The Awakening (1980) - Scream Factory

[DR Herbert West]

the awakening (1980) – two-time academy award® winner charlton heston stars as an archaeologist driven to destroy the ancient evil he unleashes when his research causes the awakening. Matthew corbeck is obsessed with finding and opening the tomb of the murderous ancient egyptian queen kara, to the point of neglecting his pregnant wife (jill townsend) even as she delivers their baby. But the evil that he frees takes possession of his newborn daughter. Now, eighteen years later, his daughter, margaret (stephanie zimbalist), returns to egypt to meet her father for the first time – and he must overcome powerful occult forces to destroy the evil he unleashed upon the world!

[DukeTogo84]

I've actually never seen this, but looks awesome and I like my Heston. Day 1 for me.

[DR Herbert West]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DkFh0XuUgTs

[Michael24]

Awesome news! I wanted to see this for years after being intrigued by the poster art on the back of one of my dad's old Cinefantastique issues, but could never find it anywhere. Finally just bought the WAC DVD a few years ago when I found out it existed and enjoyed it a lot. Heston is great as usual, and I love Claude Bolling's score. Some wonderful location footage, too, which should shine nicely with a new transfer. The DVD is pretty muddy. An early film appearance by Ian McDiarmid, too.

[Rayjg]

Originally Posted by Michael24

Awesome news! I wanted to see this for years after being intrigued by the poster art on the back of one of my dad's old Cinefantastique issues, but could never find it anywhere. Finally just bought the WAC DVD a few years ago when I found out it existed and enjoyed it a lot. Heston is great as usual, and I love Claude Bolling's score. Some wonderful location footage, too, which should shine nicely with a new transfer. The DVD is pretty muddy. An early film appearance by Ian McDiarmid, too.

The soundtrack was just re-released on CD. Limited to 300 copies.

[Spooked]

Originally Posted by Michael24

Awesome news! I wanted to see this for years after being intrigued by the poster art on the back of one of my dad's old Cinefantastique issues, but could never find it anywhere. Finally just bought the WAC DVD a few years ago when I found out it existed and enjoyed it a lot. Heston is great as usual, and I love Claude Bolling's score. Some wonderful location footage, too, which should shine nicely with a new transfer. The DVD is pretty muddy. An early film appearance by Ian McDiarmid, too.

Yeah, the poster art got me as well. I think I'm just going to blind buy this based solely on my fond memories of that art. (Much like Ghost Town... )

[Spooked]

Originally Posted by Rayjg

The soundtrack was just re-released on CD. Limited to 300 copies.

https://quartetrecords.com/product/the-awakening-2/

[Michael24]

I didn't know Quartet had re-issued the soundtrack. I got their previous release just a couple years ago after stumbling across it.

[Maximux]

day one of course, love Heston a lot

[dvining]

For a minute I thought this was Awakenings.

Very different movie.

[snipemonkey]

Might have to give this one another chance when it comes out. Haven't seen it since the '80s on VHS but remember being really disappointed in it. But I love mummies, so...

[Aclea]

Originally Posted by snipemonkey

Might have to give this one another chance when it comes out. Haven't seen it since the '80s on VHS but remember being really disappointed in it.

Me too, though a second viewing didn't help:



Glancing over the credits of The Awakening, you can't help thinking so many talented people, such an ordinary film. Charlton Heston, director Mike Newell (making his debut), legendary cinematographer Jack Cardiff (Black Narcissus, A Matter of Life and Death), editor Terry Rawlings (Alien, Chariots of Fire) and a trio of quality scribes in Ten Rillington Place screenwriter Clive Exton and Don't Look Now co-writers Allan Scott and Chris Bryant. The latter's involvement makes you think that Nic Roeg could have really made something of the material at that time. Certainly this should have been much better than it is. It's not that it's a rehash of Bram Stoker's Jewel of the Seven Stars that served as the basis for Hammer's infinitely superior Blood From the Mummy's Tomb less than a decade earlier - producer Robert H. Solo had remade even better source material with surprising intelligence and success with 1978's Invasion of the Body Snatchers - more that it's a horror film that doesn't chill and which feels like it's only just getting down to business when it ends. It certainly has the kind of budget Hammer could only dream of, but none of the compensating imagination.

