FILM

UK 2011 107 mins Dir: Nick Murphy Starring: Rebecca Hall, Dominic West, Imelda Staunton

It'll never happen in real life, but there's nothing more satisfying in a well-crafted ghost story than the rationalist debunker being confounded by a supernatural entity. And there's no better setting for these things than the immediate post-WWI era. That's partly because we don’t have to put up with endless CCTV footage but mainly because, as writer Stephen Volk (creator of the Bristol-set TV series 'Afterlife') clearly recognises, this was a golden age of charlatanry, cashing in on the millions whose lives had been devastated by the Great War and 1918 influenza pandemic. 'The Awakening' isn't without its faults, mostly in the rather overblown third act, but benefits from an excellent cast, a spooky setting, and characters whose actions are rooted in genuine trauma. Anyone who enjoyed such slowburning haunted house flicks as 'The Orphanage', 'The Others' and 'The Devil's Backbone' should dive right in.

Rebecca Hall excels as Florence Cathcart, a strident, educated atheist and author of 'Seeing Through Ghosts', who specialises in exposing fraudulent mediums at considerable cost to her own grief-stricken psyche. Summoned to a remote, imposing Cumbrian boys' boarding school in 1921 by war-wounded teacher Robert Mallory (West, fresh from playing his namesake Fred), Florence swiftly rumbles the kid responsible for a 'ghost' that caused the death of a fellow pupil. But before she can leave, she encounters an apparition that she cannot explain. With term ending, she has the run of the place with Mallory and adoring matron Maud (Staunton). The big twist takes some swallowing and will be a tad familiar to genre enthusiasts. But by then director Nick Murphy has put in the necessary groundwork to persuade most of us to suspend disbelief, serving up a terrifically chilling doll’s house sequence along the way. (Robin Askew)

Website www.bbc.co.uk/bbcfilms/film/the_awakening

Opens 11 November

Copyright Robin Askew 2011