Movie Review: The Woman in Black (2012)

 

The Woman in Black
A movie review by Dave Randal
March 26, 2012

Genre: Drama | Horror | Thriller

Cast: Daniel Radcliffe, Janet McTeer, Ciara Hinds

Director: James Watkins

Writers: Susan Hill(novel), Jane Goldman(screenplay)

Release Date: February 3, 2012 (USA)

Plot: A young lawyer travels to a remote village where he discovers a vengeful ghost.

I have always liked classic haunted house movies. They are usually really good at mixing the film genres of mystery and horror together. In good haunted house movies they will first set up the mystery surrounding the house and then it is when the protagonist goes into the house to investigate that he runs into all the creepy things that come with a cool haunted house. The Woman in Black is sort of a throwback to the classic haunted house movies of the 60s and 70s. That actually makes sense because the story is actually adapted from a novel published in 1983 and it had already been adapted before as a TV movie in 1989.
The movie stars Daniel Radcliffe who became famous by playing Harry Potter in the Harry Potter movies. The book became popular when I was still a kid, but I never read them and I only saw the first Harry Potter movie. In The Woman in Black Radcliffe plays a young lawyer named Arthur Kipps. He travels to a remote village to do some business and while there he discovers that something isn't quite right about the house that he is working in. He soon finds out the house may be haunted and that going into it and seeing a mysterious ghost-like woman in black is causing children in the village to die.

In the movie Radcliffe's character has a son and I thought that was a little strange considering that he is only 22 years old in real life. At first it kind of bothered me, but then I thought about it and realized that people from around the time period that the movie was based would get married and have children at a young age so it wasn't that unbelievable. As an actor Radcliffe does a pretty good job. It may be a pretty big struggle for him to not be typecast as Harry Potter, but I think this is a good start for him. He showed in the movie that he could play a mature adult and we will have to wait and see if he can transition into a serious adult actor in future movies.

The scenery in the movie was good and gave off a dark somber rainy British feel. The house that Radcliffe's character has to go work at is very isolated from the rest of the village. It is in the middle of a body of water where the tide will cover the road at certain points of the day. For some reason it made me think of the island in last year's The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo(2011) even though it wasn't technically an island in this movie.

As far as the story goes I thought it was pretty good and it exceeded my expectations. I have the feeling that the story was good due to the fact that it is adapted from a novel. I get the feeling that if some hack writer in Hollywood tried to write a classic haunted house story that it would just come off as a bland movie with no substance. The scares in the movie were decent although after a little while they get kind of repetitive. They may have had a few too many parts where they make you jump, because after a while I figured out the pattern. It doesn't take a lot away from the movie though because the story and the acting carries it and you can tell by watching it that it isn't a half-assed made horror movie that is only interested in getting teenagers to scream their heads off.

At the end of the movie I was pretty satisfied with it, only having a few minor problems with it. I think the ending is a little bit forced, but it doesn't ruin the rest of the movie. The story is good and the characters are developed pretty well. It is creepy in a good way and I would say that it is easily one of the better horror movies I've seen in a while.Dave Randal's Rating- Thumbs Up
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