We’ve had our eye on Nick Murphy’s forthcoming film The Awakening for some time now. Knowing that writer Stephen Volk was working with director Murphy on a ghost story was a possibility too enticing to ignore.
Volk’s work is known to millions, with Ghostwatch my own personal favourite, but his TV series Afterlife and his work on Ken Russell’s Gothic will be familiar to genre fans across the world. Put simply, the man knows how to chill the wits out of you, and now with a terrific poster already glimpsed and the news that Dominic West and Rebecca Hall were set to star my interest was piqued.
Today, via the BBC Films website, we have a picture of Rebecca Hall in the film and our first look at a full synopsis for the project, which reads as follows,
A ghost-debunker comes to a boy’s school to disprove the existence of ghosts, only to find her own beliefs challenged. A classic ghost-story in the tradition of MR James.
THE AWAKENING is set in 1921, in a post-war world of loss where the bereaved seek solace in spiritualism. Haunted by the death of her fiance?, Florence spends her time debunking supernatural claims, using methodical and rational explanations to disprove the notion that the dead can still haunt us. So she feels compelled to accept a request to go to Rookwood, a boarding school in the countryside where a boy has recently been found dead and rumours about a ghostly boy haunting the school are causing panic amongst pupils and parents alike.
Florence sets to work immediately, laying traps, gathering scientific evidence, uncovering secrets and seemingly unravelling the mystery. However, as Florence is about to leave, she has a chilling spectral encounter which defies all of her rational beliefs and sets her on a journey toward a heartbreaking climax…
Totally sold on this, with Volk’s chilling work already taking hold as far back as 1992’s Ghostwatch, it is wonderful to see him return to the big screen and the cast Murphy has pulled together could not be more exciting.
With the BBC’s recent dalliance with ghost stories on the small screen, with John Hurt in Whistle and I’ll Come to You, and Mark Gatiss’s Crooked House trilogy it is good to see that confidence and capability moving to the big screen.
Here’s the full picture,
