Awaken the Shadowman (2017) User Reviews (73)

Never mind the Shadowman, try and awaken the viewer.

[Sleepin_Dragon · 4/10 · 23 March 2019]

Sadly it really is one of those boring, unoriginal horror movies, that makes ma crave the horrors of the nineties. There is a big difference between deliberate suspense and out and out boredom, and sadly the latter fits this film. So little seems to actually happen, apart from the melodrama among the rather odious family. I think they tried to make a statement with the content, and provide a shock with the tone and plot, but sadly it simply fell flat.

It's hard to find many positives, the acting wasn't bad in fairness, but that alone couldn't make up for the film being so boring. 4/10

Rushed ending ruins it

[Octillery · 3/10 · 2 August 2017]

Currently half of the reviews for this movie (the earlier half) are 8-10 stars, while the other half is very low. The high ratings are all from new accounts who have written no other reviews. Hmmmm. This is a pretty good indication that the high ratings are coming from people involved with the film, which I think is really shady. I would have given this 5/10, but am rating it lower to counter the obvious astroturfing.

Anyway, this is an OK indie project that does its best to be eerie/creepy/subtle, and I can appreciate that. No part of this production is Hollywood-grade, but that's not always a bad thing. My main gripe is the rushed ending. It feels like they ran out of time/money and had to wrap it up as quick as possible. There are so many things left open. Not "open to interpretation," but completely ignored. Like parts of the story are missing. Near the end everyone is spouting overly cryptic things at the main character, and he keeps saying, "What are you talking about!?" Then someone says, "Now you know. Now you understand." And he's like, "No actually I don't." This is the moment I really connected with him.

Oh, and then right after that exchange, we flash forward an unspecified amount of time, with no explanation of what happened after the cult did its thing, why it was doing the thing in the first place, or how the guy escaped them and got out of the basement. Roll credits. ...ok thanks?

It had potential

[kopower · 3/10 · 20 July 2018]

Not the worst film I've ever seen. It fell prey to the curse of Hollywood horror. You know.... no ending. Movies have a setting, a cast, and a plot. The plot needs a begging, middle and and end. It was missing the ending. It also leaves you with more questions than answers. It could've been decent.

Terrible screenplay only surpassed by insufferable acting and directing

[jessicacgill · 1/10 · 14 October 2017]

This concept had a ton of potential, it was filmed in a neighborhood I love, centered on a subject close to my heart (recovery from wildfires), and the shadowman concept is hard to f*ck up - but even with all of these positive elements this was an absolute disaster. It's slow, it's shockingly poorly acted, the cinematography was basic and the script was a meandering, dull snooze fest. The filmmakers owe me the $5.99 On Demand rental fee, plus the cost of 90 minutes of my life. Shame on you!

Awaken the seriously bad script, acting, and direction....

[bravovegas · 1/10 · 28 September 2018]

A common phrase in the film...

"You can have anything but you can't have everything.."

Clearly not in this case...

This was a film that wanted to be a horror film soooo bad....

It isn't.

First things first. The script. The are several scenes in the film that have zero explanation. White guy in hoody that stalks the protagonist twice. Once in the beginning and bizarrely at the end with a very sloppy room which try's to give you the impression that he follows all the "shadow man cases".... he lives in a crack house where his wall is decorated with intimate pictures of the protagonist and his family for zero reason.... and one of those maps that has pins with string with circles all over the world... as if he's onto this cult conspiracy. He has no interaction and no relevance to the film whatsoever.

You have a scene where the protagonist randomly decides to venture off to meet an old high school friend out in the woods at night.... just cause... She's supposedly some sort of gibbering mystic... from central casting.... she just decides to run out in the dark when they hear growling from her camper/home? The scene serves no purpose other than to get the protagonist out of the way so the cult members/his possessed wife can take the baby to a cult meeting...

but then the baby is back home again....

But when the protagonist comes home...

the baby is back with the cult in a basement somewhere.... why show the back and forth with the baby??? There's little clarity to any of these conjoined scenes... the ambiguity doesn't come across as erry or creepy... it just feels lazy and sloppy...

