Movie Info
Movie Name: The Woman in Black
Studio: Hammer Film Productions
Genre(s): Horror
Release Date(s): February 3, 2012
MPAA Rating: PG-13
Well…at least the dog likes me
Arthur Kipps (Daniel Radcliffe) is mourning the death of his wife and trying to raise his young child Joseph (Misha Handley). When he is called to the countryside to broker the sale of Eel Marsh House, strange things begin occurring. He learns from a local man named Sam Daily (Ciaran Hinds) and his wife Elisabeth (Janet McTeer) that the town is cursed by the Woman in Black who appears before heralding the death of a child. As children begin to die, the town turns on Arthur, and Arthur learns the Woman in Black might be coming for his own son if he cannot stop her.
The Woman in Black is based on the 1983 novel by Susan Hill and previously made into a television movie in 1989. The gothic horror film was fairly well received and produced by the horror film classic production company Hammer.
Maybe a monster will jump out at me to up the ante on this movie!
I was rather disappointed by The Woman in Black, and it is a bit unclear why. I would have to say, I would have liked more from the story. Despite a great concept and a high stakes situation, the story is kind of dull and lifeless (yes, irony since it is a ghost story). It feels like there are a lot of missed opportunities in The Woman in Black since it does have a great set-up. Movies like the original Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark and Burnt Offerings managed to make haunted house type stories to be creepy and scary but still be all ages friendly so blaming the PG-13 rating isn’t possible.
I didn’t mind Daniel Radcliffe as the lead. It is going to be hard for him to break his Harry Potter roots, but I felt he needed some more support if he was going to have to carry a whole movie. Ciaran Hinds is generally strong in films, but for the most part, Radcliffe has to hold the audience and weaknesses in the script didn’t help.
Two girls were scary in The Shining…Three will really shock them!
Visually, I love gothic films and Hammer films, so this is a winner in both categories here. There was even a bit of a cheapness to the movie that old Hammer really had, and I enjoyed that. I wish that the visual aspect had been pushed further to make it more stylized (maybe like Tim Burton) or it should have been really toned down to mundane visuals boosted by a creepy script.
The Woman in Black isn’t a very scary or thrilling story. I was a bit surprised by the slight twist in the ending and really didn’t expect the film to end the way it did. With pretty successful box office returns, a sequel is planned tentatively titled The Woman in Black: Angels of Death.
