The Horror of Waking Up — to This Movie
If you’ve ever woken up from a nap and felt disoriented, confused, and vaguely angry at the world, congratulations — you’ve already experienced Awakened in spirit. Directed by Joycelyn Engle and Arno Malarone, this 2013 supernatural horror film stars Julianne Michelle as Samantha Winston, a woman who wakes up in a morgue with no memory and, unfortunately for us, proceeds to spend the next 90 minutes trying to find a plot.
The movie’s tagline should have been: “Some mysteries should stay dead — especially this one.”
On paper, Awakened sounds intriguing. A young woman returns home to uncover the truth about her mother’s death and the secrets of her own resurrection. In execution, it plays like a Lifetime movie that got lost in a Spirit Halloween store. It’s a ghost story without ghosts, a thriller without thrills, and a horror film that’s genuinely horrifying — but not in the way it intends.
The Plot That Refused to Live
Samantha Winston wakes up in a morgue, which should be the start of a chilling supernatural mystery. Instead, it’s the peak of the film’s excitement. From there, Awakened devolves into a slog of exposition, flashbacks, and sepia-toned misery narrated by people who look as confused to be there as the audience.
We learn that Samantha’s childhood was tragic: her mother died mysteriously, her aunt died conveniently, and she was bounced between abusive foster homes like a pinball in purgatory. Now, at 22, she returns to her hometown, still nursing the suspicion that her father killed her mother — a father who just happens to be John Savage, giving a performance so wooden that you half-expect termites to show up in the credits.
Her investigation leads her to a cast of small-town oddballs, including Lucas Drake (Steven Bauer), a mortician who looks like he’s perpetually trying to remember his lines; Uncle Thomas (Edward Furlong), who seems to have wandered in from a methadone clinic; and a handful of characters who appear briefly and then vanish, possibly out of mercy.
There’s talk of conspiracies, ghosts, “evil forces,” and family secrets, but the film never decides which of those it actually wants to focus on. By the third act, even the camera seems to lose interest — drifting aimlessly as if trying to escape the scene.
Resurrection Without Pulse
Julianne Michelle spends most of the film either whispering or staring blankly into space. It’s as if she’s method-acting the concept of emotional numbness. When she’s not wandering through poorly lit rooms or dramatically clutching a crucifix, she’s being fed pseudo-spiritual dialogue that sounds like it was written by a malfunctioning chatbot.
Her chemistry with the rest of the cast is nonexistent. Every conversation feels like two people who met five minutes before filming. It’s not tension — it’s social discomfort.
John Savage, once a respected actor, delivers his lines with the energy of a man silently regretting his mortgage payments. Edward Furlong, meanwhile, looks like he filmed all his scenes between cigarette breaks. He’s supposed to be mysterious and tortured; instead, he’s just visibly tired.
Then there’s Steven Bauer as Lucas Drake, a funeral director who might also be a villain, or maybe a mentor, or possibly a figment of the screenwriter’s imagination. It’s unclear, and the movie never bothers to explain. He delivers lines about life, death, and “dark forces” with the conviction of someone reading a refrigerator manual.
Dialogue from Beyond the Grave
The script of Awakened feels like it was written during a séance where the spirits lost interest halfway through. Characters speak in cryptic platitudes that go nowhere:
“The truth is not buried — it’s just waiting to be awakened.”
What does that mean? Who knows. The movie certainly doesn’t.
Nearly every conversation ends with a lingering close-up and an awkward pause, as if the director forgot to yell “Cut.” Scenes drag on like a funeral procession in slow motion. The mystery unravels at such a glacial pace you could knit a sweater between plot developments.
Even the supernatural elements — if you can call them that — are timid. A few flickering lights, some cheap fog effects, and the occasional sound cue that could just as easily be a raccoon in the attic. It’s less The Sixth Sense and more The Mildly Confused Sense.
Lighting, Camera, No Action
Visually, Awakened looks like it was shot through a coffee filter. Every scene is either underlit or drenched in a weird yellow tint, as though the cinematographer was mourning the death of good taste. The camera angles are random, the editing is jumpy, and the transitions feel like PowerPoint slides with emotional issues.
The soundtrack, on the other hand, works overtime — blasting melodramatic piano themes and eerie synth drones as if to remind you that something spooky is supposed to be happening. It’s the audio equivalent of someone whispering “Be scared” in your ear every five minutes.
A Plot Twist Nobody Asked For
Eventually — after what feels like several lifetimes — we reach the big reveal: Samantha’s search for her mother’s killer leads to “evil and devastating truths.” Translation: her father might have been framed, there’s a shadowy supernatural cabal, and Samantha’s resurrection may be part of some cosmic revenge plan. Or maybe not. The movie explains all this in a flurry of flashbacks and voiceovers that make Twin Peaks look straightforward.
The ending is so anticlimactic you could miss it if you blink. There’s no real confrontation, no payoff, no clarity — just the vague sense that someone, somewhere, thought this was deep.
Acting Beyond the Grave
To the actors’ credit, they do try — briefly. Julianne Michelle emotes as if every line is physically painful to deliver. John Savage alternates between muttering and shouting, like a man trapped in an existential hangover. Edward Furlong occasionally shows flashes of the charisma that made him famous, before being smothered by the fog of bad direction.
Sally Kirkland pops in for a few scenes, playing what can only be described as “Eccentric Townsperson #3.” She delivers her lines with the gleeful madness of someone who knows she’ll never have to watch the finished film.
The Real Horror: Wasting Talent and Time
Awakened isn’t just bad — it’s aggressively bad. It’s like watching the ghost of a better movie that died in pre-production. Every choice — from script to lighting to sound mixing — feels like it was made by someone who’d never seen a horror movie but had once heard one described by a drunk friend.
It’s not scary, not emotional, not even unintentionally funny. It’s cinematic limbo — a film so dull that it makes the afterlife look lively.
If there’s a moral buried in here, it might be this: when life gives you trauma, therapy is cheaper than necromancy.
Final Verdict: DOA
Awakened wants to be a haunting tale of memory, grief, and redemption. What it delivers is a flatline — a supernatural soap opera with the emotional intensity of a DMV queue.
The title promises rebirth and revelation, but by the end, the only thing awakened is your desire to turn off the TV and go outside.
If you enjoy watching once-great actors wander through the ruins of their careers while being haunted by bad lighting and worse dialogue, this is your masterpiece. For everyone else, heed the warning: some films should stay buried.
Final Rating: ★☆☆☆☆ — Proof that sometimes death really is the kinder option.
