Creepy and eerie film in which a gloomy ghost haunts a school and while an arrogant fake investigator called Florence (Rebecca Hall) discovers false psychics, as she goes to investigate it at a far and solitary location : Umbria, where has happened a strange murder. She arrives to investigate the weird and ghastly boy who's terrorizing the schoolboys and awakening the house's darkest inhabitant at the isolated mansion and then Florence learns a sinister secret . There Florence is welcomed by the suspect governess (Imelda Staunton) and a shy little child (Isaac Hempstead) . With the help of the headmaster (Dominic West) of the Boarding House they must fend off the damned spirit who takes the scared kiddies. As she becomes the next target for the dark ghost resulting in a twisted and surprising finale . All the children are gone...except one. He never forgets . He never left .
The pace of the movie is slow but I never found it dull , the plot deals with a paranormal investigator who finds out false cases of fake medium, cheater clairvoyants , and swindler fortune tellers . As the scary tale narrates the legend of a manor and reveals more untold secrets , evil and tricks of a menacing ghost. It belongs to "Haunted House" sub-genre with various notorious films from the Sixties as ¨The Haunting¨ 1963 by Robert Wise , going on to nowadays . Main and support cast are pretty good . As Rebecca Hall as a skeptical private investigator who exposes frauds and hoaxes , Dominic West as the principal who falls for her , Imelda Staunton as the stiff-upper-lip housekeeper , Isaac Hempstead Wright as a weird student , Shaun Dooley , Joseph Mawle , and John Shrapnel as a local priest.
The picture follows the style of the recently successful Brit films as : ¨The Woman in Black¨ 2012 by James Watkins and its sequel ¨Angel of Death¨ 2014 by Tom Harper . It contains a colorful and evocative cinematography by Eduard Grau. As well as frightening and moving musical score by composer Daniel Pemberton. The motion picture was compellingly directed by Nick Murphy . He's a good craftsman who often works for Britsh television and BBC , making several TV episodes and series, such as : Christmas Tale , The Fog , Nightflyers , Rogue , Surviving Disaster ,The Secret , Prey , Primeval , Dracula , Occupation , Heroes and villians, among others . And occassionally for cinema he has only made two nice films : Blood and this The Awakening 2011. Rating : 7/10 . Better than average horror movie . The flick with appeal to terror fans .
