La maison des ombres

Creepy and eerie film in which a gloomy ghost haunts a school and while an arrogant fake investigator called Florence (Rebecca Hall) discovers false psychics, as she goes to investigate it at a far and solitary location : Umbria, where has happened a strange murder. She arrives to investigate the weird and ghastly boy who's terrorizing the schoolboys and awakening the house's darkest inhabitant at the isolated mansion and then Florence learns a sinister secret . There Florence is welcomed by the suspect governess (Imelda Staunton) and a shy little child (Isaac Hempstead) . With the help of the headmaster (Dominic West) of the Boarding House they must fend off the damned spirit who takes the scared kiddies. As she becomes the next target for the dark ghost resulting in a twisted and surprising finale . All the children are gone...except one. He never forgets . He never left .

The pace of the movie is slow but I never found it dull , the plot deals with a paranormal investigator who finds out false cases of fake medium, cheater clairvoyants , and swindler fortune tellers . As the scary tale narrates the legend of a manor and reveals more untold secrets , evil and tricks of a menacing ghost. It belongs to "Haunted House" sub-genre with various notorious films from the Sixties as ¨The Haunting¨ 1963 by Robert Wise , going on to nowadays . Main and support cast are pretty good . As Rebecca Hall as a skeptical private investigator who exposes frauds and hoaxes , Dominic West as the principal who falls for her , Imelda Staunton as the stiff-upper-lip housekeeper , Isaac Hempstead Wright as a weird student , Shaun Dooley , Joseph Mawle , and John Shrapnel as a local priest.

The picture follows the style of the recently successful Brit films as : ¨The Woman in Black¨ 2012 by James Watkins and its sequel ¨Angel of Death¨ 2014 by Tom Harper . It contains a colorful and evocative cinematography by Eduard Grau. As well as frightening and moving musical score by composer Daniel Pemberton. The motion picture was compellingly directed by Nick Murphy . He's a good craftsman who often works for Britsh television and BBC , making several TV episodes and series, such as : Christmas Tale , The Fog , Nightflyers , Rogue , Surviving Disaster ,The Secret , Prey , Primeval , Dracula , Occupation , Heroes and villians, among others . And occassionally for cinema he has only made two nice films : Blood and this The Awakening 2011. Rating : 7/10 . Better than average horror movie . The flick with appeal to terror fans .

Wow! I just finished watching The Awakening, and I have to say I've not seen such a complete and entertaining Gothic tale since The Orphanage.

While The Awakening does not have quite the depth of angst of El Orfanato, it nonetheless maintains a constant tension and audience puzzlement up until the last few minutes, when more questions than answers are evident.

Rebecca Hall's Florence Cathcart, and the method used for her professional 'Ghost Busting' procedures reminded me of the scenes set in Guy Ritchie's Sherlock Holmes mythology. I can't quite put my finger on it, but it is definitely there.

7/10 - Highly recommended.

I love old-fashioned ghost stories, both in literature and in moving picture. It's a harder genre than people give credit to, especially because it's age. Since it has been done to death, almost every possibility and approach seems to have been covered. However, there are movies that have taken the this tired formula and made splendid films - The Orphanage is a good example of a ghost story done right. The Awakening started off right. The acting was good, the mood was efficiently set and the cinematography gorgeous to look at. I was many times at absolute awe at the beautiful images and camera shots that the movie boosted. However, the central thing in a movie is it's plot, and that's where things get shaky. The plot wasn't that great to begin with and as it progressed became less interesting, managing nonetheless to sustain my interest throughout until the end, which was by far the film's greatest weakness. The ending "twist" came too late and was done with too much haste, which hurt it's already shaky believability. I think the ending despite being far-fetched could still work if done more competently and with more preparation. It's still an enjoyable movie, but the beautiful and eerie imagery would be much better served by a better plot. All in all, a solid 5 for the film, 10 for the cinematography. This cinematographer deserves to be well known, assuming he isn't already.

The Awakening is pretty much what you would expect it to be. It's well made with gorgeous cinematography and strong performances from its cast. And the story if unsurprising is solidly made and well told. The film is directed well and builds a nice amount of suspense throughout. At times its confusing because of the sheer amount of convoluted ideals being thrown around. The story concerns an educated young woman who debunks ghost theories. She is approached by the headmaster of a school to help out with a problem concerning the boys being frightened there. After some convincing she arrives at the location and begins her investigation. Many secrets are discovered and it builds to a somewhat expected finale. For those of you who've seen the brilliant films The Others, The Orphanage and The Devil's Backbone there's not much new here. Still it's competently made and there is a nice slow burn of suspense even culminating in some surprising scares and plot twists. Overall it's a old fashioned classic spook fest with a bit of wit and borrowed imagination from slightly better films. A bonus scene features sexy Dominic West in a solid performance shedding his clothes which is much appreciated but unnecessary like the other "bathtub" scene. And there seems to be niche with that running through the proceedings it's almost as if the people involved with making the film knew they had something that wasn't the most original concept so they threw in unnecessary things to kind of lead you astray it's a little manipulative on their part but keeps you engaged as a viewer and you don't feel too cheated at the films conclusion. Overall it's an elegant, solid but expected ghost story.

The movie does not sound original, in terms of plot and style, it is a very old-style ghost story, built according to the most traditional but still effective means in pictures like these, where the supernatural has to find its ways. Creaking doors, mysterious sounds, light and dark play, set in a solitary gloomy mansion in the English countryside, are part of the oldest tradition of scary movies, the plot twists are also not new, but the impression I got is that of a simple, well crafted ghost story, with an interesting psychological insight, that without needing exaggerated sci-fi effects gets to appeal and entertain the viewer till the end. A good English cast helps give insight to the the frailty and fears of its characters, and to make up for some flaws in the picture, above all a rather hasty and underdeveloped finale, as opposed to some slowness in the previous parts.