The Awakening

Year of Release:  2011

Director:  Nick Murphy

Screenplay:  Stephen Volk and Nick Murphy

Starring:  Rebecca Hall, Dominic West, Imelda Staunton, Isaac Hempstead-Wright

Running Time:  107 minutes

Genre:  Horror

The year is 1921 and Britain is reeling in the aftermath of the First World War and the Spanish Flu pandemic.  Interest in spiritualism is high as grieving people search for any shred of hope.  Florence Cathcart (Hall) is a controversial author who specialises in debunking alleged hauntings and exposing fraudulent mediums.  She is contacted by Robert Mallory (West), a teacher at a boy's boarding school, who wants her to investigate sightings of the alleged ghost of a boy, which might be connected to a recent death at the school.  Reluctantly Florence agrees.  However, as her investigation proceeds she soon comes to believe that the ghost may be more real than she thought, and more dangerous.

This film is essentially an old fashioned ghost story with an additional mystery element.  It's a mostly slow, sedate film that relies more on atmosphere than gory thrills, and it does have a real doom-laden feel to it.  It's set in the years following the First World War and Spanish Flu outbreak, where people are searching for something to hold on to and there was an increase in belief in the supernatural and spiritualism was at it's height, as grieving people were desperate to contact the people they had lost.  Robert Mallory was in the war and experiences survivor's guilt, whereas the school's groundskeeper, Judd (Joseph Mawle) didn't fight in the war and feels guilty and resentful towards Mallory for being seen as a war hero.    The film opens with Florence exposing an elaborate fake seance and, as the fraudulent mediums are lead away by the police, she is slapped in the face by the grieving mother who had paid for the seance, and has had her last hope ripped from her.  She receives angry letters from people enraged by her book which debunks the supernatural and any idea of an afterlife.  However Florence herself has a deep need to believe, and she investigates mediums an hauntings desperately hoping to find one that is genuine.  The film uses a washed out colour palette, and everything looks gloomy, grey and cold, and almost everyone in the (all white) cast looks practically translucent.  The film was directed by Nick Murphy, whose background is largely in television, and indeed it does often look and feel like classy TV movie although it did have a theatrical release.  The script was written by Murphy and horror veteran Stephen Volk, who is most famous for writing the controversial BBC drama Ghostwatch (1992), and it is reminiscent of the works of  M. R. James, Ramsey Campbell, Shirley Jackson and Henry James.  The film falls apart somewhat towards the end where there are several twists that defy credibility, and feel like they belong in a different film, and there is also a disturbing and intense scene where Florence is attacked.  The ghost boy, with his distorted face, is only glimpsed briefly and at first it's startling but let down by unimpressive special effects.  Rebecca Hall is very good as Florence, and the film is worth seeing for her performance alone.  Dominic West is good in his typically gruff, period drama role as the teacher, turned paranormal investigator, even if he would rather be investigating Florence.  Imelda Staunton is as impressive as ever in the supporting role of housekeeper Maud, who is a fan of Florence's work.  Isaac Hempstead-Wright, who is probably most famous as Bran Stark in Game of Thrones (2010-2019), plays a   lonely pupil who forms a bond with Florence.  This is a far from perfect film, but then it is by no means bad either.  It has some great performances, particularly Rebecca Hall's.  It's certainly worth watching if you're a fan of elegant ghost stories.

Rebecca Hall in The Awakening
 

The Woman in Black

Year:  2012
Director:  James Watkins
Screenplay:  Jane Goldman, based on the novel The Woman in Black by Susan Hill
Starring:  Daniel Radcliffe, Ciaran Hinds, Janet McTeer, Sophie Stuckey, Misha Handley, Liz White,
Running Time:  95 minutes
Genre:  Horror, thriller, supernatural

This film is basically a good old-fashioned ghost story.  Based on a 1983 novel by Susan Hill, which has already been adapted as a long-running stage play, a made-for-television movie and two radio plays, the story is set in England, sometime at the end of the 19th century or the beginning of the 20th century, and tells the story of young lawyer, Arthur Kipps (Radcliffe), who has a four year old son, Joseph (Handley), and is still grieving for his wife Stella (Stuckey), who died in childbirth.  Arthur's firm sends him to a remote village called Crythin Gifford to handle the estate of Alice Drablow, who owned a nearby manor house called Eel Marsh House.  The locals are very unwelcoming, but Arthur does beforend wealthy landowner Sam Daily (Hinds) and his wife, Elizabeth (McTeer).  At the cluttered, decaying mansion, Arthur soon finds himself haunted by the ghostly figure of a woman clad head to to in black.  He also quickly discovers that whoever sees the Woman in Black summons a dreadful curse.

This genuinely creepy film relies on chills rather than shocks to scare it's audience.  There is no real blood or gore here, but the film has a powerfully oppressive doom-laden atmosphere, with washed out colour and the bleak, featureless countryside where it's set.  It also features a superb performance from Daniel Radcliffe as the grief-stricken young lawyer, who hints at rivers of pain beneath his straight-laced, quiet exterior.  The rest of the cast are good, but don't really get much of a chance to register as this is very much Radcliffe's show, with the film focusing entirely on his character.  The story sticks fairly closely to the traditional ghost story and the script effectively builds up the atmosphere.  The whole thing is played very seriously and is all the better for it.  It deals with some very serious subjects aside from the supernatural elements.  Ultimately the theme of the movie is grief and how it can dominate or destroy people's lives.  Sticking to the traditional spook story formula does mean that there is little that will really surprise fans of the genre, and, despite being admirably restrained for the most part, the film-maker's can't resist a few over the top CGI moments.  Also some viewers may be put off by the film's slow-burning, chilly approach and lack of conventional horror movie shocks.  However, this is a welcome example of traditional ghostly chills and might provide a few restless nights.

                                       Daniel Radcliffe in The Woman in Black