The Awakening, from Colombia

There is a new horror sub-sub-genre: “imperialist”-eating monsters. Yet, like most forms of extremist activism, they tend to do more harm to the locals they supposedly protect than the outsiders that are supposedly encroaching. So far, Beware Boiuna is probably the best of the lot. This one of rather middling—pretty much in all ways (but better than Shaman). An elite unit launches a special op deep in the Colombian jungle. You can guess what comes next in director-screenwriter Jaime Osorio Marquez’s The Awakening, which releases this Tuesday on VOD.

Sadly, Marquez died in 2021, before the production wrapped, so co-screenwriter Federico Duran and producer Jose Luis Rugeles eventually finished the film, as best they could, while striving to reflect Marquez’s intentions. Their efforts yielded a coherent, marketable film, so hats off to them, but Marquez’s previous films are probably better representative of his talents.

Regardless, the set-up feels very familiar. Corporal Rojas’s unit has orders to penetrate into “the Heart of Darkness” to terminate a notorious Kurtz-like terrorist. Of course, they assume they are the hunters, but they are really being stalked by a race of ancient monsters.

Indeed, they have done this sort of thing before. In a parallel 16^th Century narrative, a group of Spanish Conquistador adventurers and their Portuguese guide walk into a similar ambush—except they know they are doing it, having discovered the fresh corpses of another expedition. Such is the lure of gold.

Ironically, the minor Spanish flashback characters and much more distinctive than the major Colombian soldiers. All we get for the latter are rather standard issue character devices, like the medic, who left a pregnant wife behind. Rojas has his own separate set of flashbacks that establish his own childhood traumas, but Duran and Rugeles never successfully close this loop in Marquez’s absence.

Regrettably, The Awakening ends up feeling like a lot of other movies. In fact, at times, the cast appears to be recreating poses from Predator as an homage. Marquez and company had a good feel for the mechanics of military operations, but they are so stingy with creature effects, the audience cannot fully describe them, even after watching a full screening.

To be fair, many horror fans will be entirely satisfied by The Awakening, but it will never “live with them” to any great extent. Like it or loathe it, this film just does not leave a strong impression. It is unfortunate that Marquez could not complete his final film according to his original vision, but as completed by his colleagues, The Awakening just isn’t sufficiently memorable to recommend when it releases this Tuesday (11/10) on VOD.