this is for sure one for fans of period spookers with brains. 7.5/10