The Awakening

It's amazing what Mike and Kelly and Tamra and the rest were able to do on a microscopic budget. I've seen B movies that cost millions and aren't nearly as good. THE AWAKENING is tightly written, tightly plotted and tightly directed. But more important us that the principals really believed in the project. I've met them, and I know how much love and how much work went into this movie -- how Tamra slaved to make what would otherwise have seemed an unbelievable character come alive, how Kelly slaved at his computer with the SFX, from the cloning of soldiers to the boom box flying into the sky. I know how Mike slaved to film and edit the scenes, to create a blend of drama and humor, not to mention compose the music. All three of them, and the others who worked with them, were dedicated to their dreams, and to their love, and to what they could fashion from them.

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.

It takes 60 seconds into this film to get a strong whiff of both the directing and acting on this one. As if the film wasn't bad enough, the bogus reviews add insult to injury. I appreciate a fan film as much as the next guy, but this would have been better left un-made. Believe the negative reviews both here and Amazon (where the film is featured). This is a stinker.

This movie is a really great film. The special effects aren't the best, but you get the idea. THere's blood, guns, a superhuman woman on a rampage, Marines, Black Ops, and lots of times where Lara (the protagonist) chokes someone, breaks their necks, and once where she takes out a guy's heart, all with sick-sounding cracking sound effects.

The amazing part is that the producers made this awesome action movie with a budget of less than 6 thousand dollars! They sure know how to use money! This movie is really cheesy at times but you gotta give the producers credit for their efforts. Some cheesy effects are like the animated gore (only when someone gets shot) since they didn't have blood squibs. Most other times the blood is an actual liquid substance so it looks real. There's one scene where Lara throws a stereo set into the air and instead of landing a few feet away, it didn't land on screen! It looks like she threw it into space! I laughed at that one! Another con is that the action scenes are pretty short. There's no five-minute shoot outs in this movie, but that's okay. It's still great anyway. If Mr. Conway (the director) can make a 5,900 dollar film look so good, then his next film (with a budget of at least 30,000 dollars) is no doubt gonna look excellent! I've only seen the trailer of his next film but it looks great. I think it's safe for me to say, "If you think THE AWAKENING's very great, just wait until EXILE!"

Starring: Tamra Ericson Frame Directed: Mike Conway This movie deserves a distribution offer,And maybe with the NEW BIONIC WOMAN Tele-series,Who knows? We saw- Parts Kristanna Loken in T3 and Bionic Woman, It has a woman empowered after a cancer scare. With all the special effects ,You can't tell the budget.I still can't figure out the cars tipping, Seriously they were done with some impressive physical effects done on set.Then there is stuff in the extras,To show that wasn't many extras/actors ...But computer cloning ??? Tamra should be working in films or commercials a lot more,This was filmed in and around Vegas, Sooo maybe her day-job is special. Mike Conway contributed a lot to this production and it shows,Congrats sir.