The Woman in Black (2012), James Watkins
- IMDB.COM: Rating: 6.5 (80,000+ votes); Metascore: 62 (35+ critics)
- ROTTEN TOMATOES: Tomatometer: 65% (113-173)
- TOP7 NEWSPAPERS: 72 AVG, no 4-star reviews
Lawyer Arthur Kipps, a young single-parent whose wife had recently died, travels on business to a remote village in order to obtain all the necessary paperwork his company needs for the selling of a large yet old manor called Eel Marsh House. On that isolated and seemingly desolate piece of land, he discovers the vengeful ghost of a scorned woman who, upon his ar- rival, starts terrorizing the locals’ children, the horror not at all foreign to the inhabitants of the place. Arthur is determined to find out the truth behind that curse, not only for the sake of the villagers, but for his own demons as well, since his own son is arriving to join him there.
The Woman in Black is the latest addition to the Gothic horror opus. Director James Watkins, whom you may now from his previous face-twitcher, Eden Lake, adapted Susan Hill’s 1983 novella by strongly relying on all the imagery which the book provides, thus creating a chilling atmosphere that is a precursor of every good horror. Watkins maximized the potential of Voldemort’s killer, Daniel Radcliffe, the actor we had previously associated with reading glasses and magic wand. Are we gullible enough to believe Radcliffe could actually be someone’s father? I don’t think so. A widower? Perhaps. But, did Harry Potter do a bad job? Not at all. Watkins took his hero, dressed him up in a ship-shape garment for the Edwardian-era Britain and put inside him an inquisitive mind and a good soul. This forced the protagonist to keep returning to the crime scene – a la Mr. Jonathan Harker from Dracula – thus forcing us to be his sole human companions. Surrounded on that island of dread with grave-infested forest, the marsh and vastness of the sea, we have no choice but to synchronize our heartbeats with young Mr. Kipps here. His responses to the eerily indicative environment of the Eel Marsh House may not be jaw-drop- ping, but are readable enough for us so that we can put ourselves in the skin of a petrified visitor who’s dealing with super- natural forces. The movie obediently follows the genre protocol – the past revelation, the present tragedy, the accomplice, the ultimate fear, the solution – up until we find out that the curse has not been lifted despite the fact that Kipps recovered the body of the ghost’s long lost son, the reason of her taking vengeance on other people’s children. As it turns out, that gesture is not enough to stop the woman in black from haunting the village. This makes total sense since the loss of a mother can- not be satiated by a mere excavation of her baby’s mummified corpse, something that almost every previous similar movie plot stupidly ignored. If anything, the ghost’s fury is all the greater since that tiniest bit of hope that the boy somehow saved himself and disappeared is dead and buried. It reminded me on the moment in The Others when we realize that Nicole Kidman’s children and her are not haunted by the ghosts but are ghosts themselves.
Why then grade it semi-low then? The reasons are multifarious. The Woman in Black is more insecure in the meaning of its own mysteriousness than it is reluctant of revealing everything to us. The ghost’s background is strong and disturbing, but incomplete and a bit artificial. At moments, Eel Marsh House is too obviously a product of written fantasy. It possesses so many Gothic symbols, almost like a theme park or a castle-turned-museum. And finally, The Woman in Black should have ended with the departure of Arthur Kipps from the manor, the ”Never forgive” part. That whole scene at the end of the movie which involves the train station should have been cut from the film in the post-production or not filmed at all. They are plan- ning on shooting a sequel anyway. The transition between this part and the next would have gone a lot smoother if in the meantime the villagers are oblivious of the curse’s survival.
EUPHORICFX GRADE:
