PLOT: An elite military unit is sent on a mission into the South American jungle, where they unknowingly unleash Mobuya, an ancient supernatural guardian spirit that protects sacred territory. As the soldiers come under attack, the story flashes back to the 1540s, revealing how a group of Spanish conquistadors encountered the same force centuries earlier.
REVIEW: There’s a sad story behind The Awakening. The supernatural horror film was conceived, written, and originally directed by the late Jaime Osorio Márquez, who passed away in December of 2021 at the age of 46, following a long battle with kidney cancer. The Awakening wasn’t quite finished at the time of his death, so his longtime collaborator and producer Federico Durán, along with fellow filmmaker José Luis Rugeles, helped bring the project across the finish line, working alongside the original creative team to preserve Márquez’s vision. The film is a companion piece to the 2021 Colombian action horror series Thousand Fangs, which Márquez co-created with Guillermo Escalona. Originally conceived as a feature film, the project evolved into the television series during development. After Márquez’s death, his collaborators revisited the existing footage and reconstructed it into the feature film he had envisioned.
I haven’t seen the Thousand Fangs version of the story, but I, unfortunately, can’t say I enjoyed The Awakening very much at all.
The film gets off to a good start: an elite military unit is sent on a mission into the South American jungle to locate and “neutralize” a man named Matias before he can organize a militia. It’s all very reminiscent of Predator as we watch the unit assemble, get dropped off in the jungle, and make their way through the foliage to spy on an enemy encampment. They spot a man they believe to be Matias. They get authorization to neutralize him. A shot is taken… and almost as soon as the bullet hits its mark, the jungle around them bursts into horrifying life. Monstrous creatures start picking the soldiers off – but don’t expect to see a lot of those creatures, because they’re usually kept off screen or hidden in shadows, so we just see soldiers being yanked up into the trees, dragged into burrows, or pulled along the ground, into the darkness.
This sounds exciting, but the strange thing about The Awakening is the fact that – for me, at least – it completely falls apart once the supernatural threat kicks in. The initial attack primarily consists of shots of soldiers desperately firing into the darkness, which isn’t nearly as interesting as the movie seems to think it is. The survivors seek shelter in a cave… and we’re in for a long, slow, slog through the darkness from that point on. Nothing particularly interesting happens with these characters until near the end of the film.
Dragging the story down even further are flashbacks to 1542, when invading conquerors trespassed and profaned this land, awakening the rage of a supernatural guardian called Mobuya. It’s this same guardian that’s causing trouble for the soldiers in present day. The 1542 part of the story doesn’t do anything to liven things up, it’s just another part of the slog, along with childhood flashbacks that also get dropped into the mix.
The Awakening certainly has some interesting ideas in it and it has a promising set-up, as I was all-in for the idea of a Colombian twist on the Predator set-up. The puzzle pieces just don’t fit together to make this movie nearly as exciting as it should have been. After the soldiers get authorized to take that shot at Matias, the movie sputters out and becomes shockingly dull. Maybe it feels so clunky because it was assembled from a larger idea, but I can’t imagine seven episodes of Thousand Fangs could have been more interesting than this. The Awakening is already difficult to get through at 96 minutes; I don’t know how a multi-episode version of the concept could be more tolerable.
This was a rough one for me. I couldn’t wait for it to be over. But, if the basic idea sounds intriguing to you, give The Awakening a chance and see if its vision of soldiers (and conquerors) vs. supernatural creatures works better for you than it did for me.
Well Go USA is giving The Awakening a digital release on November 10th.