"The Woman in Black" (2010)

The Trailer:


Director: James Watkins
Cast: Daniel Radcliffe, Ciarán Hinds, & Janet McTeer

Synopsis: Arthur Kipps (Daniel Radcliffe), a young lawyer and widower, travels to a remote village to go over the documentation of a deceased local, Mrs. Drablow, in her home the Eel Marsh house. While there he discovers something strange happening to the children in the village all leading back to the Eel Marsh house.

I realize that this is an older movie, but I plan on watching the sequel soon so I thought I'd tell you what I think of the first one before I tell you about how I feel on the second one. Anyways, I'm a bit conflicted with this movie. There are definitely some elements that I appreciate about it, but there are also things that I don't like which lead me to not care too much for the movie. Though I'm still kind of on the fence about it.

Let me start with the things I liked. It's an old fashioned ghost story. There aren't too many bells and whistles needed to pull off the horror of it. It's simple, with a intriguing story that needs solving: children of the village are committing suicide— the locals have an inkling why they do it, but Arthur Kipps needs some convincing— and someone must do something in order to stop it. It's straightforward enough and it pulls you in with the very first scene in which three young girls are playing and then suddenly get up and jump out a window to their death, and as the camera pans out you can just see the silhouette of a woman in black. It' the perfect opening scene; it's chilling and let's you know of the terror that is to come. The Edwardian Era time period is something I absolutely love and lends itself to the overall creepiness of the film: there's no cellphones, and due to the age of the house, there's no electric lighting, and transportation is still horse and carriage though Ciarán Hinds character does own a car. It just has this old-timey feel that works well with ghost stories. Adding to the time period, the remote village is too a good tool in crafting an aura of creepiness as the villagers are wary of outsiders and make it known that Arthur is not wanted there. Plus the acting is superb. Daniel Radcliffe is awesome and I love him in this film. He does well as a single father and as a perturbed man trying to solve this paranormal mystery that he finds himself entangled in. Ciarán Hinds as Sam Daily is wonderful and somber. He is the only kind person Arthur Kipp meets in the village and the only person willing to help Arthur in his quest to stop the woman in black from killing more children. And Janet McTeer as Elizabeth Daily, Sam Daily's aloof wife is wonderful as well though she doesn't receive much screen time. She also aides Arthur in his quest.

Now things that I didn't like. Which there aren't a lot of things that I don't like, but for me they're big things that bring down the effect of the movie. For one thing, the woman in black. We see too much of her. And y'all know how I feel about seeing the monster/ghost/alien/whatever too much in a film; they lose their scare factor. And for a while I was okay with her constant appearances, because I thought "oh well they're not showing her face, it's covered by a veil, so maybe her face will be horrific when it's finally revealed", but no it's just the pale face of a woman. And honestly, she's really not even shown that much, but there's just no payoff when we finally see her entirely, so I think that's what annoys me the most. In line with that, The Woman in Black isn't as scary as I would like it to be. I realize that it's a PG-13 movie, so there can't be too many terrifying things within it, but even so it's just not scary. While I like the setting and time period and the acting, there was never a real fearful aura about the movie. It has creepy, eerie elements but it just never went into that truly terrifying territory that I wished it would have. And the ending wasn't satisfying in the least, and it also feels kid of rushed. I mean after about seventy-five minutes of buildup, there is only fifteen minutes left to tie up the movie and it was laced up poorly. There are too many things that happen and it's all kind of thrown at you. When it ended I was just kind of like "oh, okay. I guess..." like it's not note-worthy or anything.

Overall, I still can't decide if I like The Woman in Black or not. It's got pieces that I really love an appreciate, but it just wasn't as scary as I wished it to be. Would I watch it again? Yeah. probably but not out of a desire to be scared, rather a desire to see Daniel Radcliffe...