I will not lie and say that The Awakening was a poorly MADE movie, but I will say that it essentially tore any goodness that it had into pieces, burned them, and then quickly attempted to put them back together; as if they never burned in the first place.
The Awakening (yeah, another "The" horror movie) stars Rebecca Hall has a "modern woman" in London who hunts down ghosts and reveals the truths behind it. She is essentially a female Sherlock Holmes mixed with Scooby Doo. She apparently lost someone close to her, her parents, and has since become a strong independent woman. Now, I wouldn't say this in a cynical manner if it weren't for the fact that she is SUPER modern. The way she acts and dresses at times is much more typical of someone... eh 50-70 years ahead of the time period. There is nothing wrong with a strong female character, but when they seem to tear out of their time period it kind of... loses the atmosphere... and this movie tries a lot to have a good atmosphere.
Essentially, she has one last big case to do where she needs to go to a boarding school and solve the crime of a ghost child that has been haunting the place for awhile... and has led to a new death. She thinks she has solved the case at first, but things start to get strange, so she stays to solve the entire mystery. On her side is a man who works there, a lady who attends there, and a little boy named Tom.
Aaaaannnndddd... then the movie starts to make fun of the audience's intelligence. This strong independent woman decides to have super cliché sex with a man she has only just met... and to make things worse she does it within about .5 seconds after discovering that the ghosts are real. It truly doesn't make any sense. This character suddenly has a photograph of the ghost and then turns to the male character and vigorously makes out with him... and then they tear down the blinds which leads to all of their photographs of the ghost being destroyed.
This is the point in the movie where you can almost smell someone burning the script. It is as if someone said "You know this strong character who has been independent and all and is all about the evidence? The second she gets that evidence, let's have her have sex because she no longer feels independent and then have her DESTROY that evidence in the act... yeah... this is a good idea *sips tea*."
But it gets worse! Not five minutes later, the groundskeeper tries to rape her... completely out of nowhere. This scene has nothing to do with the plot, and it ends up with him dying, but it makes no sense at all.
And eventually we get to the movie's infamous and most obvious plot- twist. Tom (the little boy) was the ghost all along *buh bum BUUUMMMM*.
What makes this plot-twist painful is that it was the most obvious idea, so I automatically assumed that it couldn't be. Throughout the entire movie, this kid is not only never talked to by any of the other characters (in a direct manner, that is), but he also dresses and looks EXACTLY like the ghost they are hunting for.
"Huh, a character who shows in and out of the plot at random, which no one talks to, and looks EXACTLY like the ghost they are hunting for... this better not be taking a Sixth Sense route"
Unfortunately, this is where the movie desperately tries to reassemble itself. It tries to make sense of everything in the typical horror movie fashion "the main character was an important pawn for the ghosts, and she is holding repressed memories". So our main character turns out to be the sister (kind of) of Tom, and that the person that she lost was... Tom... all along. You think that would be hard thing to forget...
Long story short, The Awakening has a nice atmosphere, but it never truly becomes scary at any point. There is this random doll house that had some creepy moments, but it is never explained. One could theorize that the main character owned it as a child, and that Tom was showing it to her to kick-in her memories; however, this is never properly explained or shown... it is just an interesting little jump scare gimmick.
All in all, The Awakening had some potential if it wasn't so desperate on the cliché "everything is a big jumbled mess" horror movie ending.
The Awakening (yeah, another "The" horror movie) stars Rebecca Hall has a "modern woman" in London who hunts down ghosts and reveals the truths behind it. She is essentially a female Sherlock Holmes mixed with Scooby Doo. She apparently lost someone close to her, her parents, and has since become a strong independent woman. Now, I wouldn't say this in a cynical manner if it weren't for the fact that she is SUPER modern. The way she acts and dresses at times is much more typical of someone... eh 50-70 years ahead of the time period. There is nothing wrong with a strong female character, but when they seem to tear out of their time period it kind of... loses the atmosphere... and this movie tries a lot to have a good atmosphere.
Essentially, she has one last big case to do where she needs to go to a boarding school and solve the crime of a ghost child that has been haunting the place for awhile... and has led to a new death. She thinks she has solved the case at first, but things start to get strange, so she stays to solve the entire mystery. On her side is a man who works there, a lady who attends there, and a little boy named Tom.
Aaaaannnndddd... then the movie starts to make fun of the audience's intelligence. This strong independent woman decides to have super cliché sex with a man she has only just met... and to make things worse she does it within about .5 seconds after discovering that the ghosts are real. It truly doesn't make any sense. This character suddenly has a photograph of the ghost and then turns to the male character and vigorously makes out with him... and then they tear down the blinds which leads to all of their photographs of the ghost being destroyed.
This is the point in the movie where you can almost smell someone burning the script. It is as if someone said "You know this strong character who has been independent and all and is all about the evidence? The second she gets that evidence, let's have her have sex because she no longer feels independent and then have her DESTROY that evidence in the act... yeah... this is a good idea *sips tea*."
But it gets worse! Not five minutes later, the groundskeeper tries to rape her... completely out of nowhere. This scene has nothing to do with the plot, and it ends up with him dying, but it makes no sense at all.
And eventually we get to the movie's infamous and most obvious plot- twist. Tom (the little boy) was the ghost all along *buh bum BUUUMMMM*.
What makes this plot-twist painful is that it was the most obvious idea, so I automatically assumed that it couldn't be. Throughout the entire movie, this kid is not only never talked to by any of the other characters (in a direct manner, that is), but he also dresses and looks EXACTLY like the ghost they are hunting for.
"Huh, a character who shows in and out of the plot at random, which no one talks to, and looks EXACTLY like the ghost they are hunting for... this better not be taking a Sixth Sense route"
Unfortunately, this is where the movie desperately tries to reassemble itself. It tries to make sense of everything in the typical horror movie fashion "the main character was an important pawn for the ghosts, and she is holding repressed memories". So our main character turns out to be the sister (kind of) of Tom, and that the person that she lost was... Tom... all along. You think that would be hard thing to forget...
Long story short, The Awakening has a nice atmosphere, but it never truly becomes scary at any point. There is this random doll house that had some creepy moments, but it is never explained. One could theorize that the main character owned it as a child, and that Tom was showing it to her to kick-in her memories; however, this is never properly explained or shown... it is just an interesting little jump scare gimmick.
All in all, The Awakening had some potential if it wasn't so desperate on the cliché "everything is a big jumbled mess" horror movie ending.