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Plot
The film opens on an Egyptian archaeological dig in 1961. Three of the main characters are introduced, Matthew Corbeck (Heston), his wife Anne Corbeck (Jill Townsend), and Jane Turner (Susannah York). Matthew and Jane are discussing their work to try to uncover the tomb of an ancient Egyptian Queen while Anne looks distressed by the relationship between her husband and his assistant. It is later proved that her distress is justified.

Corbeck and Turner end up discovering the long hidden tomb that comes with the warning Do Not Approach the Nameless One Lest Your Soul Be Withered yet they continue on to uncover the mummy of Queen Kara. As Corbeck smashes in the door to where the tomb is located, Anne begins a painful premature labour. With each hit against the door, Anne has a painful contraction. Upon Corbeck and Jane's return to the camp, they discover Anne laying on the floor in a trance like state. Corbeck takes her to the hospital but leaves her there so that he can return to the dig to continue uncovering the tomb of the Queen. Later, as Anne gives birth to a dead baby, Corbeck and Jane open the mummy's sarcophagus. As they open it the baby suddenly comes to life, signifying the transfer of the Queen's soul to the baby. Corbeck's neglect of both Anne and his newborn daughter Margaret eventually end up with the two leaving him.

The audience is then brought into the present in which Corbeck is a professor at a British university and now married to Jane. Corbeck finds out that his great discovery is in trouble: traces of bacteria have been found on the mummy. Corbeck returns to Egypt to learn more about what is happening to the mummy. He tries to have the mummy brought back to England because he disagrees with the Egyptian professionals taking care of it. After one of the specialists opposes Corbeck he is killed in a freak accident and Matthew is able to transport the mummy to England.

Meanwhile, Margaret (Stephanie Zimbalist) turns eighteen (the age of Queen Kara when she died) and she decides she wants to go to England to meet her father even though her mother asks her not to. While in England, Corbeck and Jane tell Margaret all about Kara and the violent murders she committed as well as the myth that she could re-incarnate herself.

Corbeck's obsession with Kara grows and Margaret begins to undergo changes. It appears she is being possessed by Kara. People throughout the film that inhibit the Queen's spirit mysteriously and violently die. Margaret begins to notice the change in herself and believes she is the one responsible for all the deaths and odd incidents. Her and her father, while visiting Kara's tomb, discover the jars which contain Kara's organs and Corbeck wants to try the ritual to resurrect the ancient Queen. Heston soon comes to believe that the spirit of the queen possessed his daughter at the moment of her birth and intends to resurrect herself through the girl's body. He comes to the decision that the only way to safe her is to perform the ritual, which is a decision aided by his possessed daughter. He realizes when it's too late that Kara tricked him and that the ritual in fact helped her complete take over Margaret's body. The reincarnated Queen proceeds to kill Corbeck and the film ends with Kara walking out into the world with her intentions unknown to the audience.

Cast

 * Charleton Heston plays Matthew Corbeck, a fictional British archaeologist and the main character in the film. Corbeck is obsessive about his work which leads to the end of his marriage with Anne. Heston has been criticized for his inability to produce a convincing English accent.


 * Susannah York performs the role of Jane Turner Corbeck's trained assistant. According to Anne, Jane "worships" Corbeck and has been referred to by critics as "kittenish" . Later we find out that Jane and Corbeck get married after Matthew and Anne divorce. In the latter part of the film, Jane becomes concerned with Corbeck's obsession with Kara and the reincarnation ritual. She dies as the result of an accident which takes place as she tries to destroy the organs.


 * Jill Townsend plays Anne Corbeck, Corbeck's wife, who feels neglected by her husband and ends up leaving him because of this. She tries to convince Margaret to not visit her father by saying "Your father has a wife. He deserted us for her".


 * Stephanie Zimbalist as Margaret Corbeck: Matthew Corbeck's daughter is one Zimbalist's first acting roles. Soon after her character's eighteenth birthday, she starts feeling an unexplainable urge to visit her father. As she becomes possessed by Kara she begins to do uncharacteristic things such as murdering people who get in the way of the ancient Queen. Zimbalist has been critiqued for not being skilled enough to play both the roles of Margaret and Kara with subtlety and her creepiness near the end of the film is created more by her makeup rather than her acting. She is however, praised at being much better at performing the lighter scenes as Margaret.


 * Patrick Drury plays Paul Whittier, Corbeck's assistant in the latter part of the film and Margaret's love interest.

Minor Characters

 * Bruce Myers - Dr. Khalid
 * Nadim Sawalha - Dr. El Sadek
 * Ian McDiarmid - Dr. Richter
 * Ahmed Osman - Yussef
 * Miriam Margolyes - Dr. Kadira
 * Michael Mellinger - Hamid
 * Leonard Maguire - John Matthews
 * Ishia Bennison - Nurse
 * Madhav Sharma - Doctor
 * Chris Fairbanks - Porter
 * Michael Halphie - Doctor

Reception
The Awakening made $2,728,520 when it opened in theaters in 1980 and has a lifetime gross of $8,415,112.

There have been mixed reviews about the film, some positive and some negative. It has been referred to as boring and dull, unable to move the audience, and as being a "sleazy adaptation" of Bram Stoker's novel. However, the movie is also thought to be skillfully made and filmed and to have impressive film editing.

Archaeological Themes
opening credits appear on a backdrop of images of Egyptian paintings and scenery. Cuts to the pyramids, desert landscapes, wall paintings, and Egyptian sculptures. Shots of the dig site and its ancient buildings. Taking items from archaeological sites - he is given a mirror to give to his daughter, he takes artifacts from the tomb, later he removes the jars with Kara's organs. Museum (32 minutes) - filled with artifacts Clothing- khaki, supernatural