Rebecca Hall Gets Spooked In First Trailer For The Awakening

It never pays to be a cynic in a horror film. No matter how much a character may deny the existence of ghosts or the supernatural, by the end of the film they will be screaming and running for their lives away from some kind of malevolent spirit. We've seen it countless times before and now it's being presented to us once again.

Apple has posted the first trailer for the upcoming horror film The Awakening, the feature directorial debut of Nick Murphy (who has previously helmed episodes of British televison shows such as Primeval and Occupation). You can watch the preview below and head over to the source to see it in HD.

Does anyone else get the sense that this is basically a period-piece version of Stephen King's 1408 only with a female lead and a boarding house instead of a hotel room? Perhaps the full film will change the story, but this pretty much looks like the same-old-same-old.

Set in 1921, the film stars Rebecca Hall as Florence Cathcart, a young woman who professionally exposes hoaxes. When she is called to a boarding school where ghost children have been spotted, she believes that it's just another bit of hocus pocus, but as time passes she realizes that it all may be very, very real. The film co-stars Dominic West and Imelda Staunton. While the film has already been released in the UK it will be arriving in US theaters in limited release on August 10th.

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Eric Eisenberg is the Assistant Managing Editor at CinemaBlend. After graduating Boston University and earning a bachelor’s degree in journalism, he took a part-time job as a staff writer for CinemaBlend, and after six months was offered the opportunity to move to Los Angeles and take on a newly created West Coast Editor position. Over a decade later, he's continuing to advance his interests and expertise. In addition to conducting filmmaker interviews and contributing to the news and feature content of the site, Eric also oversees the Movie Reviews section, writes the the weekend box office report (published Sundays), and is the site's resident Stephen King expert. He has two King-related columns.