25
The film takes pains to ensure that the story feel like laborious toil rather than a trip through the dark side of the ethereal.
What are people saying?
What are critics saying?
40
Solid production values lend a polish to the spooks and there are strong performances all round, especially from the ever-excellent Rebecca Hall, but there's little here to add to the well-worn haunted house genre.
50
Though handsome to look at, so-so supernatural chiller The Awakening recalls "The Others," "The Orphanage" and other haunted-house tales of recent vintage, making an impression more derivative than memorable.
70
The Hollywood Reporter by John DeFore
A too-rare instance in which a gifted young actor signs on for a fright flick without coming away tainted, The Awakening places Rebecca Hall in a convincing historical setting and gives her more to do than widen her eyes in fear.
60
This handsomely made spook story (love those echo-prone hallways!) becomes less involving the more the narrative's mysteries are solved. By the time all the tarot cards are on the table, it's likely that you too will feel conned.
67
Entertainment Weekly by Lisa Schwarzbaum
Not to be confused with a dramatization of Kate Chopin's great 1899 proto-feminist novel, this by-the-numbers British ghost story, set just after WWI, devotes a lot of energy to set decoration.
60
Village Voice by Nick Pinkerton
Hall's committed performance validates even the maddest developments, and she slips into the period well, recalling Virginia Woolf in her lank, swan-necked bearing and tremulous suffering.
60
The Guardian by Peter Bradshaw
There are some nicely creepy moments, and director and co-writer Nick Murphy interestingly dramatises some of the neuroses feeding the appetite for ghostly phenomena – repressed sexuality, guilt and self-harm.