As a rule, female characters in scary films do not fare well. Horror reduces them to irrational clothes-shedding runners, ghost stories portray them as paranoid, shrieking shrews, and torture porn insists that the slow mutilation of their bodies will always be rewarded with orgasmic screams.
So it’s a credit to the ever stunning Rebecca Hall that she emerges from period spook story The Awakening unscathed. Playing a ‘post-suffragette’ writer (wha’ that? – unreconstructed male Ed) obsessed with exposing the truth behind apparently supernatural events, Hall’s performance oozes intelligence and her combination of dry wit, concealed vulnerability and sexuality make Florence Cathcart an intriguing heroine.
What a pity, then, that her talent is wasted in this ghosts-by-numbers flick that can otherwise barely justify its existence.
Employed by teacher Dominic West to search the stately grounds of a private boys’ school where the ghost of a murdered boy is said to roam, Hall becomes the axis around which varyingly ineffective spokes of predictable formulae rotate. With only four other characters surrounding her – West’s damaged war hero, Imelda Staunton’s superstitious matron, a creepy groundsman and a pale and lonely young student – the film’s not-at-all-convincing red herring-laden plot and inevitable conclusion is as obvious as its attempt to cash in on the success of similarly themed genre hits such as The Others, The Orphanage and The Devil’s Backbone.
It’s disappointing, given the potential of the film’s brilliant opening scene where Florence infiltrates a séance to expose a group of charlatans. But though the props department provides pretty scientific accoutrement, these remain unused as Hall spends endless hours just wandering around the darkened manor. Apart from one brilliant and utterly unnerving use of a mysterious dollhouse, the film remains completely devoid of atmosphere as awkward cuts and a lack of timing bungle even basic jump-scares.
West and Hall’s chemistry is palpable and Eduard Grau’s cinematography hauntingly beautiful, but overall The Awakening is a scare-free snooze-fest.