The Woman in Black (2012)

The Woman in Black, based on a book of the same name by Jane Goldman, tells a terrifying ghost story of an evil spirit that steals the souls of children from families that live in an English town outside of London. There is much to like about this movie- it tells a good story, has likable characters, takes place in the spookiest house you could ever imagine, and it is actually quite scary in some ways. Nevertheless, I felt something missing from this movie. Whether it was Daniel Radcliffe's flat acting; the fact that the story, although good, was a little too simple; or the fact that they simply try too hard to scare you at certain points; this movie did not reach it's full potential.

The plot follows a widowed lawyer named Arthur Kipps (Daniel Radcliffe) who is struggling with his firm due to the passing away of his wife (Sophie Stuckey) during the birth of their child, Joseph (Misha Handley). Arthur's boss asks him to travel to a small town to a large house belonging to the deceased Alice Drablow to go through a mountain of paperwork and sort out all of her affairs so that the house can be sold. En route to the town, he meets a man by the name of Samuel Daily (Ciaran Hinds) on the train and they become acquaintances basically. When the hotel he is staying at runs out of room for Arthur, Sam invites him to stay at his house with him and his wife Elizabeth (Janet McTeer). Now, before I get to Arthur actually visiting the Drablow residence, it is clear before he goes there that he townspeople are hiding something from him as they all stare at him weirdly and the Jeromes, Arthur's legal contacts, plead for him to leave the town and the paperwork will be taken care of in London. The attitudes and behavior of the townspeople help to create an eerie environment and actually build a little fear as the audience is curious as to what they are hiding and of course we know Arthur isn't going to listen to them; he's going to go to the Drablow residence anyway. So he goes. While he's there the first day, he sees a woman dressed in all black. When he gets back to town, a little girl dies after drinking lye right in Arthur's arms. The townspeople blame him for the little girl's death, even though it obviously wasn't his fault. He then finds out that every time the woman in black is seen, another child dies.

So why does this woman abduct children? Well it turns out the identity of the woman is Jennet Humfrye, Alice Drablow's sister. Alice had taken Jennet's son away from her as she was deemed unfit to raise him. The boy, Nathaniel, drowned in the marsh outside of the Drablow residence. As a result, Jennet killed herself and now reeks her revenge on the town by empowering the young children that live there to kill themselves and they then belong to her.

So basically, Arthur is now worried about his son possibly being abducted by the evil woman in black and he tries to figure out a way to stop her from abducting children anymore.

So, I like the premise of this film a lot. The story behind the woman in black, who she is, and why she does what she does is actually very interesting. However, they didn't provide enough details with respect to certain aspects of the story that I would have been interested in knowing:

1.) Why was Jennet Humfrye deemed unfit to raise her boy, Nathaniel? The fact that she was deemed unfit and the fact that she lost her child to Alice are pointed out, but we are not given ANY background as to why.

2.) Why exactly did Jennet resent her sister Alice so much for this? Did Alice and her husband neglect or abuse Nathaniel? The fact that he died in their marsh and they didn't even try to save him suggests something of this nature. More details about Nathaniel's life with the Drablows would have added more to the plot as well.

Here's my thing: when it comes to most movies, I like multidimensional plots with many elements interwoven together to create one hell of a story to hold my interest. While the story this movie tells has these characteristics, it's not complete. The facts are told, but they aren't explained. Relevant details are missing. This is not good. However, when it comes to horror movies, sometimes the plot is just so simple that the movie entertains it's audience by simply scaring them. The Woman in Black tries very hard to do both: it tries to tell an intricate story with many parts attached to it, and it tries to scare it's audience through cheap, cliche jump scares and by setting the tone with the really spooky, isolated house surrounded by the disgusting marsh. The movie does do good in both categories; it actually does almost pull it off. However, it falls just short.

