Unreal Movie Review: The Woman in Black

It’s rather tragic to see a movie I credited with having the most chilling and effective trailer of the year turn out to be such a spectacular dud. What worked for The Woman in Black in a haunting two minute spot does not remotely expand to an hour and a half long feature. It’s strange that such a small amount of footage produced uncontrollable goosebumps, but the same effect isn’t replicated once during the entire film.

Daniel Radcliffe is Arthur, a young lawyer sent to an old house to do “paperwork” when its former owner dies. When he arrives in town, he’s warned to stay away from the marsh-marooned mansioned, but determined to provide for his son after his wife dies in childbirth, he presses ahead. Doing paperwork apparently greatly upsets a rogue spirit that lives there, and in a surely-not-related development, children in town begin dying in a horrific ways.

The Woman in Black does a few things right. A spirit whispering in children’s ears to kill themselves is an undeniably creepy premise for a horror film. Setting it in the early 1900s make the environment all the more ominous, as everyone uses candles to get around in the dark, and no one has cell phones to call the police.

“Who’s there? I’m telegraphing the police!”

But that’s where the praise must stop. For as effectively as it might have organized itself into a two minute trailer, the final product is about as predictable as horror movies go. Tell me if you can crack this case with these ingredients:

– A ghost of a woman lurks in a house.

– It’s soon revealed a child died there long ago.

– Children in town nearby have been dying in strange ways for years.

I’m not going to spell it out for you to avoid potential “spoilers,” but if you can’t put things together from those simple clues as to what’s happening, this might actually be the movie for you, I suppose.

I hope these kind of suits make a comeback.

Most of us will see the reveal of the full story coming from a mile away, and when things are finally explained, it’s a YOU DON’T SAY? moment, as you’ve known it all for an hour already.

The film doesn’t have a climax, unless you count a ghost making  particularly loud scream the high point of a story. The plot has some aspects that borrow from The Ring (minus the video tape obviously), or that The Ring borrowed from it, I can’t be sure. But in any case it doesn’t feel terribly original.

Nor does it make much actual sense. What sets the ghost off is a lawyer coming to do…paperwork? She’s mad at the town who had nothing to do with the child’s death…why? She’s just a dick? Okay then.

Don’t even get me started on this part.

As for Daniel Radcliffe, it’s clear he’s really trying to leave Harry Potter behind, and I’ll give him credit for trying. The only time I thought about his past role was when I was doing the math that he looked way too young to have a four year old kid, but in reality (the actor is 22), I suppose it’s not much of a stretch. But it was like imagining he knocked up Ginny Weasley his sophomore year.

He’s just not given anything to DO. He runs around town asking questions of mute village people, and then heads to the house where chairs rock and door slam and he’s never in any actual danger, despite what the scary music would suggest. There are “jump” moments sure, but only instinctively so as you can’t flash a horrific face and blast trumpets without your heart physically forcing itself to skip a beat. But that’s not actual “horror.”

It’s just the one of the most straightforward, dull horror movies I can remember seeing in recent memory, even if everyone does look dapper in their 1900-era outfits. I’m not asking for an M. Night Shyamalan level twist here, but something needed to be thrown into the story to make it remotely unpredictable. When you can figure out how the rest of the movie’s going to go after twenty minutes, it’s usually not worth sticking around.

Daniel, you’re a talented actor and can do great things after Potter. Just pick scripts from now on where you say more than “Is something there?” for ninety minutes.

1.5 out of 5 stars

 

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4 Comments

  1. Never seen the movie but in this review you sound like most movie criticizers. (a douchebag). less qq. I come to this site cause majority of your reviews are really good. Dis twas not.

  2. Honestly I rather enjoyed the film. I thought everything to do with the house was delightfully creepy and more often than not I had a big, stupid smile on my face, thinking to myself “Damn, this is very well done”. It wasn’t brilliant or anything, just solid enough to justify the $12 ticket I paid for. Stupid movies.

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