THE AWAKENING is a lot more entertaining than any film shot for less than $6,000 has any right to be. This isn't just some boring, half-hearted effort with a lot of padding--Mike Conway's direction is inventive and the script is loaded with cool ideas that are cleverly realized from beginning to end.
The story concerns Dr. David Andrade (Conway), a scientist working on a secret government project whose goal is the genetic enhancement of the human body for military purposes. When his wife Lara is diagnosed with terminal cancer, he sneaks her into the heavily-guarded base and hooks her up to the experimental device he's been working to perfect. The results are stunning--not only does her cancer disappear, but she begins to grow super-strong and invulnerable to harm. There's a really bad side-effect, though--she also becomes increasingly hostile and psychotic, to the point where she starts going around killing people for fun. When Andrade tries to return her to normal, she turns her anger toward him and eventually invades the military base looking for him. The Marines, naturally, try to stop her. But the sinister people behind Project Gladiator don't want their first successful test subject killed, so they call out some Black Ops guys to take out the Marines, leading to a lot of great action sequences and more than a few surprises.
I've seen a lot of gazillion-dollar movies that didn't have a fraction of the fun and excitement of THE AWAKENING. The super-low budget and production values are part of the charm--it's fun to see people who love to make movies getting this much bang for the buck. I've watched this movie fifteen or twenty times, and I still get a kick out of it every time.