It's one of those films which it's obvious the leading man has taken on largely because he turned down a similar film that proved a huge hit and figures that he'd better not miss the boat a second time, in this case Charlton Heston clearly regretting his decision not to make The Omen. Still, at least he has the right cinematic pedigree to convince as an obsessive Egyptologist who unearths a forgotten tomb of a damned queen in the Valley of the Kings only to come to suspect in later years that the evil one's spirit is possessing his daughter, who was stillborn but miraculously came to life at the moment he looked upon the Nameless One's face. Flash forward 18 years, a couple of violent accidental deaths, a failed marriage and one wig later, and Heston's daughter is coming of age and developing some sudden mental health problems while the Nameless One's mummy is suddenly affected by a post-eclipse virus that's starting to eat it away. Reunited with his great discovery, Heston becomes increasingly obsessed with the idea of bringing her back to life as anyone who stands in the way of her reincarnation meets a horrible death...

You just know that's not going to end well, but what's surprising is how sloppy it is getting to its drawn out but not especially involving finale. The editing seems surprisingly haphazard in places, with a couple of early deaths very clumsily executed with no proper build up, and only a couple of moments really build up the kind of atmosphere the film desperately needs to work. Other moments, such as one of a sleeping Heston being dragged across a room by unseen hands while Stephanie Zimbalist has what looks like either an asthmatic fit or an attempt to suppress a fit of giggles, are just plain laughable. The attempts to make the stars look younger in the lengthy opening section don't work at all - Susannah York actually looks younger in the '18 years later' section of the film - and Heston is all too obviously giving a performance here, and it's a highly variable one at that, veering from competent to plain bloody awful.

The script suffers from too many cooks and too many half-developed ideas: on the one hand it wants to take its premise seriously, yet it never quite develops ideas that it touches upon, like the possibly incestuous relationship between father and daughter being a repeat of the Nameless One's relationship with her own father or a vaguely alluded to suggestion that it's all in their mind. Instead it relies increasingly heavily on the scraps from bigger and better horror hits. Like The Exorcist it begins at an archaeological dig and has a possibly possessed child, like The Omen it has a neurotic mother and a child who scares zoo animals plus the obligatory would-be horrible death by truck and a woman falling to her death from a window. The end result is a watchable film with some good ideas it doesn't really know what to do with but which becomes increasingly silly and dreary as it goes on. You're much better off sticking with Blood from the Mummy's Tomb.

[Marv Inc.]

This the one with lots of gore?

[Aclea]

Nope.

[donidarko]

This was kind of slow and boring but I will still bite.

[Michael24]

With Hammer's Blood From the Mummy's Tomb on Blu-ray and now this coming out over the summer, I should finally get around to reading Bram Stoker's The Jewel of Seven Stars that both are based on. It's been sitting on my shelf for the last couple of years.

[Mose Harper]

Originally Posted by Rayjg

The soundtrack was just re-released on CD. Limited to 300 copies.

When I got back into collecting soundtracks about six years ago, this was one of the first titles I bought having no familiarity with it whatsoever- outside of seeing it advertised every month in the pages of Starlog.
Was always curious why they pushed this particular title so much.

Turns out, it's actually a great score. Vastly superior to the film it's supporting.
IIRC, Bolling just passed away not too long ago also. Maybe in the last year or so.

Originally Posted by Aclea

Me too, though a second viewing didn't help:

...
You just know that's not going to end well, but what's surprising is how sloppy it is getting to its drawn out but not especially involving finale. The editing seems surprisingly haphazard in places, with a couple of early deaths very clumsily executed with no proper build up, and only a couple of moments really build up the kind of atmosphere the film desperately needs to work..

Yeah. Unlike Sphinx (which was no great shakes either), I was surprised by how much this consistently failed to deliver even basic b-movie competency.

People here going in blind might appreciate it more than Sphinx, because it will at least resemble more of what a Scream Factory title should look like- but it's the lesser of the two to me by a good margin.

[ZzZzZzZ]

Just read on another forum that this one has 2 different endings that's been released on DVD. I hope we get both versions!