The junk yard boys...... jesus this scene is so forced... The two brothers try to approach their mom's ex to see if he may know anything about her disappearance.. they come in contact with 5 hostile and slightly dirty/sleezy guys... one guy thought their mom was hot... the others looked like they wanted to pick a fight... for no reason.... they were hostile to the two brothers who were looking for their missing mom??

The only reason I can think that the writer wanted... or needed this scene was because he wanted these "menacing" characters to appear to be the reason for the disappearance or to make them feel in some way untrusting to strangers because of the cult... either way... it feels very forced and contrived... I always feel that a bad script can jolt you out of your suspension of disbelief... this scene wasn't a jolt... it was an assault... I could probably press charges....

The mom's ex totally referred to the cops as "Jonny Law..." hahahahha omg I almost choked on my popcorn... there are several of these poorly scripted cliche lines throughout the film.... just awful.

The random lesbian scene that almost was..... (no explanation)

I think they were trying to have some kind of sexual energy in the film to juxtapose with the "horror" aspect... it also felt forced and out of place... and they attempt to do it twice.... both moments just leave you wondering.... huh?

The shy shadow man with poorly manicured hands.... creepy long black fingers are creepy.... if you actually use them... this guy is totally a peeping tom. Almost every scene is him standing in a corner. Nobody should put shadow man in a corner.... half the time I didn't see him or thought it was a ficus plant. I had to rewind several scenes because I heard "scary music" but couldn't tell why it was playing randomly...

The smoke machine.... my god they loved using the smoke machine...

The events from the past vs present day.... extremely unclear about their relevance to the present day characters.... it doesn't matter how many maps with pins and string you have.... you still won't be able to connect these dots...

The "kid" cult member supposedly doesn't age and is involved in all the tragedies that precede the taking away of innocence... no real tying up that loose end either.

The last scene with the protagonist, his possessed wife, missing/not missing mother, his possessed? brother? and all of the cult members is one of the worse scenes in the film. The protagonist keeps asking repeatedly the same stupid questions instead of forcibly walking over to his "possessed wife" and taking his baby away... he just sorta succumbs to letting the cult slow walk it over to the peeping tom... who has butter fingers.... and then we never see any of them again... no explanation.

The acting was extremely monotone and plenty of poor choices. Here's my list of the worst:

Junk yard tough guys Random old high school friend living in the woods Snot nose cult leader time traveling kid The brother Mothers ex The old lady from the cult The stink face protagonist (seriously) Basically everyone.... even the shadowy butterfinger man.

I don't want to bemoan everything about this film... but almost every scene in this film could be considered a "deleted scene"

Let's recap:

This film needed more clarity to justify the viewers attention... I can't tell you how many times I said out loud... "what the hell does this have to do with anything?" Or..... "huh?" Or... "this is just awful..."

If your going to have a long fingered peeping tom scary guy with endless amounts of ambiguity about him.... at the very least build a story with some exposition so we can follow along... who, how, what, and why..... you don't have to spell out everything... but my god try to make it somewhat interesting or compelling.

The reliance on shock factor... loud noises do not make a poorly constructed "horror film" scary...

The porcelain dolls? Huh?

The cult lady's burnt son? Huh?

All of these randomly "creepy ideas" weren't so much creepy as they were poorly flushed out devices to try and convince the audience that they should be creeped out.... the mom hugging her crispy son was a nice touch.....barf.

I should also mention that this film doesn't set out to be a self parody... it is just bad. Filled with cliches, poor writing, poor acting choices... I'm looking right at you random old high school friend in the camper... in the woods... with crazy eyes and a randomly raving monologue. Her acting coach should be mortified...

I agree with many others who posted reviews here... this film must have been a low budget... and they must have just given up on the story.... the end is Not artistically concluded... it just concludes... if anything.. this film is consistently random.

To finish my review I will refer back to the random scene where the protagonist sees his half sleeping wife standing in the dark chanting in a whisper..

"they will fix it" "they can fix it" "they can fix everything"

This film proves they clearly cannot....

Horribly slow, boring and confusing!!