Not only was there not enough detail put into the story, but they actually try too hard to scare you, especially when Arthur is in the Drablow house. About 40 minutes into the movie I would say, there is a 15-minute period where Arthur is just moving around the house and basically seeing ghosts and weird shit happen over and over again. At first, it works extremely well! I must have jumped at least 3 times in the first 5 minutes of this period; I was literally quite scared. However, it loses it's effectiveness after a while. For something like this to work, either you need to spread the scares throughout the length of the movie, or you need to at least finish it all off with a horrifying jump scare of some sort. That didn't happen. Most of the scares in this movie happen within these 15 minutes and that's it. But since I did jump, I would still say it worked, but not to its full extent. For example, in a letter Arthur reads, we learn that Jennet had hung herself. Thus, we all expect a scene where he will find Jennet hanging from the ceiling and when it does happen, it does not frighten us because we know it is coming.

Now, there are some aspects of the story that we did get background to, such as how Arthur's wife dies, and the fact that Nathaniel, Jennet's son, died in the marsh at the hands of the Drablows. So that was good!

The special effects and the setting were absolutely amazing. I could not have asked for any better when it came to these aspects of the movie. It is actually because of the amazing effects that the movie almost pulls off the long length of time where it tries to scare the audience over and over again. To start off, the Drablow residence is freaking scary. It literally looks and feels like a haunted house. I probably wouldn't even spend one night alone in that place if someone offered me one million dollars, no joke! Just because the house being creepy wasn't bad enough, it is isolated from the rest of the town by a marsh! So Arthur is ALL ALONE AT NIGHT in this spooky ass house and he has no way of getting back until the tide pulls back away. Talk about setting a scary tone! Next, as I said, the effects were simply astounding and surprisingly realistic which added to the severity and intensity of the scare scenes, and also an additional scene that takes place in the marsh where Arthur actually dives under the gooey mud. In most movies a moment like this would probably look very fake but it looked pretty damn real here! Kudos to Director James Watkins for that!

Now, when it comes to Daniel Radcliffe, I am not really a big fan of the Harry Potter movies so I never got to see his acting performances in this series. However, when it comes to The Woman in Black, I thought his acting was a little flat. Not very flat, but his face and especially his eyes were just so inexpressive at certain points as compared to Ciarin Hinds, the guy who played Sam Daily. Hinds and the woman who played his wife, Sophia Stuckley, did outstanding in this film! They were very expressive of their feelings and emotions and they were very believable characters. Daily's wife at certain times would receive telepathic messages from her deceased son, Nicholas (who died at the hands of the woman in black) and she would draw out what he was telling her to draw. She was really effective in acting out these scenes and making them quite frightening actually. Plus, the pictures are symbolic of the future; keep that in mind as you look at them! When talking to Radcliffe, both actors' facial expressions would vary and their heads would move around a little bit to enhance this but Radcliffe's facial expression simply never changed. His eyes were just dull, kind of like a robot actually. From what I understand though, this type of role is not really what Radcliffe is used to and thus I don't blame him that his performance was not top-notch. Maybe I can better judge after I watch some Harry Potter movies.

Despite Radcliffe's performance not being the best, his character was actually quite admirable. In order to save the townspeople, and his own son of course, he tries to bring peace to the spirit of Jennet by reuniting her with her son (that's when the scene in the marsh takes place). Thus, he acts as a hero and he is brave because even after being scared out of his wits in that house, he still does everything he can to stop the woman in black. In addition, a part of me likes to think that he felt bad for Jennet's spirit. Hey, I would feel bad for anyone if their child was taken away from them. The fact that he may feel sympathy for Jennet's spirit shows his nonjudgmental and selfless side as well and Sam Daily's hospitality towards Arthur is also quite admirable. The woman in black however is simply an evil spirit, and you'll see what I mean by the end of the movie. Any sympathy Arthur had for the woman in the black was not warranted at all. Speaking of the ending, although it's a bit tragic, I personally thought it was perfect. I wouldn't have wanted it to be different; I was 100% satisfied with how it all works out. You'll see what I mean when you watch the film.

Overall, The Woman in Black is a good movie, but it could have been better. The amazing special effects do not make up for details lacking from the plot and the redundancies of the parts that try to scare you. Nevertheless, before it does become redundant, I guarantee you that you will be scared so I do recommend that you give this film a chance, especially if you like a good ghost story.

BaD BiRdS: GOOD BUT NOT GREAT



~MJ Aufiero