The Awakening

Director and co-writer Nick Murphy's atmospheric big-screen debut suffers from the same affliction as many Stephen King novels - a disappointing and slightly silly ending (remember the big spider thing at the end of It? The topiary monsters in The Shining? The Langoliers?)

The Awakening has all the ingredients of a chilling (if by-the-numbers) ghost story: a big spooky house, a creepy ghost child with 'The Ring'-esque contorted features, a no-nonsense heroine who loses her nerve - and possibly her mind - once things start to go bump in the night, jump-inducing shocks accompanied by the requisite burst of violins, and lmelda Staunton stalking the corridors in period costume like a mumsy version of The Woman in Black.

All this combines to create a grippingly tense first three quarters, with moments of supernatural creepiness to rival The Others and The Orphanage. And then it goes and spoils it all by chucking in a hotchpotch of convoluted, groan-inducing half-explanations which drag out in one long, frustrating anti-climax, which even Dominic West's earnestly-furrowed best acting face can't salvage.