The Woman in Black
James Watkins
Initial release: February 3, 2012 (Canada)
A note from the authoress: I wrote this review in 2019, at the outset of one of the worst periods of my life. I have grown and learned tremendously since then, as a person, as a writer and as a film critic. One hundred reviews feels like such a rookie number now that I'm halfway through the 700s, but this was still a major milestone for me. I felt it was worth marking it.
After
doing eight Harry Potter movies, literally growing up in the role of
the title character, and then watching J. K. Rowling completely shit all over his life's work, I’m not surprised that Daniel Radcliffe's acting
career in the fifteen years or so has been wildly varied — he’s trying to avoid
being typecast (and probably also put some distance between him and Rowling.) He's an excellent actor, and like all excellent actors, he sometimes has to show up in a film that's beneath him to pay the bills. The Woman in Black, James Watkins' remake of a classic TV movie from 1989, is a great example of why most modern gothic horror movies frustrate the hell out of me.
This isn’t a sharp, cerebral ghost story; this is strictly a potboiler chiller that feels like an amalgamation of every overused horror trope of the 21st century. You’ve got jump scares, you’ve got creepy children, you’ve got camera-mugging ghosts, you’ve got hastily scrawled, threatening messages — it’s all very cliche, and trying to jam them into what’s essentially a gothic horror tale simply demeans it.
(Why did I watch this one and not the 1989 version, which is supposed to be pretty good? Well for one, I couldn't find it, and two, this one actually got a sequel that I wanted to cover someday. Maybe I'll go back and watch the 1989 version, but today is not that day.)
It’s
1910 and Arthur Kipps (Radcliffe), a young widower, single father, and
London solicitor, is on his last thread with his firm. For a final shot at saving his job, he is given the task of traveling out to a remote
part of England to settle the estate of a widow who recently died. When
he gets to the village of Crythin Gifford (please drive carefully,) he
finds the locals are hostile to his presence; the only one who isn’t is
the local rich guy, who also is the only one to own one of those
newfangled automobiles.
As Arthur begins the monumental task of sorting through the mountain of papers in the isolated manor house, which occupies a small island in the marshes, he’s frequently distracted by strange, seemingly supernatural happenings; in the village he fares no better, with the locals actively wanting him out. And for good reason: it seems that the manor house is the center of a number of ghost sightings; whenever someone happens to spot a mysterious woman in black, a child from the village ends up dead, usually by committing suicide in some grotesque fashion. And hey guess what? Arthur’s young son is coming to visit!
Daniel Radcliffe’s acting chops are what drives this film; the same for Ciaran Hinds as Arthur’s rich friend Sam. But the movie is honestly beneath the both of them; it reminds me of Dame Helen Mirren in Winchester — these movies don’t deserve to be elevated by their acting. It’s not all bad, though. There are some real good moments with the soundtrack, especially when Arthur manages to get into the nursery. The house itself, while generally “generic haunted house,” is visually arresting with a real ‘lived in’ feel. There’s also a scene late in the film where Arthur and Sam are using the car to pull a fateful carriage out of the marsh; it’s the most tense scene in the film, not because of any supernatural danger, but because of the hungry, clingy swamp.
Probably
the most frustrating thing about the film is the way it deliberately
sets itself up for a sequel. I haven’t seen this kind of irritating
sequel hook from a post-00s horror film in a while, and it’s all the
more frustrating here. Sure, it’s a subversion of the old “give the
ghost what it wants and it’ll go away” plot trope, but blatantly,
utterly cynical. And the very last second of the film is the ghostly
woman in black looking right at the camera. It’s dumb, and it makes me
kind of feel like I wasted my time. As I edit this in 2026, I want to mention that I did eventually see the sequel, and it's somehow even dumber.
If you really love mediocre gothic horror, this movie is for you. If you're lusting after Daniel Radcliff, this movie is for you. If you just like the cut of modern-day Hammer's jib, this movie's for you. I don't think it's for me, exactly, but I suppose I wouldn't mind seeing it again.
No comments:
Post a Comment