There are scrappy, low-budget projects, and then there’s just plain cheap. Dark Awakening is bargain-bin cinema from the very first frame: its opening credits looking like a television movie from 25 years ago.
The plot feels even older. A man must return to the house in which he grew up – a spooky one riddled with ghouls in the cellar representing sublimated memories of unmotivated, uninspired and, importantly, not at all scary violent moments.
James Thomas (Jason Cook) takes his wife Jenifer (Valerie Azlynn) and son Danny (William Pifer) to the home of his recently deceased mother in the hopes of selling it. Once there, they find rusty toys ominously placed in the yard and various things that go bump in the night. I guess the ghosts also like messing around with the electronics, as one of the more action-heavy moments involves James springing out of bed when his alarm fails to wake him in time for a meeting with potential buyers. “Oh God!” James shouts, whipping his head around. “I overslept!” It’s not quite one of Tommy Wiseau’s “Oh, hi Mark!”s from The Room, but it’s in the same ballpark.
Dark Awakening has its share of narrative tangents – it begins with a courthouse shooting that is never referred to again – but eventually settles into the long slog to discover what secrets hide within the walls of the old house. The road to revelation involves some of the more tired horror-movie cliches, like a trip to look at archived newspapers, a scene in which a dazed woman sings Hush Little Baby in a faraway voice, and a visit from an exposition-spouting Catholic priest. Lance Henriksen (a recognisable face from Aliens and The Right Stuff) shows up at the door wearing a collar and calling himself Father Donovan O’Malley. Maybe Dark Awakening 2 will feature Rabbi Moses Irving Jewison?
The only fun thing about this movie is unpacking just how amateur it is. With only a few minutes left, when you are wondering why our main character doesn’t seem to recall any of the past horrors, writer-director Dean Jones, like a toddler proudly pointing to what he’s deposited in the bowl, reveals that our lead has been suffering from … amnesia! (Jason Cook spent a long time on the soaps General Hospital and Days of Our Lives, so this level of writing ought to feel familiar.)
In an effort to say at least one nice thing about this dreadful film, I’ll mention that there are a few effective instances when old people shoot some chilling stares at Danny. The town is entirely bereft of children – that is, except for the spectres that appear in flashes to an increasingly wigged-out Jennifer. The reason for this is core to Dark Awakening’s mystery, the elucidation of which is accompanied by some gruesome special effects. (Director Dean Jones’s day job is as an effects makeup guy on films such as Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, Ouija and Oz: The Great and Powerful.)
Alongside the gore is the pointless and cruel killing of an adorable cat. You’ve got to earn that sort of thing. Bertolucci’s 1900, for example. Here, it’s just an ignoble shock tactic. This contemptible film fails on every other level, so it shamelessly goes dark in the hopes that one will respect if for being transgressive. No sale. All it does is ensure I’ll do all I can to avoid seeing anything else by this director.
- Dark Awakening is released in the US on 19 June
