Ah, what a good old scare can do for the nerves. Snap you out of this snow-less winter, get blood pumping in place of your afternoon jog you stopped because of “weather.” Yeah, we could use a non-Oscar contender right about now.
A silly, enjoyable movie to drop in, kick back, and enjoy that happens to star that child actor you had a crush on back in the 6th grade.
Enter The Woman in Black, a dreary suspense thriller set in the creepy marshes of England. Former boy wizard, Daniel Radcliffe, plays an underling at a law firm sent off to settle an estate in the English countryside. He promises his adorable son (That’s right-he IS old enough to be a father now) that they will reunite in the country for a vacation. But wherever the widowed lawyer Arthur Kipps goes, tragedy soon follows. And of course, since he’s dealing with an over-the-top haunted mansion, there’s a ghost story to be heard and the same creepy neighbors from An American Werewolf in London.
It’s silly and spelled out, but the fun house aspect remains. Of course, the haunted house is plenty spooky, unlike the desolate hotel setting of The Innkeepers, which plays more on the unlikely probability that a normal place is haunted by the ghost of a scorned woman.
(Yo, why do ladies have all the work in the afterlife? Where are my dude spooks?)
The Woman in Black‘s main character isn’t Arthur, it’s the house, the toys, the swamps, the town. It’s like a tourism brochure advertising why you shouldn’t visit England’s marshes. The fog surrounding the scene looks dense enough to choke a small child or at least make its residents quite kooky. Plot holes do exist and can be distracting, like how Arthur all of the sudden gains amazing insight into the spiritual realm and performs some strange voodoo in order to calm the spirits. At least the priest in The Exorcist was credentialed.
I doubt many 19th century lawyers knew how to deal with spirit world, but this was also the heyday of seances and palmistry. But I digress…
Whew, glad that was in the ye olden days!
Overall, The Woman in Black is just a nice distraction, something fresh for those unmoved by Liam Neeson punching wolves or Gina Carano kicking the hell out of Michael Fassbender.
It’s a movie that’s not to be questioned and not life-scarring scary.
Quite easily a simple movie to watch with your friends and have a good laugh at the ones that don’t handle horror movies very well. It also can serve as a cutesy date movie with bonus points for you if your date happens to be a Harry Potter fan.
Like everyone else in the audience.