[snipemonkey]

Originally Posted by Mose Harper

Unlike Sphinx (which was no great shakes either), I was surprised by how much this consistently failed to deliver even basic b-movie competency.

Yeah, the great poster is more "horrific" than anything in the actual movie. What struck me most of all is just how lackluster and "meh" the thing is, like everyone involved was just going through the motions. Must have been strictly a paycheck job for the whole lot except Bolling.

[FrancisP]

Originally Posted by Aclea

Me too, though a second viewing didn't help:



Glancing over the credits of The Awakening, you can't help thinking so many talented people, such an ordinary film. Charlton Heston, director Mike Newell (making his debut), legendary cinematographer Jack Cardiff (Black Narcissus, A Matter of Life and Death), editor Terry Rawlings (Alien, Chariots of Fire) and a trio of quality scribes in Ten Rillington Place screenwriter Clive Exton and Don't Look Now co-writers Allan Scott and Chris Bryant. The latter's involvement makes you think that Nic Roeg could have really made something of the material at that time. Certainly this should have been much better than it is. It's not that it's a rehash of Bram Stoker's Jewel of the Seven Stars that served as the basis for Hammer's infinitely superior Blood From the Mummy's Tomb less than a decade earlier - producer Robert H. Solo had remade even better source material with surprising intelligence and success with 1978's Invasion of the Body Snatchers - more that it's a horror film that doesn't chill and which feels like it's only just getting down to business when it ends. It certainly has the kind of budget Hammer could only dream of, but none of the compensating imagination.

It's one of those films which it's obvious the leading man has taken on largely because he turned down a similar film that proved a huge hit and figures that he'd better not miss the boat a second time, in this case Charlton Heston clearly regretting his decision not to make The Omen. Still, at least he has the right cinematic pedigree to convince as an obsessive Egyptologist who unearths a forgotten tomb of a damned queen in the Valley of the Kings only to come to suspect in later years that the evil one's spirit is possessing his daughter, who was stillborn but miraculously came to life at the moment he looked upon the Nameless One's face. Flash forward 18 years, a couple of violent accidental deaths, a failed marriage and one wig later, and Heston's daughter is coming of age and developing some sudden mental health problems while the Nameless One's mummy is suddenly affected by a post-eclipse virus that's starting to eat it away. Reunited with his great discovery, Heston becomes increasingly obsessed with the idea of bringing her back to life as anyone who stands in the way of her reincarnation meets a horrible death...

You just know that's not going to end well, but what's surprising is how sloppy it is getting to its drawn out but not especially involving finale. The editing seems surprisingly haphazard in places, with a couple of early deaths very clumsily executed with no proper build up, and only a couple of moments really build up the kind of atmosphere the film desperately needs to work. Other moments, such as one of a sleeping Heston being dragged across a room by unseen hands while Stephanie Zimbalist has what looks like either an asthmatic fit or an attempt to suppress a fit of giggles, are just plain laughable. The attempts to make the stars look younger in the lengthy opening section don't work at all - Susannah York actually looks younger in the '18 years later' section of the film - and Heston is all too obviously giving a performance here, and it's a highly variable one at that, veering from competent to plain bloody awful.

The script suffers from too many cooks and too many half-developed ideas: on the one hand it wants to take its premise seriously, yet it never quite develops ideas that it touches upon, like the possibly incestuous relationship between father and daughter being a repeat of the Nameless One's relationship with her own father or a vaguely alluded to suggestion that it's all in their mind. Instead it relies increasingly heavily on the scraps from bigger and better horror hits. Like The Exorcist it begins at an archaeological dig and has a possibly possessed child, like The Omen it has a neurotic mother and a child who scares zoo animals plus the obligatory would-be horrible death by truck and a woman falling to her death from a window. The end result is a watchable film with some good ideas it doesn't really know what to do with but which becomes increasingly silly and dreary as it goes on. You're much better off sticking with Blood from the Mummy's Tomb.

I agree with you. Blood From the Mummy's Tomb is clearly superior. It shows money is not the biggest factor. The deaths of the archaeologinsts in Blood was much more interesting despite the fact they were done in the style of Val Lewton. The ending is classic as we are not sure who is wrapped in the bandages. Margaret or the sorceress.