[ScotsGirl84 · 1/10 · 23 November 2017]

I seriously can't figure out how I managed to watch this from beginning to end! This film is incredibly slow, horrible and very confusing! The story is lacking, with absolutely no explanation for anything! The acting was mediocre at best as well, which made for chronic yawning. The ending was completely horrible with no loose ends tied up. The whole thing made little to no sense and was just overall terrible! Whatever you do, DO NOT watch this film! Oh and P.S. this shouldn't be classified as a horror or thriller since it isn't even remotely terrifying, suspenseful or scary. Crap!

No!

[aallenrj · 1/10 · 6 January 2019]

I rarely review movies but I'll review this one for you. Please don't waste your time. This is easily the most boring movie I have ever watched. Ever.

Horrible

[mousta-56507 · 1/10 · 23 August 2017]

This movie is horrible. It's slow, excruciatingly boring, annoying...the story isn't interesting, the characters aren't likable, and most of the acting is garbage. I watched it because I'll watch anything with 5 or more stars...how this got 5 stars boggles the mind. To say this is an average horror movie is shameful. Avoid this dumpster fire...

Induce vomiting.

[angus-910-811612 · 1/10 · 26 July 2017]

Awful direction, sub-par acting, wisp of a plot, painful dialogue, just a mess. Nothing whatsoever is explained, no attempts are made to fix loose ends, there is no resolution to any of the multiple sub-'plots,' the score is uninspired and mixed too loud to establish a proper sense of eeriness, and I think the movie is why I'm constipated.

Why?

[blaze_58 · 1/10 · 10 August 2017]

There hasn't been a good horror movie for so long that I thought even a 5 rating would be okay to watch as in general that's what horror genre gets. Boy I was wrong. First the background music was so out of sync, I mean when you are showing scenery, whats the need of dark music? what could you possibly try to achieve there? Two things are very important for a horror movie, lighting and music. If one fails, movie will not be able to recover. This movie fails in both department. Throughout the movie, we have constant dark and depressing. To give viewers a jolt you don't need to go loud, just change from happy or clam tune to dark and depressing and your works done. There are virtually no element of surprise, although few scare tactics do work. Second, Cast looks flat, they have talent but maybe script didn't help them. The male lead cast had tough time in emoting, but again maybe script didn't help him.A bit of frown would have helped him though. No offense to people who were associated with the project and wish them luck for next time.

Horribly boring

[Gerrywan · 3 September 2018]

One of the worst movies I have ever seen. I made my husband watch it just because the reviews were ok at first, but I can only asume that those reviews were from the pleople involved with the film.

Eerie and Unsettling

[emilyjira · 8/10 · 28 July 2017]

Instead of relying on gore or excessive jump scares, Awaken the Shadowman takes the time to build atmosphere and story. It dives into the underbelly of suburbia, making you wonder... Is the monster really who you think?

Strong performances by the lead actors, an unsettling score, and a deeply disturbing plot make for a highly enjoyable film.

Fans of slow-burn horror should definitely check this one out.

Ok Horror Film

[Pairic · 6/10 · 30 March 2019]

Awaken the Shadowman: Not a bad movie, not a good one but it's ok. Two estranged brothers are reunited when their mother disappears. But boy is their hometown strange, Adam the prodigal son returning after years ay encounters a cult, Gateway, which helps people emotionally and in doing so teaches that this will improve their lives in a material way. He finds that his mother has a eerie set of dolls with blacked out eyes and meets her even stranger neighbour. Many of the town's inhabitants have suffered losses through fire.



Touches of Rosemary's Baby and even The Stepford Wives permeate the film as an air of paranoia develops and the weird townsfolk seem to keep secrets about many mystifying occurrences. Best of all are the junkyard guys with their freaky metal sculptures closely followed by Adam's old school friend Angela, a doomsayer who looks and acts like a crazed crack cocaine addict. Overall though the acting isn't bad, though the motivation of some of the characters doesn't convince. That may be due to the sometimes flat direction by Woodrow Wilson III who co-wrote the screenplay which has a few plot/logic holes. But it's a watchable trashy B Movie. 5.5/10. On Netflix.

