Awoken-- My take on the movie with spoilers!

PLOT SUMMARY: When Karla agrees to conduct an experimental procedure on her brother Blake who suffers from insomnia, little does she know the true intentions of the doctor is going to put her in danger.

Sometimes you pick a movie randomly. You just see the poster, think it’s creepy looking and the title made you curious.

You don’t want to read the synopsis because you want to be surprised and watch the movie with an open mind.

Then the opening card comes in and gives away the whole plot.

Now you know Awoken is about Fatal Familial Insomnia. But that’s not all. 1 in 3 people has some form of sleep disorder, 95% of the people who are unable to sleep for more than 18 days, rarely survive. But if they do, they don’t need a doctor anymore, but a priest.

Okay, so we’re about to watch a movie about a sleep disorder, and no doubt, one of the characters is going to be sleepless for more than 18 days. And then there’s going to be an exorcism.

One of the risks a movie takes is by giving away the plot a bit in the early stages and then holding the viewer’s interest until the end.

In a horror movie, stories depend on a bit of a twist here and a surprise there, so the question is, can this movie provide any more jolts?

AWOKEN Movie Plot

The movie begins with a teenage boy weeping in his bed as a grown man behind him gets up and zips up his pants. He orders him, and another younger boy to go to bed. But the younger boy is sitting on his bed, staring into nothing, and tearing off pages of a bible.

The man approaches him only to see the boy’s eyes turn white and hears him uttering Latin verses. The next instant, the grown man is killed.

Some years later Karla is at the university with her friend Alice. They are listening to a lecture given by Dr Robert who is also a father figure to Karla since her parents died. He’s discussing the importance of sleep while Alice is advising Karla to get some sleep herself.

Karla hasn’t been able to sleep because her brother Blake is being treated for sleeplessness. The doctors have given up on him and tell her to take him home. Karla’s suggestion to treat him with drugs not legal in the country are met with “shut up, we know better because we are more experienced.”

Another medical student pops up to meet Blake. Karla gives him a frosty hello and it is established immediately that she has some history with Patrick. Blake doesn’t care much for his sister’s broken love life and plays cards with Patrick even though he’s on the verge of being thrown out of the hospital for not sleeping.

Karla seeks help from Robert who tells her about the secret basement in the premises where he and Karla’s father conducted experiments and studies not approved by the university. In fact, Karla’s mother too was brought to the basement when she too faced a sleep disorder that she passed on to Blake.

Karla doesn’t need any more convincing because she wants to help her brother and her father, a well-known doctor in this field, according to his own book, was a friend of Robert’s.

Instantly, Alice jumps on the wagon because she loves Blake just as much as anybody according to a scene later on. And Patrick comes in too because Blake wants him nearby to play cards and stuff.

Robert doesn’t ask the two uninvited if they promise to keep all this confidential and shows them all the secret lair that is accessed via an elevator that needs a key.

It’s a creepy dimly lit basement with long corridors and supposedly restrooms that have been kept clean and decorated like a hotel room.

There are two patients already being treated- Angela and Christopher. There is only one more bed and luckily Blake is here to occupy it.

They start work which is mostly just sitting in front of a window to watch the patients and write tons of notes.

Time is passed by playing Catan which Patrick brought. He also unsuccessfully tries to make amends with Karla who sobs about how he left her the minute Blake was sick. Patrick replies about how he was a possessive boyfriend and couldn’t take that his girlfriend was more focused on her sick brother than him.

He did leave her but continued to be gamer pals with her brother?

Blake starts to feel a little better, or so the others think especially since his medication is changed. He is able to sit properly but keeps staring into space.

Christopher is occupied with his headphones which leaves Angela to hear Blake whisper all the time. This terrifies her and she keeps looking at Blake as if he’s going to kill her. She’s about to be right a few scenes later.

In the meantime, Karla and Alice find videotapes of the experiment her father conducted, behind a bookshelf. The two watch it and see that her father invited a priest much to the chagrin of Robert who was confident that science has all the answers.

But Karla’s father knows something is off in his wife. He knows her better and must have read about how people who don’t sleep for more than 18 days require a priest. He’s already ready with a priest.

The girls don’t watch all the videotapes right away, because they want to keep the end results of the experiment, right till the end of the movie.

The tapings are hardly three minutes long but the girls don’t think they want to watch it all right now.

Blake begins to tear off bible pages. Apparently, it is mandatory to keep religious books near every patient. Because you know, if the patient hasn’t slept for more than 18 days, they need a priest and if they can’t call one right away, at least there’s a holy book.

This is just an unnecessary scene to desecrate something religious to show demon possession.

Soon Angela goes berserk because she can’t take Blake slurping his cereal. She yells to be let out but only Karla is present because she doesn’t like to sleep. She doesn’t try to talk to Angela or rush in immediately. Instead, she lets Angela walk up to a chair and hang herself using the microphone. Karla comes in but Angela is no longer even struggling to stay alive. She’s dead.

The students are now tasked with disposing of the body when no one is supposed to know what is going on. Of course, the elevator key doesn’t turn. Of course, a call is made for help but maintenance will take their time to arrive sometime tomorrow.

The body is put in another room while Karla is okay with letting Patrick watch the tapes with her. Alice has gone off to bed to read a diary she found and hear whispers coming from the vent. She warns Karla about demons and incantations but it isn’t time for that yet.

Right now Karla and Patrick have to see that the experiment on Karla’s mother didn’t go well either. She tore off bible pages and stuck them to the window with blood from the other patients.

All the people involved in the study are ready to go in but the tape stops. Patrick and Karla come to the conclusion that there’s probably a tape left in the camera. They find it and see that yes, everyone dies and Robert was chasing the priest who hid the tapes so that one day Karla and Blake would become medical students, come to the basement to conduct experiments and find the tapes.

Turns out Robert is a psycho and they trusted the wrong person to come down and experiment on people with.

Alice dies by swallowing an electric wire. Karla and Patrick find out that the phone was never working. Christopher dies somewhere in all this as well. And the demon possessing Blake knows Karla well enough to call her KJ.

Awoken: Ending Explained with Spoilers

Robert reveals he was the boy in the first scene who was glad that the man who tormented him was murdered by a demon. Ever since he had become obsessed with bringing the demon Idimu to this world because he’s a hero. The demon apparently lingers between the sleep and real-world and Robert wanted to bring him to this world as a thank you for saving him.

It didn’t come to him since he couldn’t keep himself up for many days so he took the long route and became a doctor so he could be close to people who couldn’t sleep for more than 18 days and use them to bring Idimu.

Karla starts reciting random verses from the diary but Robert is years of research behind him and recites the incantation to bring Idimu to this world because Blake is all ready. Blake is walking on his hands upside down, so yes, he is ready to be the gateway.

Karla finally finds a verse that weakens her possessed brother but isn’t very good with reciting it properly. This causes Patrick to be stabbed.

Karla and Robert have a stand-off which ends with Robert diving onto a stake. He’s dead, Karla finally said the right verses to the exorcism and saved her brother.

But in the end, while Blake is dozing into a peaceful sleep, Karla is wide awake.

What are the odds? 1 in 3 people was it?

The movie relies on cliches and jump-scares to move the plot forward which was already revealed in the beginning.

In spite of that, the weak plot is held on by good acting and some efficient jump scares.

Scare scale: 3/5