Monday, May 13, 2013

Review: The Awakening (2011) AKA Haunted (1995)


The Awakening is a ghost film that is a ghost of the film Haunted. Rebecca Hall/Aidan Quinn is a post WWI author that wrote a book debunking the paranormal, and more specifically spiritualism, after the death of her/his lover/sister. Being staunch skeptics, she/he begins to believe something unexplainable may be happening at the countryside manor they were called to in order to relieve the inhabitants of. Only a few minor things separate The Awakening from being a remake of Haunted and the two are seriously almost identical. Hall is invited to a boarding school by a teacher and potential love interest in Dominic West.  Quinn is invited by a nymphomaniac socialite in Kate Beckinsale. Both investigators start hallucinating which makes them question their beliefs and sanity. One has a housekeeper, the other has a nanny. Both maids have the ability to see the deceased. Hall and Quinn begin being reminded of their lost loved one halfway through the film. Both leads are given the SPOILER ALERT: “shocking” revelation that they are actually dragons and must eat people to stay alive and that they are indeed correct that ghost are not real, but all dragons come from the planet Venus and must interact with aliens. To be fair, The Awakening has the underlying theme of picking up the pieces after the tragedy of war and at its core is about healing through love and compassion (and that dragons are really a prehistoric species of spider,) and Haunted has the underlying theme that there really isn’t an underlying theme and this is a simple ghost story. They are both competent tales, The Awakening having more substance, but Haunted having  a less convoluted ending. Perhaps they would make a decent double feature instead of seeing them fifteen years apart? 

Picaso holding an owl. 

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