Absolutely awful

[oneerror · 1/10 · 26 July 2017]

I don't usually write reviews, especially negative ones but for this movie I'm going to make an exception. First off the acting, it's stiff and uninteresting. Never once during the film did I believe any of the emotions being portrayed or feel any attachment to any of the characters. None of the characters had any chemistry and constantly appear like they are meeting each other for the first time instead of being brothers or married.

Second, the music. I would have rather listened to the whine of a cordless drill, it probably would have been less painful on my ears. The entire score consisted of a heavy thrum sound and the twinkling of a few high pitched piano keys. Monotonous, uninteresting, excessively loud and painful.

Last the writing/plot, it honestly feels like someone had an idea for a story but didn't know how the pieces should fit together. Nothing is explained, none of the antagonists are given any rhyme or reason and the "supernatural entity" is about as frightening as a coat rack. I've heard campfire stories scarier and they made more sense. Sub plot after sub plot are introduced and then immediately forgotten about. Then there is the ending, which is the high point of the movie, not because it offers any clarity on the story but just for the simple fact that it's finally over.

You may be like me and are saying, but I love bad scary movies. Take heed my warning this is the wrong kind of bad movie there is nothing enjoyable to be found here.

Really??

[mrshclarke · 1/10 · 30 July 2017]

What a crap show. I can't believe this got a high rating. The movie was slow with bad acting and a story that made no sense. Even at the end of the movie it made no sense. It never explains anything. I was left with a blank face with no idea what I just watched. What a waste of time. Can I have my time back?

Terrible

[mslparty · 1/10 · 8 August 2017]

I can't believe I made it through the whole movie. Their voices never changed tone and their was no emotion. I don't this this was bad acting because I believe they were directed to do that. This was one of the slowest, most boring horror movies I have ever seen. There was only one instant towards the end of the movie that I was actually able to pay attention and that was when the main character guy was talking to the woman that didn't trust the people. I wouldn't even call it a horror movie. It was a total waste of my time.

Awaken the Shadowman: Horrific for the wrong reasons

[Platypuschow · 2/10 · 26 August 2017]

When a young couple and their newly born child learn that their mother is missing they race back to their home town to assist in the search only to learn that the town holds a dark secret.

Sadly the dark secret is never fully explained and the film is an anti-climatic empty 90 minutes of boredom.

It's not that nothing happens, it's that nothing even remotely interesting happens.

The movie ends on about 50 question marks and that simply isn't acceptable.

The Good:

Jean Smart

The Bad:

Everyone else

The Shadowman might be awakened, but you will be snoring from boredom...

[paul_haakonsen · 3/10 · 13 August 2017]

I was initially lured in by the movie's cover/poster, as it did seem somewhat interesting, and the fact that this was a supernatural horror movie also just jabbed at my interest.

Now, I have to be bluntly honest and say that I didn't get to the end of the movie, nor do I think that I actually made it halfway through. This movie was an ordeal to watch, because it was an unfathomably boring movie, and nothing much of any interest happened. And the lack of anything even remotely worthwhile watching made me give up on the movie. And I have no intention of returning to it and finish watching it.

The characters in the movie were generic and could essentially have been in any other horror movie. They were lacking depth and distinctive qualities and characteristics, which made for a very bland viewing experience. It was not the fault of the actors and actresses, but the writers were to blame here. The acting was adequate, but the talents were definitely struggling with the limitations imposed on them by the script and storyline.

As for special effects, well I saw very little, and what I did see didn't really impress me. And this was a supernatural horror movie, yet I managed to see only very little in the supernatural department, which was also not working in favor of the movie.

There is nothing recommendable about "Awaken the Shadowman", and thus I cannot come up with a reason for why you should actually take the time and effort or throw money after this movie, because it was just not entertaining at all.

Terrible Acting and Do-Nothing Monster Puts 'SLOW' in slowburn

[gatsby601 · 1/10 · 2 August 2017]

I don't often write reviews for IMDb but after sitting through 'Awaken the Shadowman' and then reading some of the 9 and 10/10 reviews I had to take a moment to warn the world away from this poorly written, poorly directed 'thriller?' peopled with amateurs posing as actors and the always lovely Jean Smart.

