I’m not wild about possession horror. For some reason, the idea of oddly named demons taking control of someone’s body and making them vomit pea soup just seems kind of dopey. (I did love the Ethan Hawke film “Sinister,” which might fall into the possession category.)

So, right out of the gate, that was a mark against “Awoken“ for me. But, you know? It wasn’t half bad.

What’s the setup? We have a female protagonist, who seems to be in some kind of medical training, primarily struggling to help her brother, who has some kind of sleep condition, e.g. he doesn’t get much of it. She’s being helped by a family friend, an ex-boyfriend, and another female student. As things continue, her brother starts acting weirder and weirder, heading into predictable territory for these sorts of films. Is a malevolent entity at work?

Well, uh, I think you know the answer.

I will say, the conceit that sleep deprivation allows demons to slip past the borders of your consciousness was kind of clever. What was not clever was the extremely hard to believe premise that the family friend could maintain a secret sleep research laboratory in the bowels of a university, unknown to the administrators. (Oddly, the scenes set there reminded me of the Robin Williams heartwarming movie called “Awakenings” about sleep research. “Awoken” was a lot like that film, only with more demons.)

There’s a fundamental tension of science versus religion in this film. The way it plays out made me wonder if it was funded by Christians.

Also, why does every possession movie have to have someone walking the upside-down crab walk? It’s not even that creepy.

The acting is decent enough, though a lot of the dialogue was too expository.

In general, the filmmakers output a decent product with what they had. I respect the hustle.