IMDB currently gives this period haunting an 8.1/10.0 rating (as of Oct. 21, 2025). I beg to differ.
Borley Rectory was a real place, once known as “the most haunted house in Britain.” This appellation is primarily due to the questionable investigation of the supposed hauntings by a professional magician and psychic researcher named Harry Price in the 1930s, long after the period when this film takes place. The actual building burned in 1939 and, while it was a substantial home, the great manor house (Ingatestone Hall) used for the film is far beyond the likely abode of a humble rector. Despite that, it is prominent in the many exterior scenes.
Besides the building, the film features veteran actor Julian Glover (“Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade”) as Rector Harry Bull. Bull was a real person who lived with his family in the Rectory in the late 1800s. Sadly, the 90-year-old Glover only appears in a few scenes at the beginning of the picture. Despite that short participation, he lends a well-needed gravitas missing from the pedestrian balance of the picture.
“The Awakening” is one of several films about the weird happenings at Borley, including the 2021 flick “The Ghosts of Borley Rectory,” which centered on Price’s investigations and featured the late Julian Sands playing real-life Rector Lionel Foyster, the last rector to live there.
Are there ghosts at Borley? Indeed there are. There is the ghost of a nun, of ghastly visage, who appears to Rector Bull in his bedroom. And years later to his four daughters while they are out walking. There is also the sadistic ghost of a clergyman who torments the nun, impregnates her, and has her killed after delivering a child.
The bulk of the film is our seeing various details of the ghostly brutality over and over again, with the nun becoming a sympathetic figure and the deceased Rector’s children trying to figure out how to free the spirits and restore peace to the house. Perhaps the film would be more aptly titled “Borley Rectory: The Slumbering.”
Writer/Director Steven M. Smith (“The Ghosts of Borley Rectory”) seems to have carved out a niche for himself: critically low-rated films about ghostly misadventures, with a crevice just for Borley Rectory epics. Harry Price would be proud.
Also credited with writing is Christopher Jolley (“Granny Krampus”), who has collaborated with Smith on a number of projects and whose work can be found in the aforementioned crevice. I think it is safe to assume that these lads are equally responsible for the boring, repetitive nonsense that fill out the runtime of this film, and that it was the competence of Julian Glover’s performance that made the initial minutes enjoyable.
Save your ticket money for Halloween candy. The kiddies will be more entertaining.
Runtime: An interminable 88 minutes
Availability: Haunting digital sites now
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