As a 1920s ghost buster, Hall rounds up the chills in 'The Awakening' ★★½

Photographed in a particularly brooding corner of Scotland, set in a boarding school for the exceptionally pale and haunted, "The Awakening" got a "whatever" reception in its British release. Certainly you can poke a hundred holes in it: The explanation of the plot makes sense on an emotional level while making hash of logic and plausibility matters, and the co-writer and director Nick Murphy has only a fair-to-middling flair for composing a shot wherein a live human is suddenly a-frighted by a specter. Too often even a casual moviegoer can predict, from the length and framing of such moments: Yes, the ghost will appear just to the right of center, in approximately … now.

Michael Phillips

August 30, 2012