The Woman in Black Review
Scary Potter.
I actually saw this Saturday night and will say it was scary. However, it is of the jack-in-the-box kind of scary where something jumps out at you, causing a minor adrenaline spike and the occasional need to change your undergarments. It is not the kind of scary that builds up in the back of your mind like water balloon on a faucet that you forget is running. The terror builds steadily until it finally burst and gets all over everything. Instead it is Snakes on a Plane scary, where after the first 20 minutes, once you understand the nature of the villain, you begin to expect to see something horrible and predetermined scene locations and, for the most part, you are not disappointed. (Jack in the Box image courtesy of the Funny T-Shirts category).
The film also makes the cardinal mistake of establishing early on that the one character you are destined to connect with, Arthur Kipps (Daniel Radcliffe-Harry Potter and not a whole lot else) is actually in no real danger from the ghost, as she has a thing for children. Once you understood that tension in the scenes bleeds off like the aforementioned water balloon with fifty or so pin pricks in it. Still scary, but not in the same sense of danger you get from a movie like Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark, where you know the bad guys are actively looking to cause harm to the character you like the most. Instead the danger is focused on a bunch of kids, which is bad in a very general sense, but since none of the kids have more than a couple minutes of screen time pre death you never connect with any of them. Honestly, if some excuse had been found for a couple kids to hang out with Arthur so we could get to know them, then I might have cared when something horrible happened.
The other big mistake this movie makes is it fails to give us a real reason for Arthur to be doing anything besides running screaming into the night, along with any of the other characters. I’m sorry, but if I am by myself in a big, creepy mansion and there is a rocking chair moving by itself after a day of seeing a ton of other creepy stuff I would be out of there so fast your eyes would spin, and by the way I’d be setting fire to the place on my way out the door. The villagers are idiots too. It is established early on that the local innkeeper had lost a child to the woman in black. He then has another child that he keeps locked up for her own safety. Why the hell didn’t he move to another town, along with anyone else who had a child? Is parental instinct such a rarity these days? Sometimes I think so, but if you live in a town with a local supernatural killer of children you might want to consider a different school district.
Anyway, the story. Arthur Kipp is a widower with a young son (again, a great opportunity to connect with a potential victim squandered. We meet him briefly at the beginning and again at the end) who is in danger of losing his job as a solicitor. He has a job to go out into the countryside and sort out the final affairs and sell the old mansion of someone (??? To be honest I can’t tell you who died and left the house. It might have been the woman in black, but it seemed to be implied that she had been dead for decades. Also she didn’t appear to have ever lived there. It might have been her unseen sister, but the sisters grave looked about 100 years old too. The house itself looked as if no one had been there for a while as well. If someone knows who’s affairs were being taken care of please post a comment). His son he leaves with a shockingly hot nanny (Jessica Raine-Robin Hood, Call the Midwife, Elsewhere) but they plan to join him shortly in the creepiest village in English history (sorry to keep hitting you with these questions, but if Arthur was nigh bankrupt as is stated several times how can he afford a nanny and vacations and so on? That kid should have had “latch-key” written on his underwear band). He arrives in town to encounter the typical “we both have a deadly town secret and hate all outsiders” attitude from the local bumpkins. Everyone seems unusually protective of the kids, but nothing is ever explained.
Anyway, the story is almost painfully linear. Naturally no one wants Arthur around and do whatever they can to make his life uncomfortable, except for the local rich guy (magistrate? Judge? It seems to be implied that he has some kind of local power but it is never explored. Played by Roger Allam-V for Vendetta, the Queen, Pirates of the Caribbean On Stranger Tides) and his insane wife (I can’t seem to find her credit. Weird) who’s son died under mysterious circumstances. He doesn’t believe in ghosts and puts up Arther, helping him along. Arthur decides the best way to go through a bunch of old paperwork is by sitting up all night by himself in the the creepiest mansion in the history of the world instead of in a nice office or hotel room. Naturally weird stuff starts happening, and kids in the village start dying. The locals opt to blame Arthur instead of burning the mansion to the ground and/or just moving the hell away. The backstory of the woman in black is spoon fed to us in the most painfully obvious manner; a monolog delivered in a woman’s voice as Arthur reads a bunch of old letters.
SPOILER ALERT: if you have a brain you might be able to infer some info about the ending from the next few lines, so maybe skip ahead a bit. While the action had a number of creepy surprises, the actual story was about as linear and predictable as long distance train track. Whatever tension the movie started with gets pretty much drained by the last 20 minutes. Arthur pulls some Scooby Doo shenanigans in order to appease the ghost and takes a swim in muck. Everyone in the movie make the dumbest choices possible (most of them being “Let’s hang out instead of making like a hockey player and getting the puck out of here”). The depressing and predictable ending that had been looming over the story like a suspicious lump in your testicle sack is made manifest.
The stars. Say what you will, the director (James Watkins-My Little Eye, The Descent Pt 2, Eden Lake) knows how to do creepy. Everything in this film looks like it was rejected by Hellraiser for being a little over the top. The problem is, of course, a lack of contrast actually makes the creepy stuff less creepy. However, if creep is what you like, this movie has it in spades. One star. Daniel Radcliffe managed to deliver a pretty good performance while completely divorcing himself from his Harry Potter legacy. Good script choice IMO. One star. The minimal special effects and camera work were really well done, helping to deliver on the tone the director was striving for. One star. There were some definite heart in your throat scary moments, so if you are looking for an adrenaline rush go for it. One star. Pacing and direction were pretty good. One star. Generally a fun movie to watch. Two stars. Total: seven stars.
The black holes. Predictable. One black hole. Once you realized the ghost wasn’t going to kill Arthur due to the fact that he wasn’t a child the was a serious lessening of tension. One black hole. This movie I think would have actually benefited greatly from a couple more characters. One black hole. Total: three black holes.
A grand total of four stars. This movie is actually better than that score indicates. I think it worth seeing. Definitely a good date movie, as your date should be gripping your arm nicely and not want to go back to her creepy, lonely apartment if you know what I mean. However, if watching guys in movies make bad life decisions infuriates you, maybe you should give it a pass.
That’s it for this weekend’s movies. I’ll try to get something watched this week, but have a couple other ideas to talk about soon. Follow me on Twitter @Nerdkungfu. Thanks for reading. Talk to you soon.
Dave