The story in a nutshell, an everyman gets a call from his brother informing him their mother has disappeared. Concerned, he carts his wife and young baby to mom's place where they are introduced to a collection of folks who all belong to a sort of survivors group. The everyman then proceeds to spend most of the film searching for mom while 'The Shadowman' basically a black silhouette, turns up occasionally and does absolutely nothing until late in the third act.

The ending doesn't matter because if you have ever seen a horror film you already know. Lazy and obvious.

Now the big problem. The acting in this film is some of the worst I have ever seen. I know, it's a low budget horror, but the soap opera lead and the rest of the cast give such flat, monotone readings I was questioning if Shadowman was suppose to be a comic parody of the horror film genera. Nope! It's not clever and self aware like Scream, it's just horrible.

Next time Skyler get a dialogue coach and a monster that does more then stands in the corner of the room like a virgin at the senior prom.

Best actor was the baby

[lasweeney-78086 · 1/10 · 21 April 2019]

Don't waste your time watching this movie. The acting is terrible. The story makes no sense and the dialogue is awful.

Can't Write, Can't Act, what can they do?

[adam-mulley-614-863785 · 3/10 · 24 March 2019]

Must be cheap budget, not a good idea for writers to act, or perhaps they were B-Movie actors trying to write, whatever way round it is, this movie didn't get my full attention, it was slow and boring, wish I had taken the other reviews as gospel, and not given it a chance like I always do, 30 minutes of my life I won't get back! I stopped watching live TV because the Adverts were literally wasting my life, a 90 minute movie became 180 minutes; meaning a whole 90 minutes, double the time of the movie is wasted on adverts! My life, that I won't get back, not to mention I am realising, I feel more awake than most people, subliminall messages suppressed perhaps? Any so I stopped, this is like stealing it back! I would rather watch adverts than sit through this drivel though, awaken the shadow man, more like send it to sleep! Certainly if i have trouble sleeping I will now know which movie to turn on! I couldn't make the whole movie, and instead read the full spoiler synopsis, which I wasn't impressed with! If you want to watch it, by all means but if I can save some people from wasting their lives, spending time writing this will be worth it!

Something different than the rest

[nickliverani · 8/10 · 28 July 2017]

I thoroughly enjoyed this movie from start to finish. It combined all the elements a true horror film possesses. I was able to connect with each character, and felt the suspense throughout. There's something to be said about a movie that keeps you guessing. I had no clue which direction the movie was heading, and I personally enjoy that in a horror movie. There are too many movies that are predictable in this day and age, and this was a breath of fresh air in that regards. I would definitely recommend this movie to friends and family who enjoy a good film.

A disturbingly suspenseful must-see film!

[fairyangel-46375 · 7/10 · 1 August 2017]

This horror movie took me by surprise, no blood or gore here, but filled with lots of psychological suspense, which was disturbingly thrilling to watch. I agree with the review from Variety, it most certainly had a "Rosemary's Baby" resemblance to it. The music enhanced the mood and feel throughout the entire film. The actors who played Adam (James Zimbardi) and Lawrence (Raam Weinfeld) stayed in character the whole time and the portrayal of their characters was very believable. The message of this movie really makes you think twice about who you should trust. I believe this is a must see film and I am sure hoping for a sequel!

Avoid awakening the shadow man at all costs

[themachinerages · 1/10 · 22 March 2019]

This is probably the worst movie I've seen since I walked out the cinema during 'The Happening' It's not even one of those 'it's so bad it's good' thrillers.

From the wooden acting to the terrible plot line and abysmal ending, I think the acting troupe, producers and director should probably change their career path.

Truly truly terrible. I think Netflix should offer me a discount to stay with them as an apology for putting it up there in the first place.

Paid FAKE reviews

[whitewitchlady · 2/10 · 26 November 2017]

The story SOUNDS interesting - until you start to watch and see how crappy the acting is. Then - the story drags...if you could call this a story. This received a 2 ONLY to be kind. It was a struggle to finish. When it finished...I was like "It's over?". FAKE 5 out of 10 reviews! How much were these guys paid?